We couldn't resist this charming pendant which is also a bell - since, like any good cat, it can happily sit by itself, it also makes a great little addition to your altar. Lovely tinkling sound makes it a perfect stand-in for a sistrum. If you've belled your own temple cat, maybe now it's time he or she returned the favor. $39.

Bast Pendant - Sterling Silver from Egypt

This pendant depicts a Bast Cat holding a hieroglyphic plaque. It's a lovely, dramatic piece you'll enjoy wearing. $39.00.

BOOKS ON ISIS AND RELATED SUBJECTS

Mysteries of Isis

The bestselling book by deTraci Regula loaded with information and illustrations. $30 new; $20 used.

TUT-STYLE SISTRA

Large sistrums designed after the pair found in Tut's tomb. Hexagonal hand-carved wooden handle and base, painted gold, with a genuine bronze frame, and brass wires and disks. A very dramatic sistrum. Available singly or in pairs. $125 each or order the pair for $230.  Special custom order, allow 4 weeks; please contact us for international shipping.

Or order the pair for $230

Ordering by Mail

To order using check or money order, email us at Isiscraft. Drop your check or money order in the snail mail to: Isiscraft Catalog, P.O. Box 16653 San Diego, CA 92176. Your personal check or money order is welcome. We also accept all major credit cards through PayPal and can take your cards directly by phone; email us for details. We also do layaway and special orders and searches.

Ordering by check or money order? Shipping and handling is $6.00 for orders up to $15.00, $8.00 for orders between $15 and $50, $12.00 for orders between $50 and $100, $18.00 for orders between $101 and $200, $22.00 for orders between $200 - $350. The Large Winged Isis statue shipping rate will vary; contact us for details. International orders may also require additional shipping charges; please contact us for details.

LINKS:
Isis Oasis Information about the Isis Oasis, the Temple of Isis, and upcoming events. Also visit the Official Isis Oasis website.

Mysteries of Isis Homepage deTraci Regula's home on the net. The original site. EXCERPT FROM "SOUNDING THE SISTRUM" by deTraci Regula
INTRODUCTION

A sistrum breathes magic, music, mystery. From the earliest days of my interest in Isis, her sacred rattle drew me. Finally, when the time had come for me to be ordained with the Fellowship of Isis, in addition to my headdress I took my very newly-minted skills in working with metal and made my first sistrum, using a piece of driftwood. At its first shake, I was enchanted.

From that moment on I would always seek out sistrums, making others, acquiring them from craftspeople, begging a shake or two of someone else's. All of them delighted me, from a wood-framed one set with brass charms that I was able to see in a seaside ceremony, to a giant one with a ribbon-adorned frame which held enough brass washers to provide plumbing to a small housing development, to a treasured one crafted of sterling silver by a priestess inspired by a mention of such sistra in a lecture I gave, to a potent recreation of one from Tut's tomb. The smallest one I possess is an inch-high one crafted by that same priestess, the largest, a two foot tall African sistrum from Kenya, crafted of a three-pronged branch, heavy wire, and flattened bottle caps. I've gone many miles out of my way to see them in museums, spent hours sketching them, and many more hours playing them. They have appeared in my dreams, big sistra of stone, emanating not sound but pale waves of light.

Sistrums are said to bring all things into motion, to banish decay, to awaken the senses and the soul. I hope this booklet will let me share with you some of the joy they have brought to me and to the countless thousands of those who played the sistrum in sacred places throughout the world of the past. ~ deTraci Regula

The History of the Sistrum The Sistrum is a sacred sound maker used in rites to honor Isis, Bast, and Hathor. It was also used in rites to honor other deities, including Amen, Osiris, Anubis, and the gods and goddesses of the great Ennead. The sound itself is a cleansing, purifying offering to these deities, and can be used in cleansing the aura, clearing environments, and blessing or decontaminating objects of spiritual debris. Pharaohs, queens, priests, priestesses, and even gods and goddesses all played the sistrum at various times. The Earliest Sistrum

The original form of the sistrum was probably a woven rattle of reeds or papyrus shoots. The gathering of papyrus was very important in the ancient worship of Hathor, and a major festival of hers was devoted to the activity. The name of the sistrum, pronounced approximately sesheshewut or sheshesht, supposedly imitated the sound of the breeze blowing in the papyrus thickets. However, when I took a handful of dried papyrus stems and shook them vigorously, this produced a very similar and surprisingly strong sound. The cobra goddess Wadjet was said to be attracted by these same sounds, like the rustling of a snake, and to be delighted in rhythmic music. Early bronze sistra often have the bars in the form of snakes. Others thought that the rhythm beat out the pace of lovemaking, one reason it was later a popular gift for weddings. In modern musicological terminology, the sistrum is considered to be a type of idiophone instrument. Another ancient name for it is the crepitaculum. Sistrums, or, more correctly, sistra, were made of several different materials, but generally are one of two types. The Naos Sistrum

A shrine or naos sistrum is a large boxlike shape made of faience, stone, or wood, with rods placed inside of it to make a noise when shaken. The naos replicated the shrine box holding the most sacred image of a god or goddess in the deepest recess of the temple. In this form, the sistrum was a mobile extension of that deep sacred space. These were often quite elaborate and must have been relatively fragile. The sound from these was more rattle-like and less musical in tone. Usually, a double head of Hathor adorns the top of the handle just beneath the naos portion. Often, the naos holds a rearing cobra or another sacred figure. To each side are enigmatic curved emblems. Some see in these another type of flattened wire noisemaker which would sound against the sides of the naos, while others believe that they are a silent survival of the symbol of the horns of Bat, an early cow goddess. As far as I know, no examples with actual flattened wires have survived, but the faience sistra do seem to be preserving an earlier metal attachment, now lost. A Sixth Dynasty Sistrum of Stone Although many naos-style sistra were made of faience, a few were made of stone, including a beautiful one of pale alabaster. Hathor is not present in form on this papyrus-stemmed scepter, but she is revered in the inscription as the Lady of Dendera. This finely carved sistrum was inscribed with the Name of King Teti, who reigned circa 2323–2291 B.C.E. The superstructure is missing, but a Horus falcon and cobra still remain on what would be the floor of the naos. It can be seen at the Metropolitan Museum in New York City, which has a number of beautiful sistra on display as well as being the home of a Graeco-Roman Egyptian-style temple of Isis rescued from the rising waters of the Aswan dam.

The Stele of Piye This 8th-century B.C.E. document includes an unusual combination of horses and sistra. The offerant seeking to placate Piye is said to have “brought a horse in the right hand and a sistrum in the left hand, of gold and lapis lazuli,” apparently meaning that he led a horse in his right hand while bringing, or playing, the sistrum in his left. Deities of the Sistrum Two deities are strongly associated with the design of ancient sistra. The first of these is Hathor, whose doubled face often adorns the handle. The sistrum could represent the sacred power of Hathor, and in some cases, the most sacred object in her temple would not be her image, but her sistrum made of gold. On metal looped sistra, cats representing Bast often perch at the top of the loop. But many other deities are also found on different sistra. Bes sometimes takes the place of the image of Hathor, or his figure forms the handle beneath her twinned heads. The naos-style sistra may show Horus in or perching on the sacred enclosure, and a cat, often reclines comfortably on the top of the loop. Amarna-period sistra abandoned Hathor and replaced her with a lotus, though the snake-headed bars, recalling Renenutet, remained on some examples. The Amarna period also showed sistrums in the shape of ankhs, a design that is sometimes encountered in modern sistra.

The Looped Sistrum These sistra were more durable than the faience naos types and were generally made of a metal framework pierced to hold three or four rods, and these seem to be the ones most favored in the rites of Isis. They were first seen about the time of the 18th Dynasty. These were sometimes referred to as the “arched sistrum” to distinguish them from the earlier “naos-sistrum”. The Egyptian term for them was sSS.t, in the accepted modern transliteration of Egyptian sounds roughly like “sesheshet”. While Plutarch has made the four-bar sistrum memorable because of his association of the four rods with the four elements, three-rod sistrums were common in Egypt and were said to represent the three seasons. They could as easily represent the many trinities found in Egyptian religion, such as Isis-Osiris-Horus, Isis-Osiris-Nephthys, the three seasons of the year, and many others. Bells, rings, or disks were strung on the rods in most cases, though a few sistrums appear to have just the rods, with the noise being produced as the rods jolt against the frame when it is shaken. Sistrums of this kind may have been used like tuning forks, emitting a pure chord of sound as the bars struck the frame.

Bronze sistrums were often adorned with an image of Hathor placed at the base of the frame, or topped with small animal figures, most frequently cats. Some of these cast bronze sistrums were extremely elaborate, and were probably intended as offerings rather than as usable musical instruments. Many were 16-18" tall, very large when one considers that the average height of an Egyptian man or woman was much less in ancient times than it is today. In giant form, sistra images were used architecturally. The pronaos of the Hathor temple at Dendera presents a colonnade with eighteen pillars, usually described as “Hathor-headed” but omitting the fact that they are actually huge Hathor-headed sistra. Similar columns adorn many other temples throughout Egypt.

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