Making a Homemade Sistrum

 

Above: A historic sistrum, art from the tomb of Nefertari

My wife and I have been hard at work over the past few weeks making a homemade sistrum, an ancient Egyptian rattle-like percussion instrument used often in rituals. I’m quite pleased with how it turned out. You can get historically-accurate ones with Hathor’s face on the front online but they typically cost quite a lot. We followed a guide to making a homemade sistrum in the book “Ancient Egyptian Magic for Modern Witches” by Ellen Cannon Reed. 

We started by finding a sturdy forked branch on the ground. We sawed it down to size and used sandpaper on the outside to make it nice and smooth. Then I used a soldering iron to burn in the hieroglyphs, accidentally burning myself in the process (not fun). After this, we painted it gold and applied a coat of mod podge to seal the paint job and help so that the paint won’t start to flake off through use. Next, we drilled six holes to fit some wire through which we got from a coat hanger. We adorned the wires with a few small discs with heart-shaped holes, and some soda can tops. 

Adorned on the sistrum itself is a small image of Hathor, the words “Dua Hathor” and “Dua Ihy” on each side, nd my son’s name in hieroglyphs on front. I also noticed one part of the wood had an eye-shape on it so we turned it into an Eye of Horus. There is also the name of the Urartian Goddess of Art and Creativity Arubani written on it in Armenian, an Armenian eternity symbol, and an Incan cross from my wife’s heritage. 

It has a lot character to it, I’m hoping it pleases the Gods. The next step is to use it in a rutual. I would like to perform the Rite of Blessing a Child next, working out of the same book. This is an open-ended ritual unlike a baptism, and the participant can decide to follow whichever Gods he wants when he’s older.

𓋹֍֎𓋹

~ Siamanto the Foreigner

 𓋷𓅁𓈖𓏏𓍯𓀭𓈖𓐎𓏺𓈉𓏏𓅂𓌙𓀀

Սիամանթօ Օտարը