NAF-001 - museum specimen
Ptolemaic Greco-Egyptian cult attendant
Egypt - Fayum - North Africa
Sacred / spirit Candidate only
Source term: incense diffuser or bullroarer
From the Fayum of Ptolemaic Egypt comes a small hollow terracotta figure of a naked, grotesque cult-attendant who walks in procession bearing a statue of Amun-Min, the ithyphallic god the Greeks called Pan. In his raised right hand he swings a reel-shaped object on a thong over his head, and here the figure turns enigmatic: the British Museum reads the swung object as either an incense-diffuser or a bull-roarer. If it is the latter, it would tie this Greco-Egyptian rite to the rhombos of the Greek mysteries, the whirring instrument whose roar was likened to thunder and the voice of a god. But the identification is genuinely undecided. The object may be a bullroarer, or it may simply be a censer trailing smoke through the procession; the terracotta alone cannot tell us, and no sound survives to settle it.
the upper part of a hollow terracotta grotesque cult-attendant carrying a statue of Amun-Min (Pan) in procession; the bearer is naked but wears a knobbed conical hat, and swings a reel-shaped object on a thong in his right hand, an incense-diffuser or a bull-roarer.
the upper part of a hollow terracotta grotesque cult-attendant carrying a statue of Amun-Min (Pan) in procession; the bearer is naked but wears a knobbed conical hat, and swings a reel-shaped object on a thong in his right hand, an incense-diffuser or a bull-roarer.
British Museum collection record for the Fayum cult-attendant figure (description and curator's comments)
- Object
- Terracotta figure shows cult attendant swinging reel-shaped object on thong
- Function
- British Museum describes object as incense-diffuser or bullroarer in Amun-Min/Pan procession
- Map confidence
- low - Fayum findspot not British Museum location
- Source location
- British Museum object record