Tympanum (hand drum)

For other uses, see Tympanum (disambiguation).
Not to be confused with Timpani or Tympanum (architecture).
The triumph of Dionysus, with a maenad playing a tympanum, on a Roman mosaic from Tunisia (3rd century)
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In ancient Greece and Rome, the tympanon (τύμπανον) or tympanum, was a type of frame drum or tambourine. It was circular, shallow, and beaten with the palm of the hand or a stick. Some representations show decorations or zill-like objects around the rim. The instrument was played by worshippers in the rites of Dionysus, Cybele, and Sabazius.[1]

The instrument came to Rome from Greece and the Near East, probably in association with the cult of Cybele.[2] The first depiction in Greek art appears in the 8th century BC, on a bronze votive disc found in a cave on Crete that was a cult site for Zeus.[3][4]

  1. ^ Matthew Dillon (2002). Girls and Women in Classical Greek Religion. Routledge. p. 371.
  2. ^ Lynn E. Roller (1999). In Search of God the Mother: The Cult of Anatolian Cybele. University of California Press. p. 137. ISBN 9780520210240.
  3. ^ Roller, In Search of God the Mother, p. 173.
  4. ^ John Boardman (1984). The Cambridge Ancient History Plates to Volume III. Cambridge University Press. pp. 210–211.