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 AD)

In ancient Greece and Rome, the tympanum or tympanon (Greek τύμπανον), was a type of frame drum or tambourine. It was circular, shallow, and beaten with the hand. 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.

The tympanum is thought to have originated in the ancient Near East, but first appears in Greek art in the 8th century BC, on a bronze votive disc found in a cave on Crete that was a cult site for Zeus.

Dionysian rites

The tympanum is one of the objects often carried in the thiasos, the retinue of Dionysus. The instrument is typically played by a maenad, while wind instruments such as pipes or the aulos are played by satyrs. The performance of frenzied music contributed to achieving the ecstatic state that Dionysian worshippers desired.

The cult of Cybele

The tympanum was the most common of the musical instruments associated with the rites of Cybele in the art and literature of Greece and Rome, but does not appear in representations from Anatolia, where the goddess originated. From the 6th century BC, the iconography of Cybele as Meter ("Mother", or in Latin Magna Mater, "Great Mother") may show her with the tympanum balanced on her left arm, usually seated and with a lion on her lap or in attendance. The Homeric Hymn to the Great Mother says that the goddess loves the sound of the tympanum. The drum continued to feature as an attribute of Cybele into the Roman Imperial era.

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  Cybele holding a tympanum in her left hand

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  Tympanum player from a mosaic depicting a musical group