Brooklyn Museum — Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art · funerary_equipment

Snake Coffin

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Accession: 36.624
Find spot: Egypt, Egypt approx. site location
Period: Late Period to Ptolemaic Period
Dynasty: Dynasty 26, or later
Date: 664–30 B.C.E.
Date range: 664 BCE – 30 BCE
Materials: ['Bronze']
Height: 14.6 cm
Width: 4.8 cm
Repository: Brooklyn Museum
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Cite & export

Brooklyn Museum — Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art, Snake Coffin (36.624). Egyptian Inscriptions Database. https://egyptianinscriptions.org/object/18685

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Description

Object Label: A cobra with a man’s head represented the creator god Atum. This deity swam in the primeval waters that existed before the earth came into being. He was therefore associated with the creation of the world, which in Egyptian thought reoccurred every day. Caption: Snake Coffin, 664–30 B.C.E.. Bronze, 5 3/4 x 1 7/8 x 22 in. (14.6 x 4.8 x 55.9 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 36.624. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum (Gavin Ashworth, photographer))

AI image analysis GPT-5.4-nano

Machine-generated from the object's image on Jul 2026. Not curatorial; treat deities, names, and signs below as the model's best reading, not authority.

An elongated bronze coffin-like object with painted/oxidized surfaces and a raised, upright cobra-snake figure at one end.

The image shows a long, rectangular object oriented horizontally on a light background. The surface is dark brown to greenish from corrosion/oxidation, with traces of red pigment or paint along the edges and field. At the right end, a standing, upright cobra-snake figure rises from the coffin body; the snake’s head and hood are modeled in relief, with an incised/striped neck and body details. No clear inscriptions are visible on the main body in the provided view. The overall form is consistent with a snake-coffin type item used in Egyptian burial contexts, with the cobra figure representing protective/ritual symbolism. No Greek, Coptic, or Arabic text is legible in the photograph.

funerary Late Period to Ptolemaic Period (as catalogued) good

Deities cobra (protective serpent symbolism; specific deity unclear)

Materials bronze (surface corrosion and dark patina visible)paint/pigment traces (red)

Connections

Found at Egypt

Deities Osiris Atum

Materials Bronze Paint/Pigment Traces

Cross-references (2)

BKM-Accession 36.624 tier-2
BKM-Object 3411 tier-2

About this record's data

From the source institution — accession, description, dimensions, and dating are as catalogued by Brooklyn Museum — Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art.
AI-inferred — the image-analysis panel (deities, names, signs) is machine-generated and may be wrong.
Approximate location — most map points are plotted at the site centroid, not the exact findspot.
Inferred links — cross-references marked with a match method other than explicit-source-field were matched by us, not stated by the source.