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

Scarab Seal of Taharqa

Source of record: Brooklyn Museum — Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art — catalogued by the holding institution. View the original record →

Description

Provenance: Cultures Nubian, Kushite Caption: Nubian; Kushite. Scarab Seal of Taharqa, ca. 690–664 B.C.E. or later. Steatite, glaze, 3/8 x 9/16 x 13/16 in. (1 x 1.4 x 2.1 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 37.504E. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)

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.

Oval seal scarab with a raised/beaded border and a central field filled with geometric/inscribed marks in dark material, photographed against a white background.

The image shows a small, oval scarab-seal device oriented front-on. The perimeter has a raised border that appears rope- or chevron-like. Inside the border, the central register contains dark, incised/raised elements that resemble a divided rectangle and vertical strokes, plus a small hook/figure-like form; however, the individual signs are not clear enough to confidently read as specific hieroglyphs. Beneath the object is a handwritten label in black/gray ink reading “37. 504 E” (not Egyptian text). A ruler with centimeter graduations and printed text is also present in the lower portion of the photo; no Greek/Coptic/Arabic is visible. No clearly identifiable royal cartouche or deity name is legible on the scarab itself due to resolution/blur.

decorative Third Intermediate Period (catalogue ground truth; inscription/signs not legible enough to independently confirm) good
Materials dark stone or metal-like surfacepossible glaze or glassy coating (unclear from photo)
Signs unclear incised signs (geometric/rectangular register with vertical strokes) ×3

Connections

Found at Egypt
Royals Taharqa

Cross-references (2)

  • BKM-Accession 37.504E tier-2
  • BKM-Object 117148 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.