Image of a Ba-bird on a Headboard from a Coffin
Description
Object Label: The human-headed bird represents the ba-soul, part of the Egyptian soul that could leave the tomb and travel both in this world and in the afterlife. The ancient Egyptians recited spells to ensure that the ba returned to the mummy, its natural home, from its various journeys. Caption: Image of a Ba-bird on a Headboard from a Coffin, ca. 945–712 B.C.E.. Wood, gesso, pigment, 11 x 12 5/8 x 5 5/8 in., 5 lb. (28 x 32.1 x 14.3 cm, 2.27kg). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 75.27. (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.
Painted wooden headboard panel from a coffin showing a mummiform/standing figure framed by geometric window-like elements and two falcon-like birds, one near the left and one near the right corner.
The object is a rectangular, curved-panel board with a painted scene. The central figure appears human-headed and mummiform, shown frontally with a light/grey skin tone, dark striated or dotted details on the torso, and a dark kilt covering the lower body; a red garment or edging runs vertically down the arms/legs. Around the figure are stylized vertical rectangular elements resembling columns or window frames, with red banners/streamers at the sides. Two small, stylized birds of prey (or possibly ba-bird/falcon forms) stand or hover in the lower left and lower right areas near the figure’s lower body; each has a visible head and beak and a long tail extending inward. There is no clearly legible hieroglyphic inscription visible in the provided image; the colored bands and frames do not resolve into readable text. The surface shows age-related cracking, lifting paint, and abrasion, especially near edges and corners. The illustrated content partially aligns with the catalogue’s stated theme of a “Ba-bird,” but the birds are not clearly identifiable as ba-birds specifically from the image resolution, so identification is cautious.
Cross-references (2)
- BKM-Accession 75.27 tier-2
- BKM-Object 3842 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.