Amunhotep, Son of Nebiry
Description
Object Label: The Egyptians valued learning and literacy above all other skills, including physical strength and military prowess. Men who mastered reading and writing were frequently represented as scribes: sitting cross-legged with inscribed papyrus rolls in their laps. Some examples, such as this one, show the subject with his head gently inclined as if reading the papyrus. So-called scribe statues were first produced in the Fourth Dynasty (circa 2625–2500 B.C.E.). Originally only princes were permitted to appear in this form, but as access to schooling increased over time, scribe statues became relatively common. The subject of this sculpture, a man named Amunhotep, held several priestly and administrative offices Caption: Amunhotep, Son of Nebiry, ca. 1426–1400 B.C.E.. Limestone, pigment, 25 3/8 × 14 15/16 × 14 3/8 in., 206 lb. (64.5 × 37.9 × 36.5 cm, 93.44kg). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 37.29E.
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.
A painted limestone seated statue of a man is shown in side view, with an arm crossed over a rectangular back pillar bearing hieroglyphic inscriptions on multiple faces.
The image shows a small-scale Egyptian limestone sculpture of a seated/standing-sitting male figure with a shaved head and a tripartite wig or styled hair falling down the sides of the head. The figure’s right arm appears crossed over the body and resting toward the torso, while the left arm is extended forward resting on a rectangular, bookrest-like support. The body is nude from the shoulders down in a conventional artistic style, with detailed facial features and a calm expression. The front and sides of the rectangular base/back pillar are densely inscribed with incised hieroglyphs, arranged in horizontal registers; some pigment traces appear in recessed areas and possibly in the eyes/hairline area. No clear cartouche or royal titulary is legible at this resolution, and no Greek/Coptic/Arabic text is visible. The overall condition is generally good, though edges and surface details show wear and minor chips. Given the catalogue ground truth (New Kingdom, Thebes; “Amunhotep, Son of Nebiry”; limestone and pigment), the carved hieroglyphs likely include the person’s name and parentage, but the exact reading is unclear from the image quality.
Cross-references (2)
- BKM-Accession 37.29E tier-2
- BKM-Object 3940 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.