Metropolitan Museum of Art — Egyptian Art (Open Access) · ostracon

Ostracon

Source of record: Metropolitan Museum of Art — Egyptian Art (Open Access) — catalogued by the holding institution. View the original record →

Description

Pottery, ink

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 reddish pottery ostracon fragment with several lines of dark ink hieroglyphic signs written across the upper portion.

The object is a triangular, broken piece of terracotta/pottery with its surface showing dark, iron-gall–like ink strokes. Multiple clusters of hieroglyphic signs are visible near the top edge in roughly horizontal rows, while the lower area is mostly blank or too faded to read. No cartouche, deity figure, or color paint beyond the ink marks is clearly identifiable. The writing appears to be Egyptian hieroglyphs, but individual signs cannot be confidently read at this resolution. No Greek/Coptic/Arabic text is visible.

hieroglyphic only Late Period–Ptolemaic Period (consistent with catalogue; specific dynasty king name not readable) fragmentary
Materials potteryink
Signs Unidentified Egyptian hieroglyphic signs (multiple small vertical/diagonal strokes and grouped symbols)
Visible text "Multiple lines of Egyptian hieroglyphic signs; exact transcription not reliably readable from the image provided."

Connections

Found at Hibis
About this record's data
  • From the source institution — accession, description, dimensions, and dating are as catalogued by Metropolitan Museum of Art — Egyptian Art (Open Access).
  • 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.