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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 terracotta pottery ostracon fragment with dark ink/black marks forming a short line of hieroglyphic script.

The image shows a small, irregular orange-brown ceramic sherd (ostracon) with a broken, weathered surface. On one face there are several dark, linear/curvilinear marks that resemble inked Egyptian hieroglyphic or cursive signs; the strokes are partially eroded but clearly represent writing rather than decoration. No figurative imagery, animals, or deity iconography is visible. No cartouche or royal titulary is distinguishable with certainty. The background is plain and the object is photographed against a light surface, with no additional text overlays or labels in the image itself.

hieroglyphic only Late Period–Ptolemaic Period (based on catalogue ground truth; script details too unclear to refine further from the image) fragmentary
Materials pottery/ceramicink (dark pigment)
Signs inked hieroglyphic/cursive strokes (unidentifiable individual signs) ×8
Visible text "Unclear; several dark ink signs/marks arranged in a short horizontal/diagonal row, but individual signs cannot be reliably read from the image resolution/erosion."

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.