Model Shell
Description
Object Label: The Egyptians believed they would need food and drink in the afterlife. Early Dynasty 12 burials commonly included large wooden models depicting offering bearers or people engaged in activities such as baking bread and brewing beer. Later, under Senwosret III, the large wooden models were replaced by small-scale replicas of food. These faience shells probably represented a variety of Red Sea snail, an ancient delicacy. Caption: Model Shell, ca. 1836–1700 B.C.E.. Faience, 1 3/16 x 1 7/8 in. (3 x 4.7 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Peter Sharrer, 82.170.3.
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 small, egg-shaped object with stacked, shell-like ridges near the top, shown against a plain white background.
The image depicts a single small faience artifact photographed from a slightly above-front angle. The object is predominantly bluish-green with a mottled, abraded surface and scattered darker specks. At the upper portion there are horizontal, step-like ridges suggesting a simplified shell form; the top terminates in a rounded knob-like cap. No clear modeled shell details (e.g., spiral ribs) are visible beyond the general ridging. The lower body tapers to a rounded point. The lighting and photo are clean, but there is no legible text or iconography apparent. No cartouches or hieroglyphs, and no Greek/Coptic/Arabic inscriptions are visible. No clear depiction of deities or royal figures is present. Condition appears worn with abrasions and small chips consistent with a decorative/model item.
Cross-references (2)
- BKM-Accession 82.170.3 tier-2
- BKM-Object 3901 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.