Cylindrical Amulet
Description
Object Label: Among the rarest of Middle Kingdom amulets are hollow gold cylinders, usually decorated with tiny gold balls arranged in a geometric pattern. Goldsmiths attached these balls to the cylinders by granulation, a soldering technique developed in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) about 2500 B.C. Some amulets of this type contained tiny pieces of papyrus inscribed with magical spells. Caption: Cylindrical Amulet, ca. 1938–1759 B.C.E.. Gold, copper (?), 2 1/16 x Diam. of cap 1/4 in. (5.3 x 0.7 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 59.199.1. (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.
The image shows a small cylindrical amulet with a gold-toned body and darker ringed ends, decorated along its surface with repeating raised motifs.
A single cylindrical object is photographed against a plain, warm-toned background. The amulet appears gold-toned along its length, with a dense band of small, repeated raised elements (possibly beads or stamped dots) covering the surface. The ends of the cylinder are darker and ring-like, suggesting metal caps or soldered terminals. A thin, upright metal pin/loop extends from one side of the amulet, indicating it may have been mounted for wearing or attachment. No clear hieroglyphs, cartouches, or legible inscriptions are visible at this resolution. No deities or royal names can be confidently identified.
Cross-references (2)
- BKM-Accession 59.199.1 tier-2
- BKM-Object 3676 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.