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

Shell Inscribed with the Cartouche of Senwosret I

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

Description

Shell (Marine), nacre

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.

An oval marine shell with two suspension holes is shown, with a cartouche-like oval containing vertically arranged hieroglyphs incised on the interior.

The image depicts a smooth, off-white shell viewed from above (interior surface). Two small circular holes near the top edge suggest suspension or attachment. In the center is an incised oval/cartouche outline enclosing a group of hieroglyphic signs arranged in a vertical column. The incisions are brown to reddish-brown and moderately worn but still legible as a structured royal inscription. No clear accompanying Greek, Coptic, or Arabic text is visible. No specific deity name is clearly discernible beyond the royal cartouche format.

decorative Middle Kingdom or later (as catalogued) good
Royals Senwosret I (name/cartoouche referenced by catalogue; exact hieroglyphs not fully legible in this image)
Materials shell (marine)nacre (shell interior/luster)
Signs cartouche/oval containing vertically arranged hieroglyphs (exact text unclear)
Visible text "Central oval/cartouche containing a vertical sequence of incised hieroglyphs; exact wording not reliably readable from the provided resolution."

Connections

Found at Lisht
Royals Senwosret I
Materials Pearl Oyster Shell
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.