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

Faience Sistrum Inscribed with the Name of Ptolemy I

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

Description

Faience

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.

Turquoise-blue faience sistrum with a human-faced central figure and decorative/inscribed elements on the handle.

The image shows a standing sistrum made of turquoise-blue faience. The top portion is a rectangular/openwork frame with a recessed interior, typical of sistrum rattling mechanisms. Below, a seated or front-facing human figure with a wig/headband and incised facial features appears on the central front. Surrounding the figure at the sides are carved decorative elements resembling lateral supports. The handle below the figure is cylindrical and decorated with vertical bands of incised decoration and what appear to be hieroglyphic signs; some areas include short horizontal lines and grouped sign-like motifs, but the exact readings are not fully legible at this resolution. No Greek/Coptic/Arabic text is visible. The overall surface shows speckling/patina consistent with faience.

decorative Ptolemaic Period (based on catalogue ground truth; specific details not securely readable from the image alone). good
Deities unknown (human-faced figure; possibly associated with Egyptian temple goddess iconography but not clearly identifiable)
Royals Ptolemy I (name inscription expected by catalogue; specific cartouche/reading not clearly legible in the image)
Materials faience (turquoise/blue glaze)
Signs incised hieroglyph-like groups (exact signs unclear) ×10

Connections

Deities Hathor
Royals Ptolemy I
Materials Faience

Cross-references (4)

  • Wikidata-Q Q116282233 tier-1
  • Collection-QID Q160236 tier-2 (wikidata-mediated)
  • Inventory-Number 50.99 tier-2 (wikidata-mediated)
  • MET-Object 546038 tier-2 (wikidata-mediated)
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.