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

Miniature "nw" pot

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

Description

Gneiss

AI image analysis claude-haiku-4-5

Machine-generated from the object's image on May 2026. Not curatorial; treat deities, names, and signs below as the model's best reading, not authority.

A small, spherical pot with a narrow neck rim, made of gneiss stone with dark gray and black mottled surface patterns typical of the material.

This miniature vessel exhibits the characteristic rounded, bulbous form of an Old Kingdom "nw" pot (a specialized stone vessel form). The piece is crafted from gneiss, a crystalline metamorphic rock, which displays the natural mottled surface patterning visible throughout the object—dark gray and black mineral inclusions and veining create a speckled appearance across the cream and pale gray stone. The pot features a simple, narrow opening at the top with a minimally defined neck rim, consistent with functional Old Kingdom vessel design. The overall shape is compact and spherical, typical of miniature ritual or utilitarian vessels of this period. The material shows the natural weathering and variation inherent to gneiss, with no apparent decorative carving or inscription.

decorative Old Kingdom good
Materials gneiss

Connections

Materials AlabasterGneiss

Cross-references (4)

  • Wikidata-Q Q116413380 tier-1
  • Collection-QID Q160236 tier-2 (wikidata-mediated)
  • Inventory-Number 07.228.92 tier-2 (wikidata-mediated)
  • MET-Object 543928 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.