Brooklyn Museum — Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art · jewelry

Top of Comb

Source of record: Brooklyn Museum — Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art — catalogued by the holding institution. View the original record →

Description

Caption: Top of Comb, 395–642 C.E.. Ivory, 3 1/16 × 2 1/16 × 3/16 in. (7.8 × 5.2 × 0.5 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 37.62E. (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.

A small rectangular ivory object fragment with decorative border bands of incised dotted and wavy motifs and a central central motif shaped like an eye or flower.

The image shows a flat, rectangular piece with a worn top edge and a slightly irregular lower edge, photographed against a dark background. The surface is incised with repeating decorative bands: thin horizontal lines containing small dotted marks (or looped elements) separated by thicker bands with wave-like or semicircular tooling. In the middle of the object there are two symmetrical, pale incisions forming a central motif that resembles an eye or stylized flower. There is no clear hieroglyphic text, cartouche, or Greek/Coptic/Arabic writing visible; the marks appear purely decorative. The object appears to be an upper portion of a comb (consistent with the catalogue), though the full comb teeth are not visible beyond a fragmentary, jagged top edge.

decorative Late Antique Period (per catalogue; exact date unclear from image alone) fragmentary
Materials ivory (carved/incised surface)
Signs Incised decorative dotted/loop motifs and wavy bands (non-text)

Connections

Materials Ivory

Cross-references (2)

  • BKM-Accession 37.62E tier-2
  • BKM-Object 116795 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.