Funerary Stela of C. Julius Valerius
Description
Object Label: This funerary stela, the oldest in this exhibition by several centuries, shows a boy who died when he was three. His father, a Roman soldier, was stationed near Alexandria. His Egyptian mother is not mentioned. The child’s costume and pose are Roman, but his long sidelock of hair is traditionally Egyptian, as are the jackal god Anubis and the falcon god Horus above his head. The griffin in the lower right corner represents the classical goddess Nemesis, who controlled life and death. Caption: Funerary Stela of C. Julius Valerius, 3rd century C.E.. Limestone, pigment, 14 3/16 x 10 1/16 x 2 3/16 in. (36 x 25.5 x 5.5 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Evangeline Wilbour Blashfield, Theodora Wilbour, and Victor Wilbour honoring the wishes of their mother, Charlotte Beebe Wilbour, as a memorial to their father, Charles Edwin Wilbour, 16.105. (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 rectangular limestone funerary stela with a carved central figure presenting offerings, flanked by seated/standing attendants or animals, and a dense band of incised text along the bottom.
The image shows a framed, arched-top limestone stela. In the center, a human figure stands frontally, with arms raised slightly outward and hands positioned in an offering or gesture. The figure wears a short, robe-like garment and appears be in front of a table or offering surface that bears carved items (including blocky objects and smaller rounded elements). To either side of the central figure are sculpted attendants/figures or animals in low relief, with one or more animals’ bodies extending along the lower sides. The lower register contains a continuous, tightly packed line of incised characters that resemble hieroglyphic or early Egyptian-style text; individual signs are difficult to reliably identify at this resolution. No clear Greek/Coptic/Arabic inscription is visible. Painted pigment is not distinctly visible in this photo, though the catalogue description indicates pigment; the image quality and lighting make any specific pigment traces unclear.
Cross-references (2)
- BKM-Accession 16.105 tier-2
- BKM-Object 9362 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.