Ostracon in the Shape of a Stela
Description
Caption: Ostracon in the Shape of a Stela, Year 23 of Ptolemy (III Euergetes I?). Limestone, pigment, 4 5/8 x 3 1/8 x 9/16 in. (11.7 x 8 x 1.4 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 37.1851E. (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 roughly rectangular, rounded-top limestone ostracon shows multiple lines of dark ink hieroglyphic text arranged across the surface, with no clear figure of a stela visible.
The object is a small limestone piece with a rounded top edge, photographed against a neutral background. The entire front face is covered by dense, dark pigment writing in several horizontal rows. The signs are mostly black/very dark blue-green against a light tan stone. No carved relief or sculpted stela outline is clearly discernible from this view; instead, it presents as a text-bearing ostracon. The reading is not sufficiently clear to reliably identify specific royal names, cartouches, or deities. A small handwritten/printed accession-style label is visible below the object reading “37. IBS E” (appears modern/collection marking, not part of the ancient text).
Cross-references (2)
- BKM-Accession 37.1851E tier-2
- BKM-Object 118365 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.