Ptolemaic Prince (Caesarion?) Late Ptolemaic PeriodEgypt
Description
Object Label: This royal teen wears a circular diadem with a uraeus (cobra), symbolizing his divine authority. His wavy hair and naturalistic face reflect the influence of Hellenistic sculpture during the Ptolemaic era (when pharaohs of Greek origin or heritage ruled Egypt). The figure’s body—with long limbs and a short wrapper—recalls Egyptian precedents. Unlike Kuba ndop, which use distinct visual symbols to identify rulers (such as the drum bearing a hand motif on the figure at left), pharaonic Egyptian sculptures use hieroglyphic text to identify subjects by name. The blank pillar at the figure’s back suggests the sculpture is unfinished. Although this figure is unidentified by hieroglyphics, his youth, crown, and Hellenistic style suggest that he is Caesarion, son of Cleopatra VII and Julius Caesar. Caption: Ptolemaic Prince (Caesarion?), 51–30 B.C.E.. Sedimentary rock, 12 1/2 x 5 5/16 x 3 3/8 in. (31.8 x 13.5 x 8.5 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 54.117. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)
AI image analysis GPT-5.4-nano
A machine reading of the photograph made Jul 2026: deities, names, signs and a description as the model saw them. Not curatorial; treat it as the model's best reading, not authority.
Cross-references (2)
- BKM-Accession 54.117 tier-2
- BKM-Object 3603 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.