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

Papyrus Inscribed in Demotic and Greek

Brooklyn Museum — Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art, acc. 37.1802E. Public domain (CC0). Copy archived by egyptianinscriptions.org with attribution; original at the holding institution.

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Accession: 37.1802E
Find spot: Memphis, Egypt approx. site location
Period: Ptolemaic Period
Date: February 9, 108 B.C.E.
Date range: 108 BCE – 108 BCE
Materials: ['Papyrus', 'ink']
Height: 26.5 cm
Width: 43.2 cm
Repository: Brooklyn Museum
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Brooklyn Museum — Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art, Papyrus Inscribed in Demotic and Greek (37.1802E). Egyptian Inscriptions Database. https://egyptianinscriptions.org/object/17984

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Description

Caption: Papyrus Inscribed in Demotic and Greek, February 9, 108 B.C.E.. Papyrus, ink, Glass: 10 7/16 x 17 in. (26.5 x 43.2 cm) Object: 6 5/8 x 13 5/8 in. (16.9 x 34.6 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 37.1802E. (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 damaged sheet of Egyptian papyrus covered in dense ink text arranged in horizontal lines across the surface, with a narrow vertical strip on the right and torn edges at the bottom.

The image shows a multi-fragment papyrus document photographed flat. The sheet is beige and fibrous, with irregular tears along the right and lower edges and a narrow vertical section that appears separated or folded over. Dark ink writing fills most of the visible area in closely spaced horizontal lines; the script appears to include multiple scripts/hand styles in different sections, with some lines more compact and others slightly larger. No clearly legible cartouches or royal names are visible at this resolution. There are no clear depictions of people, animals, or deities—only writing. A small star-like or cross-like mark is visible near the middle-left, but its significance is unclear. Overall condition is poor to fragmentary due to extensive edge loss and curling/tattering.

hieroglyphic only Ptolemaic Period (catalogue ground truth; exact dating not securely readable from the image) fragmentary

Materials Papyrusink

Signs Dense ink textual lines (Demotic and Greek scripts not individually legible at this resolution)

Visible text "No reliable excerpt can be transcribed from the provided resolution; the text is present but individual characters are not clearly legible."

Inscriptions (1)

Inscription #1 AI reading of the photograph

Visible text (machine reading)

No reliable excerpt can be transcribed from the provided resolution; the text is present but individual characters are not clearly legible.

Connections

Found at Memphis

Materials Ink Papyrus

Cross-references (2)

BKM-Accession 37.1802E tier-2
BKM-Object 118322 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.