Relief of Ptolemy II Philadelphos
Description
Object Label: Although the Ptolemaic Period ushered in a long period of foreign rule, the Macedonian kings of that dynasty did not interfere with the Egyptian artistic traditions of the preceding three milennia. Ptolemy II Philadelphos, like his father Ptolemy I Soter, the founder of the dynasty, continued the practice of building and decorating temples in traditional Egyptian fashion. While this is not to say that the Macedonian rulers did not have Greek artists portray them according to Greek artistic conventions, here the Greek ruler is shown in a purely Egyptian guise, wearing the traditional nemes-headdress of the pharaoh. The style of the relief, including the deeply cut navel, the horizontal treatment of the torso muscles, the "golf ball" chin, and the upturned smile, is common in representations from Dynasties XXIX and XXX (circa 399–342 B.C.) and was readily adopted by the Ptolemies into their iconographic program. Visible behind the king is the figure of a goddess in another scene. Caption: Relief of Ptolemy II Philadelphos, 285 or 282–246 B.C.E.. Granite, 27 × 23 1/2 × 2 5/8 in. (68.6 × 59.7 × 6.7 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 72.127. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)
AI image analysis GPT-4o-2024-08-06
Machine-generated from the object's image on May 2026. Not curatorial; treat deities, names, and signs below as the model's best reading, not authority.
A fragment of relief depicting an ancient Egyptian figure.
The relief fragment shows a carved image of an Egyptian figure in profile, typical of ancient Egyptian art. The figure appears to be making a gesture with their hands. Above the figure are rows of hieroglyphs, though partially damaged, showing typical artistic and writing style of ancient Egypt. The carving is on what seems to be a piece of stone material.
Cross-references (2)
- BKM-Accession 72.127 tier-2
- BKM-Object 3816 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.