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

Crocodile Head and Ibis

Source of record: Brooklyn Museum — Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art — catalogued by the holding institution. View the original record →

Description

Object Label: In the Old Kingdom (circa 2670–2195 B.C.) silver was more valuable than gold, but this gradually changed. By the New Kingdom gold was twice as valuable as silver, and by the Ptolemaic Period it was thirteen times as valuable. This, along with the corrosiveness of silver, may explain why many of the silver sculptures known from ancient Egypt are Ptolemaic in date. Caption: Crocodile Head and Ibis, 305–30 B.C.E.. Silver, 13/16 x 9/16 x 1 9/16 in. (2 x 1.5 x 3.9 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 68.83.1. (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 small bronze or silver-toned figurative object shaped like a crocodile head mounted on a vertical rod.

The image shows a single animal head rendered in metallic relief/round form, with textured scales on the snout and head. The mouth is slightly open with visible teeth detail, and the eye is indicated by a recessed dark area. The head is attached to or mounted on a thin vertical support/rod that extends downward out of the frame. Small ring-like or peg-like elements are visible near the back/top of the head, suggesting attachment points or a suspension/mounting feature. There are no clearly readable hieroglyphs, cartouches, or alphabetic inscriptions visible in the photograph. The catalogue title refers to a “Crocodile Head and Ibis,” but only the crocodile head portion is clearly depicted; the ibis is not visible, so the visual evidence is not sufficient to confirm the combined subject from this image alone.

decorative Ptolemaic Period (possibly) — uncertain based on limited photographic context. good
Deities unknown
Materials metallic surface (silver-toned; exact alloy unclear)

Connections

Found at Memphis

Cross-references (2)

  • BKM-Accession 68.83.1 tier-2
  • BKM-Object 3771 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.