Sarcophagus for a Cat Mummy
Description
Object Label: Mummies of animals, the most numerous type of artifact from ancient Egypt, number in the millions. The animals mummified represented a god or goddess, such as the cat belonging to the goddess Bastet or the ibis belonging to the god Thoth. Some animal mummies contained a papyrus with a request to the god written on it. Animals were mummified using the same techniques as with humans. Caption: Sarcophagus for a Cat Mummy, 305 B.C.E.–1st century C.E.. Limestone, pigment, 37.1841Ea (Coffin): 5 7/8 x 8 7/16 x 20 7/8 in. (15 x 21.5 x 53 cm) 37 lb. (16.78kg). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 37.1841Ea. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum (Gavin Ashworth, photographer))
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 limestone sarcophagus with painted decoration on its outer panels, shown as a rectangular coffin-like container with a recessed interior.
The image shows a long, rectangular stone sarcophagus lying on its side. Its outer surfaces are worn but retain traces of painted decoration and dark outlines. On at least one long side, painted figures resembling animal-like or symbolic forms are visible within framed panels; some areas appear to have yellow/ochre and dark pigment against a light ground. The lid is not fully present in the view, but the interior cavity is visible. No clear royal names or cartouches are legible in the provided image. The overall object conforms to a funerary container rather than a relief stela or statue. The catalogue title specifies a sarcophagus for a cat mummy; the visible iconography is consistent in general with a decorated animal-associated funerary object, though the exact cat-related imagery is not clearly identifiable from this resolution.
Cross-references (2)
- BKM-Accession 37.1841Ea tier-2
- BKM-Object 4184 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.