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

Marriage Document

Brooklyn Museum — Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art, acc. 47.218.89. Public domain (CC0). Copy archived by egyptianinscriptions.org with attribution; original at the holding institution.

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Accession: 47.218.89
Find spot: Elephantine, Egypt, Egypt approx. site location
Period: Persian Period
Dynasty: Dynasty 27
Date: July 3, 449 B.C.E.
Date range: 449 BCE – 449 BCE
Materials: ['Papyrus', 'ink', 'mud', 'linen']
Height: 27.6 cm
Width: 32.1 cm
Repository: Brooklyn Museum
At source: View original →

Cite & export

Brooklyn Museum — Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art, Marriage Document (47.218.89). Egyptian Inscriptions Database. https://egyptianinscriptions.org/object/18274

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Description

Catalogue description: Culture Aramaic Caption: Aramaic. Marriage Document, July 3, 449 B.C.E.. Papyrus, ink, mud, linen, Object: 10 7/8 × 12 5/8 in. (27.6 × 32.1 cm) Frame: 13 1/8 × 14 13/16 × 7/8 in. (33.3 × 37.6 × 2.2 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Bequest of Theodora Wilbour from the collection of her father, Charles Edwin Wilbour, 47.218.89. (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.

Rectangular, heavily damaged papyrus sheet covered with dense handwritten ink in horizontal lines, resembling a marriage/legal document written in Egyptian script with later or related alphabetic elements.

The object appears as a thin papyrus fragment with a dark brown/black ink script arranged in multiple horizontal lines across the surface. The papyrus support is brown and fibrous, with frayed edges and losses along the right and left borders. The writing is visually similar to Egyptian hieroglyphic/metrical shorthand or related script: repeated grouped strokes and wedge-like/rod-like marks occur in lines, with occasional larger, more distinct characters. No clear, complete cartouche (royal name in a cartouche surround) is legible. No Greek/Coptic/Arabic text is clearly visible. The catalog’s materials list includes mud and linen; mud/linen are not clearly identifiable from this image, though the papyrus support and ink are clear. The overall subject as a marriage document is plausible given the document-like layout, but the image does not provide unequivocal features uniquely identifying a specific marriage formula; therefore agreement is based on consistency of medium and document form rather than specific readable marriage terms.

hieroglyphic only Persian Period (grounded in catalogue; specific script/date not securely readable from image) fragmentary

Materials Papyrusink

Signs dense line-by-line Egyptian script-like signs (exact signs unclear) ×120

Connections

Found at Elephantine

Materials Clay Ink Papyrus String

Cross-references (2)

BKM-Accession 47.218.89 tier-2
BKM-Object 3488 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.