Bird Coffin of Iihetek
Description
Object Label: This extraordinary coffin contained two small bird mummies. It is shaped like an Egyptian shrine and decorated with images of the goddesses of mourning, Isis and Nephthys. The rear of the coffin displays a djed-pillar, a symbol of Osiris often found on the back of human coffins. The reasons why the man named Iihetek had this unusual coffin type made remain unclear. Caption: Bird Coffin of Iihetek, 664–30 B.C.E.. Copper alloy, animal remains (2 individuals), linen, 15 1/4 x 3 1/2 x 2 11/16 in. (38.7 x 8.9 x 6.8 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 37.1391Ea-b. (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 stone slab with carved figures and hieroglyphs.
The artifact is a rectangular stone slab featuring a carved depiction of an ancient Egyptian figure wearing a headdress. Hieroglyphs are inscribed above the figure. The style includes traditional iconography common in royal and religious depictions, with a focus on highly stylized, symbolic representations. The slab appears to be part of a larger structure or monument.
Cross-references (2)
- BKM-Accession 37.1391Ea-b tier-2
- BKM-Object 117939 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.