Aper Amulet
Description
Object Label: Living persons wore only one or a few amulets at a time, but mummies usually bear many amulets. The Ma’at amulet (no. 2) and heart scarabs (nos. 1, 3, 11), which occurred in many forms, guaranteed a successful judgment of the dead. The amulets of a hand (no. 8), lungs and a windpipe (no. 12), and wadjet-eyes (i.e., “healthy” eyes; no. 4) protected those parts of the body and also had connotations of resurrection and the unity or integrity of the mummy. The enigmatic aper amulet (no. 13) takes the form of the hieroglyph meaning “to be equipped,” perhaps in reference to the mummy’s preparation. The two crowns (nos. 5, 6) were symbols of power. The Heh insignia (no. 7), like the popular ankh-sign, denoted eternal life. Among the living, the frog (no. 9) and possibly also the hare (no. 10) suggested fertility. The amulets of the Four Sons of Horus (no. 15) perhaps served, as they did with canopic jars, to protect various organs of the body. Caption: Aper Amulet, ca. 664–30 B.C.E.. Agate (?) Faience [August 2023 Label Refresh Project], 1/2 × 3/16 × 1 9/16 in. (1.3 × 0.5 × 3.9 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 08.480.143. (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.
Small dark stone amulet shaped like a vertical tapered cylinder with a rounded top, bearing a grid-like pattern of impressed/raised markings around its front.
The image shows a small, centrally framed Egyptian amulet photographed against a light gray textured background. The object is vertically oriented and tapers slightly toward the bottom, with a rounded top that suggests a suspension or protective end. Across the front face there are multiple narrow vertical and horizontal bands forming a rectangular/grid-like arrangement; the bands contain small dark marks that may be decorative or read as stylized signs, but no clearly legible individual hieroglyphs are confidently identifiable at this resolution. No cartouche or royal name is visible, and there is no clearly discernible inscription in Greek, Coptic, or Arabic. The surface appears mottled and dark, consistent with a colored ceramic/stone surface, though the exact material cannot be confirmed from the image alone.
Cross-references (2)
- BKM-Accession 08.480.143 tier-2
- BKM-Object 19205 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.