Scribe and Official
Description
Object Label: Scenes of daily life, many of which may actually have had religious significance, were a basic element of private-tomb decoration until the first part of Dynasty XVIII. Their renewed popularity in tombs of Dynasties XXV and XXVI reflects that era's penchant for the past. It is uncertain whether the unusual frontal depiction of the scribe shown here is an archaism or an innovation of the relief's own time. Catalogue description: Culture Egyptian Caption: Egyptian. Scribe and Official, ca. 670–650 B.C.E.. Limestone, pigment (Egyptian blue, indigo), 7 1/4 × 1 1/2 × 10 1/2 in., 5.5 lb. (18.4 × 3.8 × 26.7 cm, 2.49kg) mount (m2 (on board)): 9 3/4 × 13 × 2 3/4 in. (24.8 × 33 × 7 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 49.18.
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.
The artifact depicts a seated figure reading a papyrus scroll amid various hieroglyphic symbols.
This carved limestone relief shows a seated figure, likely a scribe or priest, holding a papyrus scroll. The composition includes multiple hieroglyphic symbols surrounding the figure. Notable features include the detailed carving of reeds and papyrus plants, both common in ancient Egyptian art and indicative of literacy and record-keeping.
Cross-references (2)
- BKM-Accession 49.18 tier-2
- BKM-Object 3528 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.