Scribal Palette
Description
Object Label: The most important piece of equipment for an ancient Egyptian scribe was the palette. Made of wood or, less frequently, of ivory, palettes had slots to hold reed pens and two inkwells, one with black ink, the other With red. The scribe who used this palette was not always neat; note the red and black stains around the inkwells. Caption: Scribal Palette, ca. 1336–1295 B.C.E.. Ivory, 1 1/2 x 1/4 x 13 3/4 in. (3.8 x 0.6 x 34.9 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 37.448E. (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.
A long, narrow ivory object shown on a dark backing, with a rectangular inscription field and a central recessed area near one end.
The image shows a single strip-like artifact photographed against a neutral/black background. The left portion has a broader rectangular face divided into a stepped/raised border and interior band that appears to contain faint, rectilinear marks suggestive of incised lines but no clearly legible hieroglyphs. Near the right end there is a long, narrow horizontal groove/recess (possibly for pigment application or a tool slot) and two circular apertures/holes. The overall form and treatment resemble a scribal implement/palette strip, though the photograph quality and wear make most inscription details indistinct. No Greek, Coptic, or Arabic text is visible. No cartouches or royal names are clearly readable.
Connections
Cross-references (2)
- BKM-Accession 37.448E tier-2
- BKM-Object 4040 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.