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-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 wooden straightedge or tool with a groove and two circular markings.
The image depicts a rectangular wooden artifact resembling a straightedge with a single elongated groove and two circular indentations on one end. The wood shows signs of aging and wear but seems structurally intact. The surface appears smooth, indicating possible regular use. The straight geometry suggests practical purposes, potentially used in measuring or drafting.
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.