Brooklyn Museum — Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art · statue

Akhenaten as a Sphinx

Source of record: Brooklyn Museum — Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art — catalogued by the holding institution. View the original record →

Description

Caption: Akhenaten as a Sphinx, ca. 1352–1336 B.C.E.. Limestone, pigment, 9 3/4 × 15 × 7 1/4 in., 39.5 lb. (24.8 × 38.1 × 18.4 cm, 17.92kg). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the Egypt Exploration Society, 36.881.

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 limestone block relief showing a royal figure in a sphinx-like form with paired symbolic motifs, set within a register of hieroglyphic text.

The image depicts a weathered limestone sculptural block. The central figure appears squatting or reclining with human-like arms, while the head and body are shaped in a sphinx-like manner (animal-human hybrid), indicated by a stylized facial area and broad mane/contours around the head. Above and around the figure are carved curved and linear elements resembling iconographic symbols; along the lower portion runs a horizontal band of hieroglyphic signs in shallow relief. The signs are not fully legible due to erosion and low contrast, but the presence of a text line beneath the figure is clear. No Greek/Coptic/Arabic text is visible. No pigment is clearly distinguishable in the provided photo, though the catalogued material includes pigment; this cannot be confirmed visually.

religious New Kingdom, Amarna Period (c. 14th century BCE) fragmentary
Deities unknown (no clearly identifiable deity attributes visible)
Royals unknown (no clearly readable cartouche(s) or royal name)
Materials limestone
Signs unknown hieroglyphic signs (unreadable in this image) ×20

Connections

Royals Akhenaten
Materials Limestone

Cross-references (2)

  • BKM-Accession 36.881 tier-2
  • BKM-Object 46933 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.