Tomb Wall Fragment Depicting Donkeys
Description
This fragment is part of a scene of donkeys being driven over grain to separate wheat from chaff- one that was used in many Egyptian tombs. The tomb’s owner selected the decoration for his or her tomb chamber from a selection of established themes, much as one might select wallpaper today.
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 carved limestone wall fragment with painted relief showing a large animal head and several smaller figures/forms in a register-like composition.
The object is a roughly rectangular limestone fragment with rounded edges where the surrounding plaster or stone border is broken away. In low relief, a prominent long-snouted animal (consistent with a donkey’s head and neck) appears in the lower portion, facing left, with an eye rendered in paint. Above and around the animal are additional incised/relief elements resembling tufts/legs and possible secondary animals or stylized body parts; several wedge/triangular painted forms flank the main figure. The upper portion includes horizontal, band-like hatching and shape elements that could belong to the surrounding tomb-wall scene, though the scene context is incomplete due to breakage. No legible hieroglyphic text, cartouches, or inscriptions are visible in the provided image. Surviving pigment appears to highlight outlines and interior areas of the relief.
Connections
Cross-references (1)
- ARTIC-id 64334 tier-2
About this record's data
- From the source institution — accession, description, dimensions, and dating are as catalogued by Art Institute of Chicago (Egyptian).
- 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.