Metropolitan Museum of Art — Egyptian Art (Open Access) · funerary_equipment

Footboard from a cartonnage coffin

Metropolitan Museum of Art — Egyptian Art (Open Access), acc. 26.3.117. Public domain (CC0). Copy archived by egyptianinscriptions.org with attribution; original at the holding institution.

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Accession: 26.3.117
Find spot: Deir el-Bahri, Upper Egypt, Thebes, Egypt approx. site location
Period: Third Intermediate Period–Late Period
Dynasty: Dynasty 23–30
Date: ca. 818–332 B.C.
Date range: 818 BCE – 332 BCE
Materials: ['wood', 'paint']
Repository: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
At source: View original →

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Metropolitan Museum of Art — Egyptian Art (Open Access), Footboard from a cartonnage coffin (26.3.117). Egyptian Inscriptions Database. https://egyptianinscriptions.org/object/209857

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Description

Coffin foot painting, Apis bull. Third Intermediate Period–Late Period, Dynasty 23–30, ca. 818–332 B.C. Wood, paint. L. 28 × W. 14 × Th. 2.4 cm (11 × 5 1/2 × 15/16 in.). From: Tomb of Khety (TT 311, MMA 508), Deir el-Bahri, Upper Egypt, Thebes, Egypt. Excavation: MMA excavations, 1922–23/1926–27. Subject: Bulls. Credit: Rogers Fund, 1926.

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.

Painted fragment showing a black cow (or bull) with small attendant motifs and limited hieroglyph-like marks on a light ground.

The artifact appears to be a curved, painted plank-like fragment with a mostly white/light background. Center-left is a dark (black) bovine figure in profile with a red-orange patch on the back/side and small lighter markings on the body; its legs and tail are outlined in paint. On the right side are light-blue and dark outlines forming stylized elements that resemble hieroglyphic or decorative column marks, including a vertical stack of signs and a few additional small figures near the lower right. There is no clearly legible royal cartouche in the visible area. The fragment shows surface loss and flaking paint, and the edges are chipped, suggesting it is broken from a larger object. No Greek/Coptic/Arabic text is visible.

decorative Third Intermediate Period–Late Period (consistent with catalogue; specific sub-period unclear from image alone) fragmentary

Deities unknown (bovine imagery may relate to sacred cattle, but no specific deity is clearly identifiable from the image)

Materials woodpaint

Signs Unclear hieroglyphic-style decorative marks (possibly part of a short text or formula) ×6

Visible text "Non-legible/unclear set of hieroglyphic-style signs to the right of the bovine; no reliable transcription possible from the provided resolution."

Inscriptions (1)

Inscription #1 AI reading of the photograph

Visible text (machine reading)

Non-legible/unclear set of hieroglyphic-style signs to the right of the bovine; no reliable transcription possible from the provided resolution.

Connections

Found at Deir el-Bahri

Deities Apis

Materials Wood Paint

Cross-references (4)

Wikidata-Q Q116419419 tier-1
Collection-QID Q160236 tier-2 (wikidata-mediated)
Inventory-Number 26.3.117 tier-2 (wikidata-mediated)
MET-Object 552539 tier-2 (wikidata-mediated)

About this record's data

From the source institution — accession, description, dimensions, and dating are as catalogued by Metropolitan Museum of Art — Egyptian Art (Open Access).
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.