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

Ostracon

Source of record: Metropolitan Museum of Art — Egyptian Art (Open Access) — catalogued by the holding institution. View the original record →

Description

Ptolemaic–Early Roman Period, 664 B.C.–A.D. 1st century. Pottery, ink. 8 × 7 cm (3 1/8 × 2 3/4 in.). From: Medinet Habu, Upper Egypt, Thebes, Egypt. Credit: Rogers Fund, 1914.

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 fragmentary reddish-brown pottery ostracon covered with dark ink-like writing in several lines.

The image shows a small, broken ceramic fragment (ostracon) with an irregular, chipped shape. Its outer surface is reddish-brown and worn, consistent with pottery. Dark marks resembling ink or soot are arranged in multiple horizontal lines across the central area. The characters are not clear enough to confidently identify as specific Egyptian hieroglyphs or other scripts. No illustrated figures, relief, or cartouches are clearly discernible. No obvious Greek, Coptic, or Arabic text is legible, and there are no clearly visible deity names or royal titulary within the current resolution.

hieroglyphic only Ptolemaic–Early Roman Period (consistent with catalogue; script not fully legible) fragmentary
Materials pottery (ostracon)ink (dark writing)
Signs Unclear ink script; individual signs not legible

Connections

Found at Medinet Habu
Materials PotteryInk
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.