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

Sealing fragment

Metropolitan Museum of Art — Egyptian Art (Open Access), acc. 32.1.145c. Public domain (CC0). Copy archived by egyptianinscriptions.org with attribution; original at the holding institution.

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Accession: 32.1.145c
Find spot: Lisht South, Memphite Region, Egypt approx. site location
Period: Middle Kingdom
Dynasty: Dynasty 12–13
Date: ca. 2030–1640 B.C.
Date range: 2030 BCE – 1640 BCE
Materials: ['clay (unfired)']
Repository: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
At source: View original →

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Metropolitan Museum of Art — Egyptian Art (Open Access), Sealing fragment (32.1.145c). Egyptian Inscriptions Database. https://egyptianinscriptions.org/object/211726

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Description

Middle Kingdom, Dynasty 12–13, ca. 2030–1640 B.C. Clay (unfired). From: South of the tomb of Imhotep, north of the royal causeway, Lisht South, Memphite Region, Egypt. Excavation: MMA excavations, 1930–31. Credit: Rogers Fund, 1932.

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.

Photograph of a broken clay sealing fragment with an impressed cartouche-like seal mark on one face.

The image shows a small, irregular fragment of hardened clay (grey-black in the photo) with a recessed/impressed marking. The main visible feature is a curved, enclosed set of incised strokes resembling part of an oval/carto(u)sche or label, bordered by a raised outline where the seal matrix pressed into the clay. The rest of the fragment is blank or too worn to read. No clear figures of deities, full hieroglyphic lines, or complete cartouches are legible from the current resolution and fragmentary condition.

decorative Middle Kingdom (consistent with catalogue) fragmentary

Materials clay (unfired)

Signs partial cartouche/oval enclosure with internal incised strokes (exact text unclear)

Visible text "Impressed seal mark with a partial oval/cartouche-like enclosure; internal hieroglyphic signs are not clearly readable."

Inscriptions (1)

Inscription #1 AI reading of the photograph

Visible text (machine reading)

Impressed seal mark with a partial oval/cartouche-like enclosure; internal hieroglyphic signs are not clearly readable.

Connections

Found at Lisht

Materials Clay

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.