Ostracon
Description
Ostracon, tax receipt. Roman Period, reign of Caligula, A.D. 37–41. Pottery, ink. H. 11.5 × W. 10.2 × D. 3 cm (4 1/2 × 4 × 1 3/16 in.). From: Medinet Habu, Upper Egypt, Thebes, Egypt. Credit: Gift of Herbert E. Winlock, 1924.
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 reddish-brown pottery ostracon fragment inscribed with dark ink hieroglyphic text across the surface.
The image shows a triangular/irregular broken piece of terracotta with a smooth, slightly sandy surface. Dark, linear marks forming Egyptian hieroglyphic-style writing are visible in multiple lines, concentrated toward the upper left and center, with additional smaller strokes toward the right edge. No figural decoration, divine symbols, or cartouches are clearly legible at this resolution. The writing appears to be ink (dark brown/black) applied on the pottery. The fragment is worn and chipped along the edges, indicating a fragmentary condition.
Inscriptions (1)
Visible text (machine reading)
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.