Shell pendant or bead
Description
Pendant, shell. Predynastic Period, ca. 3850–2960 B.C. Shell. From: Egypt. Credit: Gift of Bashford Dean, 1916.
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 small, oval shell object shown in close-up, likely a pendant/bead form.
The image shows a single small, vertically oriented, almond/oval-shaped object with a natural curved cross-section and light beige to tan coloration. A dark line runs along the center where the two shell halves meet, suggesting a split shell or shell-derived piece. The surface has subtle mottling and weathering consistent with preserved organic/mineral shell material. No drilling, suspension hole, carved decoration, pigment, or attached suspension element is clearly visible in this view. There are no legible hieroglyphs or other textual marks on the surface; the dark central crease is anatomical to the shell rather than an inscription. No identifiable royal cartouches, named deities, or iconographic motifs are apparent from the photograph. The catalogued description as a shell pendant or bead is consistent with the visible shell-like form and materials.
Connections
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.