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

Shell pendant or bead

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

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, polished conch-shell form with one smooth face and a ribbed/striated interior edge, shaped like a pendant or bead.

The object is photographed against a plain light background. It appears as a single shell piece, likely a conch/cowrie-type fragment, with a curved overall profile. One broad side shows a smoother exterior surface with scattered small discolorations or speckling. Along one edge there is a scalloped/irregular contour and, on the opposite side, a clearly ribbed or fluted interior section with closely spaced ridges. No fastening hole, suspension perforation, or clear drilled opening is visible in this image (though the angle/resolution may obscure it). No carved decoration or readable inscriptions are present.

decorative Predynastic Period (as given by museum catalogue; visual evidence not sufficient to refine further). good
Materials shell

Connections

Materials Shell
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.