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

Tool (?)

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

Description

Lower Paleolithic Period, ca. 300,000–90,000 B.C. Flint. From: Deir el-Bahri, Upper Egypt, Thebes, Egypt. Credit: Gift of C. T. Currelly, 1906.

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 single knapped stone piece (likely flint) photographed against a light background, showing multiple sharp edges and a thick core-like form.

The artifact appears to be a knapped lithic tool made from a dark, mottled stone consistent with flint. The surface shows bulb-of-percussion/cortex-like areas and several negative flake scars, indicating deliberate percussion flaking. The object has a relatively thick core shape with protruding ridges and sharp edges along one or more margins. No carvings, painted decoration, or inscriptions are visible on the image, and there are no discernible carved symbols or letterforms. The photograph does not show any archaeological context, measures, or attachment to any larger object. Material evidence supports a stone-tool identification, but the image alone cannot confirm the exact tool function or type beyond “lithic tool.”

unclear Lower Paleolithic (based on catalogue ground truth; the image itself cannot date reliably) good
Materials flintstone (lithic)

Connections

Found at Deir el-Bahri
Materials StoneFlint
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.