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

Hieratic Ostracon

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

Description

Ostracon, hieratic. New Kingdom, Ramesside, Dynasty 20, ca. 1186–1070 B.C. Limestone, ink. h. 11.4 cm (4 1/2 in); w. 6 cm (2 3/8 in). From: Workmen's Huts near KV 55 (site 18) or between KV 18 and KV 21, or from chip heaps in same branch of Valley, Valley of the Kings, Upper Egypt, Thebes, Egypt. Excavation: Davis/Ayrton excavations, 1907–08. Subject: Hieratic. Credit: Gift of Theodore M. Davis, 1909.

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 broken limestone ostracon with faint inked hieratic marks visible near the lower central area.

The image shows a fragmentary, irregularly shaped limestone sherd (ostracon). The surface is light beige/cream with small mineral inclusions and flaking along the edges. There are faint, dark ink traces forming unclear hieratic strokes concentrated toward the lower portion of the fragment; the rest of the surface appears mostly blank or only lightly stained. A small red registration number is visible on the lower face (“09.184.185.”), which is modern cataloguing rather than ancient writing. No clearly legible Greek, Coptic, or Arabic text is visible. No cartouches or royal titulary are discernible with confidence, and no deities can be identified from the indistinct writing.

hieroglyphic only New Kingdom (Ramesside), unclear from image details fragmentary
Materials limestone (ostracon substrate)ink (faint dark traces)
Signs unclear hieratic strokes/characters ×10
Visible text "Faint, illegible hieratic text concentrated near the lower central area; no reliable excerpt possible."

Inscriptions (1)

Inscription #1 AI reading of the photograph

Visible text (machine reading)

Faint, illegible hieratic text concentrated near the lower central area; no reliable excerpt possible.

Connections

Found at Valley of the Kings
Materials Limestone

Cross-references (4)

  • Wikidata-Q Q116252268 tier-1
  • Collection-QID Q160236 tier-2 (wikidata-mediated)
  • Inventory-Number 09.184.185 tier-2 (wikidata-mediated)
  • MET-Object 573248 tier-2 (wikidata-mediated)
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.