Ostracon
Description
Late Period–Ptolemaic Period, 400–30 B.C. Pottery, ink. 5.1 x 6.1 x 0.7 cm (2 x 2 3/8 x 1/4 in.). From: Hibis, Western Desert; Kharga Oasis, Egypt. Excavation: MMA excavations, 1908–10. Credit: Rogers Fund, 1925.
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 reddish-orange pottery ostracon fragment with faint dark ink traces consistent with a short inscription or text lines.
The image shows a broken, irregular rectangular/polygonal fragment of fired clay (ostracon). The surface is reddish-orange with small inclusions and uneven edges, indicating it is a waste fragment or sherd used as a writing surface. Dark brown/black pigment marks are present but are too faint and incomplete to securely read individual hieroglyphs. No clear cartouche, deity determinative, or figure is visible. The marks appear aligned as short strokes/lines rather than decoration. No Greek, Coptic, or Arabic script is visible.
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.