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

Relief fragment, tomb of Mereri

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

Description

First Intermediate Period, Dynasty 9, ca. 2100–2030 B.C. Limestone. H. 14.5 × W. 15.7 × D. 3.8 cm (5 11/16 × 6 3/16 × 1 1/2 in.). From: Tomb of Mereri, Behind Temple of Hathor, Dendera, Northern Upper Egypt, Egypt. Excavation: Egypt Exploration Fund excavations, 1898. Credit: Gift of Egypt Exploration Fund, 1898.

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.

Rectangular limestone relief fragment showing part of a human figure in profile with an upraised, feathered/diadem-like element and adjacent vertical hieroglyph-like sign traces.

The artifact is a small, broken rectangular panel of limestone with an incised/relief carving. In the left register, a human figure is shown in profile, facing left, with a prominent headdress/diadem and a feather-like or pleated element descending from the head toward the torso. The right side contains a thick, vertically oriented border or sign-form with angular edges, resembling hieroglyphic sign traces but not enough is preserved to identify specific characters confidently. Overall the carving is shallow and the surface is worn, especially along the break edges, obscuring finer details. No paint, gilding, or metalwork is visible; the carving appears to be executed in stone relief only.

religious First Intermediate Period (as catalogued; exact dating cannot be confirmed from this fragment alone) fragmentary
Materials limestone

Connections

Found at Dendera
Materials Limestone
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.