Walters Art Museum (Egyptian) · jewelry

Ring with Bust of Serapis

Walters Art Museum (Egyptian), acc. 54.1624. Public domain (CC0). Copy archived by egyptianinscriptions.org with attribution; original at the holding institution.

Accession: 54.1624
Dynasty: Ptolemaic Dynasty
Date: 3rd-2nd century BCE (Greco-Roman)
Date range: 300 BCE – 100 BCE
Materials: ['bronze']
Repository: Walters Art Museum
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Cite & export

Walters Art Museum (Egyptian), Ring with Bust of Serapis (54.1624). Egyptian Inscriptions Database. https://egyptianinscriptions.org/object/220642

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Description

<p>The god Serapis combined aspects of major Egyptian and Greek gods. Created by the Ptolemaic kings to appeal to both the Greek ruling class and the native Egyptian population, Serapis acquired powerful solar, fertility, healing, and funerary associations and eventually became extremely popular throughout the Mediterranean world.</p><p>For the latest information about this object, <cite><a href='https://purl.thewalters.org/art/54.1624' rel='external'>Ring with Bust of Serapis</a></cite>, visit the Online Collection of the Walters Art Museum.</p>

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 small ring seal or signet showing an oval bezel with a carved bust in relief.

The object is shown isolated against a light background. The face is an oval/teardrop-like bezel with a raised, darkly patinated sculpted bust viewed from the front. The head has a stylized hairstyle/attributes consistent with a Greco-Egyptian deity portrait style, though specific attributes cannot be confirmed from this image alone. No clear cartouche, hieroglyphic, Greek, Coptic, or Arabic inscription is visible. The metal surface appears dark and uneven, suggesting bronze with surface corrosion/patina; the form resembles a ring or signet with the bust acting as the seal face.

decorative unknown (likely Greco-Roman, but cannot be confirmed from this image alone) good

Deities Serapis (depicted bust; identification consistent with catalogue but not independently confirmable from image detail)

Materials bronze

Connections

Deities Serapis

Materials Bronze

Cross-references (2)

Walters-AccNum 54.1624 tier-2
Walters-id 30765 tier-2

About this record's data

From the source institution — accession, description, dimensions, and dating are as catalogued by Walters Art Museum (Egyptian).
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.