Ba-bird
Description
Statue, Ba-bird. Ptolemaic Period, 332–30 BC or later. Wood, paint, gold leaf. H. 15.5 cm (6 1/8 in.); W. 5.1 cm (2 in.); L. 9.3 cm (3 11/16 in.). From: Egypt. Subject: Birds. Credit: Rogers Fund, 1944.
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 painted and gilded bird-shaped figurine mounted on a rectangular base, shown in profile with prominent wings and a human-like face-like head.
The object appears to be a small Egyptian-style ba-bird (or ba-bird-related) figure: a gold-toned head/upper body with an elongated beak or bird snout, wide eyes, and a painted ceremonial collar. The body is painted in reddish-brown with patterned wing or feather decoration in red and multicolored bands. The figure stands on a rectangular plinth/base painted turquoise-green on top and darker green/blue at the sides. Traces of gilding are visible on the head and along portions of the upper body. No legible hieroglyphic inscriptions, cartouches, or Greek/Coptic/Arabic text are clearly visible in this image. The detailed wing/fan patterning and the humanlike face features are consistent with a crafted devotional or funerary ba-bird figure.
Cross-references (4)
- Wikidata-Q Q116243111 tier-1
- Collection-QID Q160236 tier-2 (wikidata-mediated)
- Inventory-Number 44.4.83 tier-2 (wikidata-mediated)
- MET-Object 545942 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.