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

Writing board

Metropolitan Museum of Art — Egyptian Art (Open Access), acc. 28.9.4. Public domain (CC0). Copy archived by egyptianinscriptions.org with attribution; original at the holding institution.

Accession: 28.9.4
Find spot: Akhmim (Khemmis, Panopolis), Upper Egypt, Thebes or Northern Upper Egypt approx. site location
Period: Middle Kingdom
Dynasty: Dynasty 12
Date: ca. 1981–1802 B.C.
Date range: 1981 BCE – 1802 BCE
Materials: ['wood', 'gesso', 'paint']
Repository: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
At source: View original →

Cite & export

Metropolitan Museum of Art — Egyptian Art (Open Access), Writing board (28.9.4). Egyptian Inscriptions Database. https://egyptianinscriptions.org/object/22696

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Description

Middle Kingdom, Dynasty 12, ca. 1981–1802 B.C. Wood, gesso, paint. L. 43 cm (16 15/16 in); w. 19 cm (7 1/2 in). Said to be from: Akhmim (Khemmis, Panopolis), Upper Egypt, Thebes or Northern Upper Egypt. Credit: Gift of Edward S. Harkness, 1928.

The same text in other collections

Linked by shared inventory number (ORAEC-id oraec1998). Each record below describes this same artifact or text from a different angle.

B: Musterbrief des In-su / Schreibtafel MMA 28.9.4 (A+B) ORAEC text(unbestimmt)
A: Musterbrief des Behsu / Schreibtafel MMA 28.9.4 (A+B) ORAEC text(unbestimmt)
MMA 28.9.4 PNM text

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 rectangular wooden writing board covered with dense ink-written Egyptian hieroglyphs and occasional red marks.

The image shows a horizontally oriented rectangular board with rounded corners and an uneven, abraded surface along the edges. The majority of the surface is filled with closely spaced Egyptian hieroglyphic text written in dark ink, with several strokes or highlights in red. The hieroglyphs appear to be organized in horizontal lines across the board. No clear painted figures, deities, or royal names/cartouches are legible at this image resolution, but the text is clearly present throughout. Condition is consistent with age-related wear and partial flaking/abrasion, especially along the left and right edges. The subject aligns with the catalogue description of a Middle Kingdom writing board, though specific material composition beyond visible wood and painted/inked surfaces cannot be confirmed from the image alone.

hieroglyphic only Middle Kingdom (per catalogue ground truth); exact dynasty/regnal date unclear from image. fragmentary

Materials wood (board)ink/paint (black and red writing)

Signs Egyptian hieroglyphs (multiple signs; exact list not legible at this resolution) ×200

Connections

Found at Akhmim

Materials Wood

Cross-references (7)

Wikidata-Q Q29385780 tier-1
Collection-QID Q160236 tier-2 (wikidata-mediated)
Inventory-Number 28.9.4 tier-2 (wikidata-mediated)
MET-Object 544319 tier-2 (wikidata-mediated)
ORAEC-id oraec9003 tier-2 (inventory-match)
ORAEC-id oraec1998 tier-2 (inventory-match)
PNM-Object pnm:83895961 tier-2 (inventory-match)

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.