Milk Vase
Description
Object Label: Early Dynasty 18 potters produced vessels with applied clay in the shape of a woman's head, arms, and breasts. The Ebers Medical Papyrus, a list of remedies and prescriptions composed in the first years of the dynasty, describes the curative powers of breast milk from a woman who has given birth to a male child. According to the papyrus, a person in pain should store this milk in a jar until cream appears and then apply this cream to "all the sick places." A "milk vase" such as the example here may have contained this magic liquid. Caption: Milk Vase, ca. 1539–1479 B.C.E.. Clay, pigment, 14 3/4 × Diam. 6 1/4 in. (37.5 × 15.9 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the Egypt Exploration Fund, 14.642. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)
AI image analysis GPT-4o-2024-08-06
Machine-generated from the object's image on May 2026. Not curatorial; treat deities, names, and signs below as the model's best reading, not authority.
A ceramic vessel with a simple design.
The artifact is a tall, ceramic vessel with a plain surface, featuring minimal decorative elements including two parallel lines near the top. Its shape is elongated with a narrow neck and no visible handles, suggesting it may have been used for storage or transport of liquids.
Connections
Cross-references (2)
- BKM-Accession 14.642 tier-2
- BKM-Object 3115 tier-2
About this record's data
- From the source institution — accession, description, dimensions, and dating are as catalogued by Brooklyn Museum — Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art.
- 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.