Siphon
Description
Object Label: Tools Egyptian workers, including artisans, farmers, and fishermen, required a wide variety of specialized tools. Woodworkers employed axes that had copper or bronze blades lashed to wooden handles with leather. Carpenters produced smooth surfaces with copper chisels, often with serrated edges. Tanners used broad, flat knives to cut strips of leather for sandals, harnesses, and whips, which they then pierced with metal awls. Field hands cut grain with curved sickles fitted with small flint blades. Fishermen relied on metal hooks with tiny barbs, much like their modern-day equivalents. Officials used siphons to inspect the liquid contents of vessels without breaking through the protective mud seals. Caption: Siphon, ca. 1539–1292 B.C.E.. Bronze, 2 1/4 x 1/4 in. (5.7 x 0.6 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 34.1186.
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.
The image shows a small metal instrument-like object with a long handle and a rectangular/boxy end, photographed against a pale background. The details are low-resolution and partially obscured by glare and blur, with no clearly readable inscription visible.
The artifact appears to be a bronze object consisting of a shaft/handle extending horizontally, terminating in a thicker rectangular head or attachment. A dark band and two cylindrical/peg-like elements are visible near the head, while the opposite end tapers or curves slightly. Bright reflections suggest museum lighting on a smooth metal surface; there is no clear view of decorative iconography, tool perforations, or a detachable spout. No legible hieroglyphic, Greek, Coptic, or Arabic text can be identified in the provided image. No cartouches or royal names are discernible, and no identifiable deity iconography is visible.
Connections
Cross-references (2)
- BKM-Accession 34.1186 tier-2
- BKM-Object 3341 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.