Ostracon
Description
Ostracon, hieratic. Middle Kingdom, Dynasty 12–13, ca. 1981–1640 B.C. Pottery, ink. h. 10.5 cm (4 1/8 in); w. 10.5 cm (4 1/8 in). From: cemetery, Pit 996, Lisht North, Memphite Region, Egypt. Excavation: MMA excavations, 1921–22. Subject: Hieratic. Credit: Rogers Fund and Edward S. Harkness Gift, 1922.
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 small, broken pottery ostracon fragment bearing faded dark-ink marks arranged like Egyptian hieroglyphic text lines.
The image shows a triangular-to-trapezoidal fragment of fired earthenware with a reddish-brown surface and a rough break at the top-right edge. Dark gray/black ink forms several lines of partial hieroglyphic signs across the flatter face; some signs are clearer in the central band while others are too fragmentary to read. No figures of people or deities are depicted—only text-like sign clusters. No Greek, Coptic, or Arabic script is visible. No cartouche or royal titulary is clearly legible from this image.
Inscriptions (1)
Visible text (machine reading)
Cross-references (4)
- Wikidata-Q Q116245035 tier-1
- Collection-QID Q160236 tier-2 (wikidata-mediated)
- Inventory-Number 22.1.305 tier-2 (wikidata-mediated)
- MET-Object 545176 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.