Brooklyn Museum — Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art · tool

Asian Dagger

Source of record: Brooklyn Museum — Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art — catalogued by the holding institution. View the original record →

Description

Object Label: Daggers such as this one, with two parallel ribs running down the blade, have been found throughout modern Israel. The design is undoubtedly Asian, probably Hyksos. How such a blade reached Thebes is not known; it may have been brought back as a souvenir by a Theban soldier who fought in the wars against the Hyksos. Catalogue description: Culture Syrian Caption: Syrian. Asian Dagger, ca. 1630–1539 B.C.E.. Copper alloy, horn, 9 5/16 x 3/4 in. (23.7 x 1.9 cm) Blade: 1 5/8 x 1/2 in. (4.1 x 1.3 cm) Handle: 1 3/4 x 2 7/8 in. (4.4 x 7.3 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 37.284E. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)

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 photographed copper-alloy dagger blade with a preserved, dark organic component at the top and a vertically oriented, decorated/inscribed surface.

The image shows a single dagger laid against a light background, photographed front-on. The lower portion is a long, straight blade with two central raised lines or borders and additional shallow linear detailing. Near the top, there is a broader tang/handle area that appears covered or wrapped in a dark, textured organic material (consistent with horn or similar). Small rounded rivet/attachment points are visible along the top section. A small, dark, roughly rectangular mark or possible sign-like element appears on the upper portion, but no clearly legible hieroglyphs are identifiable at this resolution. No cartouches, royal names, or explicit deity iconography are visible. No Greek/Coptic/Arabic text is present.

photographic documentation Second Intermediate Period (as catalogued) fragmentary
Materials copper alloy (blade)horn/organic (handle/tang covering)
Signs unidentified mark (possible letter/sign)

Connections

Found at Thebes
Materials Copper Alloy

Cross-references (2)

  • BKM-Accession 37.284E tier-2
  • BKM-Object 4010 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.