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

Jewelry chest of Sithathoryunet

Source of record: Metropolitan Museum of Art — Egyptian Art (Open Access) — catalogued by the holding institution. View the original record →

Description

Middle Kingdom, Dynasty 12, reign of Senwosret II–Amenemhat III, ca. 1887–1813 B.C. Ebony, ivory, gold, carnelian, blue faience, silver. L. 46 cm (18 1/8 in.); H. 36.7 cm (14 7/16 in.); W. 32.5 cm (12 13/16 in.). From: Tomb of Sithathoryunet (BSA Tomb 8), Lahun, Fayum Entrance Area, Egypt. Excavation: BSAE excavations 1914. Subject: Sithathoryunet-Jewelry. Credit: Purchase, Rogers Fund and Henry Walters Gift, 1916.

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 jewelry chest with inlaid bands and decorative panels; the lid top shows small painted/outlined figures and the sides feature alternating vertical inlay stripes in dark and light materials with blue accents.

The image depicts a Middle Kingdom-style jewelry chest (trunk/casket) with a dark wooden frame and lid. The lid surface is decorated with several small, human-like or divine-looking standing figures rendered in light tones with colored accents, arranged in a row. The chest sides are covered by inset panels of light-colored inlay (possibly ivory-like) surrounded by dark wood. Along the side panels are multiple narrow vertical strips/bars, some appearing in gold-toned and others in blue-toned inlay, creating a striped decorative program. The front has a similar striped panel bordered by dark framing. No clear animal or scene narrative beyond the small figures on the lid is visible. A small cylindrical knob or finial sits at the center of the lid. No legible inscriptions are clearly readable at this resolution; no Greek/Coptic/Arabic text is visible.

decorative Middle Kingdom (as catalogued); exact date uncertain from image alone good
Materials dark wood (ebony-like appearance)light inlay (ivory-like)gold-toned inlay/foilblue-toned inlay (blue faience-like appearance)possibly silver-toned inlay (unclear)
Signs unknown decorative motif/figures (not legible hieroglyphs) ×4

Connections

Found at Lahun
Materials Light Inlay

Cross-references (4)

  • Wikidata-Q Q116243932 tier-1
  • Collection-QID Q160236 tier-2 (wikidata-mediated)
  • Inventory-Number 16.1.1 tier-2 (wikidata-mediated)
  • MET-Object 545520 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.