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

Ostracon with hieratic inscription

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

Description

New Kingdom, Ramesside–Late Period, Dynasty 19–26, ca. 1295–525 B.C. Limestone, ink. H. 10.1 × W. 12.3 × D. 4 cm (4 × 4 13/16 × 1 9/16 in.). From: East of Pabasa, Radim, Asasif, Upper Egypt, Thebes, Egypt. Excavation: MMA excavations, 1918–19. Credit: Rogers Fund, 1919.

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.

Fragment of a limestone ostracon bearing a short ink inscription in Egyptian hieratic/dark ink strokes arranged in several lines across the top surface.

The object is a roughly rounded, broken piece of light-colored stone with a concave/irregular fracture and a relatively flat writing area on top. Black ink/hieratic signs are visible in multiple lines near the upper portion of the fragment; the strokes vary in length and thickness, consistent with cursive hieratic rather than carved hieroglyphs. No figural scenes, human/animal forms, or cartouches are clearly present on the visible surface. The remaining stone surface is blank aside from the ink. No Greek, Coptic, or Arabic text is visible, and no clear deity iconography can be identified from the remaining signs.

hieroglyphic only New Kingdom, Ramesside–Late Period (as catalogued); inscription appears cursive hieratic but exact date uncertain from the fragment alone. fragmentary
Materials limestone (stone substrate)ink (black)
Signs hieratic ink signs (individual characters unclear) ×15
Visible text "Hieratic inscription; exact transcription unreadable at this resolution (multiple lines of dark signs visible)."

Inscriptions (1)

Inscription #1 AI reading of the photograph

Visible text (machine reading)

Hieratic inscription; exact transcription unreadable at this resolution (multiple lines of dark signs visible).

Connections

Found at Asasif
Materials LimestoneInk
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.