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

Bes Amulet

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

Description

Caption: Bes Amulet, ca. 1836–1700 B.C.E.. Faience, 1 1/4 x 13/16 x 3/8 in. (3.2 x 2.1 x 1 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Ariane, Nike, and Samara Mele, 1990.13.

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.

Small faience amulet depicting the dwarf-god Bes, shown in a standing frontal pose with arms down and raised, and a headdress/wig indicated by linear incisions.

The object is a small, sky-blue faience figure with slight speckling and wear. It is oriented frontally and shaped like a seated/standing figure of Bes. The head has an indicated headdress/wig rendered by dark incised lines and a vertical central motif. The torso is outlined with incised contours; the arms appear raised slightly or held forward, with the hands/forearms delineated by darker paint/outline. No clear back pillar or suspension loop is visible from this angle. A dark, ladder-like or headdress frame element is visible over/around the head area, and there are additional incision marks on the upper body. No legible hieroglyphs, cartouches, or alphabetic text are visible; only decorative/incised elements associated with the figure. The overall condition is good with minor chipping and surface loss consistent with age or excavation handling.

religious Middle Kingdom (as catalogued) good
Deities Bes (dwarf god; unclear exact inscriptions)
Materials Faience (blue glazed ceramic)

Connections

Deities Bes

Cross-references (2)

  • BKM-Accession 1990.13 tier-2
  • BKM-Object 4236 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.