Hippopotamus
Description
Object Label: Placing an image of a hippo in the tomb was believed to provide powerful protection for the spirit of the deceased. At the same time, hippos evoke chaotic forces because of the danger they pose to humans as wild animals in this world. For this reason, Egyptians often snapped off the legs of hippopotamus statuettes before placing them in tombs. The broken stumps of the statuette’s legs demonstrate how bright blue glaze adhered to the white faience. Caption: Hippopotamus, ca. 1938–1539 B.C.E.. Faience, 2 1/2 × 2 1/4 × 4 3/4 in. (6.4 × 5.7 × 12.1 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 35.1276. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)
AI image analysis GPT-4o-2024-08-06
Machine-generated from the object's image on May 2026. Not curatorial; treat deities, names, and signs below as the model's best reading, not authority.
A small faience figurine of a hippopotamus.
The artifact is a faience hippopotamus sculpture, characterized by its bright turquoise glaze and black painted details outlining the eyes and floral patterns on its body. The style reflects the artistic conventions of funereal objects used in tombs as they were believed to have protective qualities.
Cross-references (2)
- BKM-Accession 35.1276 tier-2
- BKM-Object 3366 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.