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

Headrest of Shemai

Brooklyn Museum — Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art, acc. 59.3. Public domain (CC0). Copy archived by egyptianinscriptions.org with attribution; original at the holding institution.

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Accession: 59.3
Find spot: Deir el Nawahid, Egypt, Egypt
Period: Old Kingdom
Dynasty: Dynasty 6
Date: ca. 2288–2170 B.C.E.
Date range: 2288 BCE – 2170 BCE
Materials: ['Alabaster', 'pigment']
Height: 19.4 cm
Repository: Brooklyn Museum
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Cite & export

Brooklyn Museum — Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art, Headrest of Shemai (59.3). Egyptian Inscriptions Database. https://egyptianinscriptions.org/object/35819

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Description

Object Label: This headrest—the Egyptian version of a pillow—was found in the tomb of a man named Shemai. Headrests were believed to have magical powers that protected the head from evil spirits. The inscription on this example invokes Osiris, god of the afterworld, suggesting that Shemai had it made specifically for his tomb. Caption: Headrest of Shemai, ca. 2288–2170 B.C.E.. Alabaster, pigment, 7 5/8 in. (19.4 cm) base: 6 3/16 × 2 3/4 in. (15.7 × 7 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 59.3. (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.

Photograph of an ancient Egyptian alabaster headrest with a flared curved back and a carved, inscribed central upright and base.

The artifact is shown front-on against a neutral background. It has a smooth, curved, crescent-shaped head support at the top and a vertically oriented central portion beneath it, bordered by fluted/ridged sides. The central vertical panel bears dark-painted hieroglyphic signs (multiple stacked lines). The horizontal base also includes dark-painted carved or incised signs along its visible front edge. The surface appears worn with losses and cracking in places, but overall form is clear. No modern mount or label text is visible in the photograph. The image is consistent with a stone headrest (catalogued as alabaster with pigment).

decorative Old Kingdom (as catalogued; inscriptions appear in an Old Kingdom headrest style) good

Materials Alabasterpigment (dark paint remaining on incised/carved areas)

Signs multiple hieroglyphic signs, exact reading unclear (upper/central stacked band) ×20 multiple hieroglyphic signs, exact reading unclear (front base band) ×10

Visible text "Dark-painted hieroglyphs are visible in stacked lines on the central upright and a separate band on the base, but the individual signs are not sufficiently legible in this image to provide an accurate transcription."

Connections

Deities Osiris

Materials Alabaster

Cross-references (2)

BKM-Accession 59.3 tier-2
BKM-Object 3667 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.