Wall Tile from a Royal Funerary Structure
Description
Object Label: Blue-green glazed rectangular tiles like these once decorated the walls of subterranean rooms beneath King Djoser’s Step Pyramid. As the first example of monumental stone architecture in Egypt, Djoser’s funerary complex was meant to provide the king’s spirit with an abode for eternity. The tiles imitated the hangings of reeds lashed together by horizontal cords that decorated palace walls during this king’s lifetime. Caption: Wall Tile from a Royal Funerary Structure, ca. 2675–2625 B.C.E.. Faience, 2 3/16 x 1 7/16 x 11/16 in. (5.6 x 3.6 x 1.8 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 73.84.4.
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.
Two small turquoise-green faience wall-tile fragments shown from the front, with no clearly legible decoration or inscriptions visible.
The image shows two detached, rectangular objects with rounded edges and a turquoise-green glaze. Each piece has broken surfaces and uneven edges; the glaze appears worn with visible losses and scattered speckling consistent with weathering or ancient/modern handling. Along the left edge of each fragment are small protrusions or pins/attachments that may relate to how the tile was mounted or had a backing. No painted relief, molded figures, hieroglyphs, or cartouches are clearly visible on either face in this photograph; the surfaces look largely blank aside from abrasion marks. No Greek/Coptic/Arabic text is visible.
Cross-references (2)
- BKM-Accession 73.84.4 tier-2
- BKM-Object 3825 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.