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, 73.84.3. (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.
A small rectangular, turquoise-blue faience wall tile fragment, viewed front-on, with chipped edges and two small fastening pegs on the sides.
The image shows a single glazed ceramic/faience tile with a smooth, bright turquoise surface and darker speckling/oxidation consistent with age and handling. The tile is rectangular with rounded corners, but the top right and bottom right edges are chipped/abraded. On the left and right sides of the tile, near mid-height, two short peg-like projections protrude, suggesting the tile was mounted or attached to a wall backing (e.g., with dowels). No clear figural decoration, bordered pattern, or legible hieroglyphs are visible in the available view. The background appears to be a museum display mount; no associated cartouche, royal titulary, deity iconography, or inscriptions can be reliably identified from the photograph.
Cross-references (2)
- BKM-Accession 73.84.3 tier-2
- BKM-Object 3824 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.