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 5/16 × 1 1/2 × 9/16 in. (5.8 × 3.8 × 1.4 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 34.1180a.
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 turquoise-blue glazed object depicting a seated, winged or caped figure with a human-like face and a long staff or arm element, displayed in a museum case.
The image shows a single blue faience-like artifact placed on a museum display surface. The central figure has a human face with stylized features and appears to wear a tall headdress/arrangement of ridges behind the head, with a wing-like or draped element rising to the upper right. One arm/hand is raised toward a large curled shape to the left, and the other side shows a support or object held close to the body. The surface is glossy and uniformly turquoise-blue with darker greenish/teal highlights in recessed areas, consistent with glazed faience. The object’s back and sides are partially obscured by the display angle. No clear, legible hieroglyphic signs or cartouches are visible on the artifact itself in this view. Text appears on printed wall labels behind and to the left, but it is too small/blurred to reliably transcribe; no Greek/Coptic/Arabic is legible. A small, separate light-colored circular artifact in the back-left is also present, but not part of the main object.
Cross-references (2)
- BKM-Accession 34.1180a tier-2
- BKM-Object 3336 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.