Metropolitan Museum of Art — Egyptian Art (Open Access) · other

Die

Source of record: Metropolitan Museum of Art — Egyptian Art (Open Access) — catalogued by the holding institution. View the original record →

Description

Dice. Roman Period, 30 B.C.–A.D. 330. Ivory. 0.8 × 0.8 × 0.8 cm (5/16 × 5/16 × 5/16 in.). From: Oxyrhynchus (Bahnasa), Middle Egypt, Egypt. Excavation: EEF excavations 1896–97. Credit: Gift of Egypt Exploration Fund, 1897.

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 fragment of worked material with two mirrored/adjacent groups of dark circular motifs resembling stamped decorative elements or simplified hieroglyph-like marks.

The image shows a small, light-colored rectangular object (roughly thumb-nail sized) with a slightly worn surface. Across the face are two clusters of dark-brown/black circular forms arranged in rows and columns. Each motif appears as a ring or donut-like circle with a smaller central dot, repeated in a pattern; the left cluster includes several lighter-ringed circles while the right cluster has more filled/darker circular elements. No clearly identifiable human figures, animals, deities, or legible hieroglyphic inscriptions are visible; the markings could be decorative or pseudo-hieroglyphic, but this cannot be confirmed from the image quality. No chisel tool marks or attachment features are clearly visible beyond surface wear and staining. No Greek/Coptic/Arabic text is apparent.

unclear Roman Period (per catalogue) fragmentary
Materials ivory
Signs circular ring/dot motif (decorative stamp-like marks) ×16

Connections

Found at Oxyrhynchus
Materials Ivory
About this record's data
  • From the source institution — accession, description, dimensions, and dating are as catalogued by Metropolitan Museum of Art — Egyptian Art (Open Access).
  • 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.