Die
Description
Dice. Roman Period, 30 B.C.–A.D. 330. Ivory. 1.4 × 1.4 × 1 cm (9/16 × 9/16 × 3/8 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 ivory cube/rectangular die with painted or incised circular markings on multiple faces, resembling pips or tally-like dots.
The image shows a detached small, light-colored object shaped as a die (cube). The visible surfaces are covered with evenly spaced dark circular marks of varying count; the top face shows several circles arranged in a pattern, and adjacent side faces show different numbers of circles as typical of dice. The edges are worn, and the surface appears slightly stained or abraded. No clear Egyptian hieroglyphs, cartouches, or Greek/Coptic/Arabic script are legible in the image; the markings look like generic dot patterns rather than textual signs. No figurative deities or royal iconography is visible. The object’s color and translucency-like appearance are consistent with ivory. The catalogue’s identification as a “Die” therefore matches the object’s form, but its period/genre (Roman Period) and findspot cannot be directly verified from the image alone.
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.