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

Scarab Inscribed for the God's Wife Hatshepsut, Given Life Forever

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

Description

New Kingdom, Dynasty 18, early, Joint reign of Hatshepsut and Thutmose III, ca. 1479–1458 B.C. Steatite (glazed). L. 1.8 cm (11/16 in.); W. 1.2 cm (1/2 in.). From: Temple of Hatshepsut, Foundation Deposit 7 (G), Deir el-Bahri, Upper Egypt, Thebes, Egypt. Excavation: MMA excavations, 1926–27. Subject: Scarabs. Credit: Rogers Fund, 1927.

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 glazed green steatite scarab seal inscribed with Egyptian hieroglyphs on the top surface.

The object is shown as an oval scarab with a glossy, turquoise-green glaze over a steatite body. The entire top is filled with tightly packed hieroglyphic signs in dark green/black, arranged in a roughly central block and extending across most of the scarab’s face. No clear cartouche boundaries are visible due to the worn/abraded nature of some signs and the low resolution. A small red speck is visible near the center-bottom area but cannot be identified as an intentional element from the image alone. No figures of deities are clearly discernible as pictorial forms; the decoration appears to be purely textual hieroglyphic inscription.

decorative New Kingdom (per catalogue) good
Materials steatite (glazed)
Signs Hieroglyphic inscription (multiple signs; exact reading unclear) ×12
Visible text "Appears to be an Egyptian hieroglyphic inscription across the scarab surface; individual words not reliably legible in the provided image."

Inscriptions (1)

Inscription #1 AI reading of the photograph

Visible text (machine reading)

Appears to be an Egyptian hieroglyphic inscription across the scarab surface; individual words not reliably legible in the provided image.

Connections

Found at Deir el-Bahri
Royals Hatshepsut
Materials Steatite

Cross-references (4)

  • Wikidata-Q Q116273335 tier-1
  • Collection-QID Q160236 tier-2 (wikidata-mediated)
  • Inventory-Number 27.3.196 tier-2 (wikidata-mediated)
  • MET-Object 549715 tier-2 (wikidata-mediated)
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.