Palette with Double Bird Head Edfu (vicinity), Egypt
Description
Object Label: Egyptians rubbed palettes like these with small pebbles to grind green or black pigment for eye paint. These cosmetics accentuated the eyes and protected against sun glare and infection. Eye paint palettes were also thought to provide magical protection, which could be enhanced by giving them animal shapes such as the three examples shown here. The palettes were important possessions that were often buried with their owners. Caption: Palette with Double Bird Head, ca. 3300–3000 B.C.E.. Graywacke, shell, faience, limestone, garnet, 4 5/8 x 8 7/8 in. (11.8 x 22.5 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 09.889.161. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)
AI image analysis GPT-5.4-nano
A machine reading of the photograph made Jul 2026: deities, names, signs and a description as the model saw them. Not curatorial; treat it as the model's best reading, not authority.
Connections
Cross-references (2)
- BKM-Accession 09.889.161 tier-2
- BKM-Object 3268 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.