Home › Browse › MET › Object 39852
Metropolitan Museum of Art — Egyptian Art (Open Access) · architecture

Inscribed fragment of a support pillar, Akhenaten, Nefetiti, Aten cartouches

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

Description

New Kingdom, Amarna Period, Dynasty 18, reign of Akhenaten, ca. 1353–1336 B.C. Indurated limestone. H. 11.5 × W. 15.5 × max D. 11 cm (4 1/2 × 6 1/8 × 4 5/16 in.). From: Great Temple of the Aten, pit outside southern wall, Amarna (Akhetaten), Middle Egypt, Egypt. Excavation: Petrie/Carter excavations, 1891–92. Subject: Hieroglyphs. Credit: Gift of Edward S. Harkness, 1921.

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.

Fragment of an inscribed relief support pillar showing two large cartouche-like ovals and surrounding decorative hieroglyphic elements.

The image shows a broken, horizontally oriented fragment of a limestone stela/pillar with incised and lightly relief-carved decoration. Two prominent rounded cartouche/oval enclosures dominate the composition—one on the left and one on the right—each containing the suggestion of a royal name within an oval field. Vertical columns of small hieroglyphic signs flank and extend below the enclosures, with additional wedge/feather-like decorative marks. The upper portions and edges are chipped; the lower face is flatter and more worn. No modern tooling marks or paint are visible. No Greek/Coptic/Arabic text is apparent. The content is consistent with Amarna-style royal titulary and Aten/Nefetiti/Akhenaten cartouche themes, though the exact sign-by-sign reading is not fully secure from this image resolution.

decorative New Kingdom, Amarna Period (c. reign of Akhenaten), likely 18th Dynasty fragmentary
Deities Aten (possible; not securely readable)unknown Amarna royal titulary elements
Royals Akhenaten (possible; not securely readable)Nefetiti/Nefertiti (possible; not securely readable)
Materials indurated limestone (catalogue ground truth; visually appears light-colored stone)
Signs cartouche-like oval enclosure(s) ×2 hieroglyphic vertical columns with wedges/feather-like strokes ×6

Connections

Found at Amarna (Akhetaten)
Deities Aten
Royals AkhenatenNefertiti

Cross-references (4)

  • Wikidata-Q Q116272981 tier-1
  • Collection-QID Q160236 tier-2 (wikidata-mediated)
  • Inventory-Number 21.9.451 tier-2 (wikidata-mediated)
  • MET-Object 549857 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.