Hippopotamus ("William")
Description
Figurine, Hippopotamus ("William"); Dendur-decoded. Middle Kingdom, Dynasty 12, Senwosret I to Senwosret II, ca. 1961–1878 B.C. Faience. L. 20 cm (7 7/8 in.); W. 7.5 cm (2 15/16 in.); H. 11.2 cm (4 7/16 in.). From: Tomb B3 of the nomarch Senbi II, pit 1 (steward Senbi), Meir, Middle Egypt, Egypt. Excavation: Khashaba excavations, 1910. Subject: Hippos. Credit: Gift of Edward S. Harkness, 1917.
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 turquoise-blue faience figurine of a hippopotamus in profile, facing right, with incised decorative markings on the body and tail-like forms along the back.
The object is a small sculpted hippo figure with squat legs and a rounded torso. The head has a broad muzzle and visible eye/eye-lid detail; the mouth line and nostril area are indicated with shallow modeling. The back and sides show dark incised or painted patterning resembling stylized musculature and hide texture; on the shoulder/body there are also darker line motifs that look like feather/leaf-shaped elements, and a band-like marking runs along the dorsal area. The tail is indicated by short raised/incised lines at the rear. No clearly readable inscription is visible at this resolution. The piece appears uniformly glazed in turquoise blue with some darker decorative elements and minor surface wear. No deities or royal names/cartouches are discernible.
Cross-references (4)
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.