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

Sealing, from letter 22.3.518 from Heqanakht to Rahotep

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

Description

Middle Kingdom, Dynasty 12, reign of Senwosret I, ca. 1961–1917 B.C. Mud, fiber. L. 2 × W. 1.3 cm (13/16 × 1/2 in.). From: Tomb of Hesem (TT 516), Deir el-Bahri, Upper Egypt, Thebes, Egypt. Excavation: MMA excavations, 1922–23. Credit: Rogers Fund, 1925.

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, broken lump of baked/clay-like sealing material bearing impressed cursive/hieroglyph-like marks on one face.

The image shows a compact, irregular fragment of mud/fiber sealing material, dark gray to brown, with a rough surface and signs of breakage along the edges. On one main face there are shallow impressed incised/pressed lines forming what appear to be an eye/face-like motif or a stylized sign cluster, along with curved strokes that resemble cursive hieroglyphs. The reverse side is not clearly legible due to the fragmentary condition. No clearly identifiable cartouche, royal titulary, or named individual is readable from the photo. No Greek, Coptic, or Arabic text is visible. The impressed marks look Egyptian but are too indistinct to assign specific signs with confidence.

decorative Middle Kingdom (catalogue ground truth; visual evidence is too limited for independent confirmation) fragmentary
Materials mudfiber
Signs Unidentified impressed hieroglyphic/cursive sign(s) (face/eye-like motif and curved strokes)
Visible text "Impressed/pressed Egyptian-style signs; specific sign sequence not legible in the provided image."

Connections

Found at Deir el-Bahri
Materials MudFiber

Cross-references (4)

  • Wikidata-Q Q116415298 tier-1
  • Collection-QID Q160236 tier-2 (wikidata-mediated)
  • Inventory-Number 25.3.269 tier-2 (wikidata-mediated)
  • MET-Object 547558 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.