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

Inlay depicting enthroned god Shepsi

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

Description

Late Period–Ptolemaic Period, 4th century B.C. Faience. H. 15 cm (5 7/8 in.); W. 10.2 cm (4 in.); D. 1 cm (3/8 in.). Possibly from: Hermopolis (Ashmunein; Khemenu), Middle Egypt. Credit: Purchase, Edward S. Harkness Gift, 1926.

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 greenish faience inlay/block shows a seated, front-facing male figure wearing a tripartite wig and holding an ankh-like object in one hand, with a decorated throne base behind/under him.

The artifact depicts a human-like deity or divine figure seated on a rectangular throne or base with patterned borders. The head is shown in profile to the left (facing left), with a stylized headdress/wig and a broad facial outline. A beaded or pleated collar or garment is indicated across the chest. One hand is raised toward the torso and holds an ankh-shaped symbol; the other arm rests down by the side. The throne/base is decorated with geometric scales or fish-scale patterning on the upper field and horizontal register-like bands at the bottom. Small painted/inscribed decorative areas appear on the throne face, but no clearly legible individual hieroglyphs are confidently identifiable from the image resolution. No Greek, Coptic, or Arabic text is visible.

religious Late Period–Ptolemaic Period (consistent with style) good
Deities Shepsi (catalogue subject; specific identification not independently confirmable from the image alone, but depicted as an enthroned god)
Materials faience

Connections

Found at Hermopolis
Materials Faience

Cross-references (4)

  • Wikidata-Q Q116252449 tier-1
  • Collection-QID Q160236 tier-2 (wikidata-mediated)
  • Inventory-Number 26.7.997 tier-2 (wikidata-mediated)
  • MET-Object 551332 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.