Cup with feather (?) decoration
Description
Cup, feather pattern (?). Meroitic Period, 30 B.C.–A.D. 364. Pottery, paint. H. 7.9 × Dia. 7.4 cm (3 1/8 × 2 15/16 in.). From: Cemetery 1, Grave 2538, Faras, Lower Nubia, Nubia (Sudan). Excavation: University of Oxford Excavations in Nubia 1911–1912. Credit: Rogers Fund, 1913.
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 ceramic cup/jar with a painted decorative band of repeating semicircular motifs across the upper body.
The object is a squat, hexagonal/rounded cup with a slightly flared rim. The surface is tan/orange with dark brown paint. Around the upper body there is a horizontal decorative field composed of repeated fan- or feather-like semicircular shapes arranged in stacked rows. A thinner band appears near the rim, and the main motif occupies the middle register, wrapping around the visible circumference. The base area is plain. No readable hieroglyphic, cartouche, or other textual inscriptions are visible in the image; any small markings on the rim area are unclear and not confidently identifiable as text. The museum catalogue’s “feather (?) decoration” description matches the visible repeating semicircular/feather-scale pattern, though the motif is schematic rather than clearly individual feathers.
Cross-references (4)
- Wikidata-Q Q116247854 tier-1
- Collection-QID Q160236 tier-2 (wikidata-mediated)
- Inventory-Number 13.125.34 tier-2 (wikidata-mediated)
- MET-Object 552299 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.