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

Intaglio with head of Serapis (?)

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

Description

Intaglio, Serapis (?). Ptolemaic Period, 332–30 B.C. Carnelian. Diam: 2 cm (13/16 in.). From: Egypt. Subject: Men. 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.

Circular red-brown scarab-like seal intaglio showing a bearded male head rendered in relief/engraving.

The image depicts a small, oval-to-circular translucent carnelian object photographed against a light gray background. The face is centrally placed and carved/engraved in a raised (or slightly incised) intaglio style, with visible hair or a patterned coiffure and a full beard. The head has an open/arched eye area and a symmetrical frontal presentation, consistent with a Hellenistic-style divinity portrait commonly associated with Serapis on seal impressions. No surrounding inscriptions or borders are clearly visible due to the tight crop and lighting. No clear hieroglyphs, Greek, Coptic, or Arabic text is legible, and there are no royal cartouches visible.

decorative Ptolemaic Period (as per catalogue); subject style appears Hellenistic/Greco-Egyptian good
Deities Serapis (uncertain, catalogue suggests Serapis ?)
Materials carnelian (reddish translucent stone)

Connections

Deities Serapis

Cross-references (4)

  • Wikidata-Q Q116245352 tier-1
  • Collection-QID Q160236 tier-2 (wikidata-mediated)
  • Inventory-Number 26.7.1363 tier-2 (wikidata-mediated)
  • MET-Object 553817 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.