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

Funerary Cone of the Chief of the Merchants Tjay

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

Description

New Kingdom, Dynasty 18, ca. 1550–1295 B.C. Pottery. L. 15 cm (5 7/8 in.); Diam. 8 cm (3 1/8 in.). From: Upper Egypt, Thebes, Egypt. Subject: Hieroglyphs. Credit: Gift of Norman de Garis Davies, 1930.

The same text in other collections

Linked by shared inventory number (MET-Object 554992). Each record below describes this same artifact or text from a different angle.

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.

Photograph of a dark-and-light ceramic funerary cone fragment with vertical incised hieroglyphs on its surface.

The image shows a roughly circular/oval fragment of a fired clay object (catalogued as a funerary cone). The surface is mottled, likely from firing and wear, with a darkened edge and darker areas where the pigment/residue remains. Across the face are vertical, incised lines forming hieroglyph-like strokes and possible column layout; however, the individual signs are too blurred/partly abraded to confidently identify specific signs or the full inscription. No readable royal cartouche is apparent, and no Greek/Coptic/Arabic text can be confirmed. Deities are not clearly identifiable from the visible, incomplete hieroglyphs.

funerary New Kingdom (per catalogue ground truth; visible inscriptions not sufficient to refine further) fragmentary
Materials ceramic/clay (pottery)
Signs incised hieroglyphic signs (individual characters unclear)

Cross-references (5)

  • Wikidata-Q Q116244040 tier-1
  • Collection-QID Q160236 tier-2 (wikidata-mediated)
  • Inventory-Number 30.6.32 tier-2 (wikidata-mediated)
  • MET-Object 554992 tier-2 (wikidata-mediated)
  • PNM-Object pnm:83908043 tier-2 (inventory-match)
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.