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

Hieratic ostracon

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

Description

Ostracon, hieratic. New Kingdom, Ramesside, Dynasty 19–20, ca. 1295–1070 B.C. Limestone, ink, paint. H. 8.6 × W. 12 × Th. 1.9 cm (3 3/8 × 4 3/4 × 3/4 in.). From: Valley of the Kings, Upper Egypt, Thebes, Egypt. Excavation: Davis excavations. Credit: Gift of Theodore M. Davis, 1909.

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.

Fragment of a limestone ostracon with a small line of ink-written hieratic script along one edge.

The object is a roughly oval, broken fragment of light-colored stone (limestone) with chipped sides and a smoothed writing area. Along the upper edge there is a short, dark line of handwritten hieratic signs in ink; the characters are partially incomplete due to abrasion and edge loss. No painted decoration is clearly visible beyond the ink. There are no identifiable cartouches, royal names, or explicit deity figures. The lower area shows only faint surface texture; no other scripts (Greek/Coptic/Arabic) are visible.

hieroglyphic only New Kingdom (Ramesside), based on catalogue ground truth; exact signs too fragmentary to refine further. fragmentary
Materials limestoneink
Signs Hieratic signs (unreadable/partial) ×5
Visible text "Partially legible hieratic line; unreadable in full due to breakage and abrasion."

Inscriptions (1)

Inscription #1 AI reading of the photograph

Visible text (machine reading)

Partially legible hieratic line; unreadable in full due to breakage and abrasion.

Connections

Found at Valley of the Kings
Materials LimestoneInk

Cross-references (4)

  • Wikidata-Q Q116438394 tier-1
  • Collection-QID Q160236 tier-2 (wikidata-mediated)
  • Inventory-Number 09.184.744 tier-2 (wikidata-mediated)
  • MET-Object 561385 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.