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

String of 10 Eye Beads

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

Description

Necklace, beads. Late Period: Persian, 5th–4th Century B.C. Glass. L. 8.9 cm (3 1/2 in.). From: Egypt. Credit: Gift of Helen Miller Gould, 1910.

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 string of small, oval barrel-shaped glass beads with blue-and-yellow concentric “eye” motifs, arranged around a central larger bead.

The image shows a single strand of multiple glass beads in yellow/orange with dark blue circular and ring patterns that resemble stylized eye markings. Most beads are barrel/oval with painted or inlaid concentric circles (outer ring, inner ring, and central dot/area). One bead in the middle is larger and more rounded, also bearing two prominent blue circular elements like eyes. A faint red/pink handwritten catalog or inventory marking appears on the central bead (partially legible as “M-304?”). No hieroglyphic text, cartouches, or inscriptions in Egyptian style are visible; the only legible marking is the small red inventory-style notation. No deities or royal names are depicted, consistent with the object type being a decorative protective bead string.

decorative Late Period (Persian), per catalogue (visual dating not definitive from image). good
Materials glass
Visible text "Red inventory-style marking on central bead, partially legible: “M-304?” (exact characters unclear)."

Inscriptions (1)

Inscription #1 AI reading of the photograph

Visible text (machine reading)

Red inventory-style marking on central bead, partially legible: “M-304?” (exact characters unclear).

Connections

Materials Glass

Cross-references (4)

  • Wikidata-Q Q116276298 tier-1
  • Collection-QID Q160236 tier-2 (wikidata-mediated)
  • Inventory-Number 10.130.3047 tier-2 (wikidata-mediated)
  • MET-Object 560794 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.