Scribe's Palette

Scribe's Palette

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Ancient Egyptian scribes used wooden palettes, like this one, to hold their ink and brushes. There are still substantial remnants of the black ink on this palette, but the red is almost gone. The brushes are reeds with one end frayed to hold the ink. The design of scribal palettes changed little over time as may be seen by comparing this one, from the Middle Kingdom to another, 47.123a–g, which dates to the New Kingdom. Link to a blog about scribes in Ancient Egypt Showing Signs: Hieroglyphs and Palettes in the Stela of Irtisen

Egyptian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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The Met collection of ancient Egyptian art consists of approximately 30,000 objects of artistic, historical, and cultural importance, dating from about 300,000 BCE to the 4th century CE. A signifcant percentage of the collection is derived from the Museum's three decades of archaeological work in Egypt, initiated in 1906 in response to increasing interest in the culture of ancient Egypt.