This Ancient Egyptian Palette Still Holds Its Colors

A little color can make the distant past feel wonderfully close. On a narrow ivory palette in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, small cakes of pigment still occupy the wells where an ancient Egyptian painter could reach them. The material has aged; the arrangement remains immediately understandable.

Ivory Egyptian palette with six pigment wells and a royal cartouche — Painter’s palette inscribed for Amenhotep III, ca. 1386–1347 BCE. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 26.7.1294; public domain. Source.

A royal name on a working object

The Met dates this palette to about 1386–1347 BCE, during the reign of Amenhotep III. Carved from one piece of ivory, it measures just 17.5 centimeters long. Its six oval wells retain pigments the museum describes as blue, green, possibly brown, yellow, red and black. The uncertainty attached to brown belongs in the description: an old surface is not a fresh paint chart.

At one end, a cartouche contains the king’s throne name, Nebmaatre, followed by an epithet connecting him with the sun god Re. A royal inscription does not establish who personally owned or used the palette. The museum’s catalogue, object 26.7.1294, is a firmer starting point than a story assigning it to a named painter without supporting evidence.

Three details worth looking at

First, follow the spacing of the wells. Their repeated shape turns a precious material into an organized tool. Next, compare the dark pigment cakes with the pale ivory around them. The contrast makes the practical function legible even in a small photograph. Finally, look for the inscription beyond the colors: decoration and identification share the same compact surface.

Those observations also suggest useful questions. Which marks were made during manufacture, and which came later? What could chemical analysis tell us that a photograph cannot? An image can show surviving color, but it cannot by itself identify every mineral, binder or original shade.

Why small objects deserve our attention

Monuments often dominate our picture of ancient Egypt. A palette shifts attention toward the hands, materials and repeated decisions behind a finished image. It is a reminder to look for the tools as well as the treasures when exploring a museum collection.

For another encounter with extraordinary work on a tiny surface, explore the Pylos Combat Agate. Its engraved figures and this palette offer two different invitations to slow down and look closely. And if you would like to explore museum objects from home, our guide to Paris Musées’ digital collections explains how to find an image’s original record and reuse information.