placesThe Egyptian galleries, the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Name: The Egyptian galleries, the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Address: New York, NY, US

also: Met Egyptian Art · Department of Egyptian Art

placeNorth AmericaAncient EgyptUnited States of America

A chain of rooms along the museum's north side, running from the predynastic material through to Roman Egypt and ending at the Temple of Dendur in its glass hall. For this atlas it is the densest walkable run of amulets anywhere: wedjat eyes in faience, carnelian, obsidian and gold, scarabs, cippi, and trays of small figures, laid out in numbered galleries a visitor can name. Faience, which the labels use constantly, is crushed quartz fired with a glaze that comes out of the kiln blue or green.

cited

When

collection begun 1870, dug 1906–1941, on display now still carried cited

Period	collection from 1870; excavations 1906–1941
How the date is known	textual — a dated text describes it
Note	The objects themselves run from about 300,000 BCE to the fourth century CE, on the department's own statement; the years here date the rooms, not the contents.

Years are stored astronomically — 1 CE is 1, 1 BCE is 0, 500 BCE is −499 — and printed the way a reader says them. How these dates are made.

The story

The Met's Egyptian collection was not mostly bought. The department's own page says the museum's three decades of archaeological work in Egypt began in 1906, and the encyclopedia account puts almost half the present collection down to the excavation seasons of 1906 to 1941. That is why a Met amulet more often carries a find-spot than a dealer's name: a small gold amulet in Gallery 109, accession 22.1.58, is credited to MMA excavations, 1920–22, from the Memphite Region.

The size of the collection is published two ways and this record prints both. The Wikipedia account gives more than 26,000 pieces across forty galleries, almost all on display; the department's own page, read on 17 September 2026, says "approximately 30,000 objects". Neither is wrong on its own terms and this project has not read a reconciliation.

Walk it and the amulets sort themselves by gallery. Gallery 120 holds a run of faience wedjat eyes from about 1386–1347 BCE, entered in 1911 on the Rogers Fund. Gallery 127 holds one cut in gold, 332–30 BCE, and one in obsidian. Gallery 130 holds a long faience-and-aragonite wedjat, 6.5 centimetres, bought in 1926 on the Edward S. Harkness Gift. Gallery 128 holds the Metternich Stela, catalogued as Magical Stela with Horus the Child, 360–343 BCE, and Gallery 134 a shelf of smaller cippi in steatite, soapstone and faience — the same design shrunk from 83.5 centimetres to under 5.

How the objects got here is still being worked out in public, and not always by the museum first. In September 2022 New York law enforcement seized 27 objects on three warrants for return to Italy and Egypt. The museum has since published a statement on collecting practices and hired a provenance-research manager with a team of three. Inference — an excavation credit line is a stronger provenance than a purchase, and the 1906–1941 seasons are the reason this room reads differently from a room filled by a dealer; it is not the same thing as saying every object here arrived cleanly.

The licence is the other half of why this atlas keeps pointing here. Since 2017 every Met image of a public-domain work carries a Creative Commons Zero dedication, which is on Wikimedia Commons' accepted list. A photograph of a Met wedjat can be reproduced, cropped and altered with no permission asked. The dedication covers the museum's photographs. It says nothing about who the objects belong to.

harvested

Now

Open six days a week; closed Wednesdays. General admission on 17 September 2026 is US$30 for adults, US$22 for seniors and for visitors with a disability, US$17 for students and free for children 12 and under, with pay-what-you-wish admission for New York State residents and for New York, New Jersey and Connecticut students. The museum lists the Ancient West Asia and Ancient Cyprus galleries as closed for renovation as of that date; the Egyptian galleries are not on that list. This project has not stood in them.

cited

Where

1000 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY · 40.7794, -73.9632 precision: street inference

hand-placed at 1000 Fifth Avenue from the address printed on the museum's own Plan Your Visit page; no published coordinate was read

Opening days

MoTuWeThFrSaSu

Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Thursday 10am–5pm; Friday and Saturday 10am–9pm; Wednesday closed.

Filled = open, outlined = closed, blank = nobody published it. A blank stays a blank. checked 2026-09-17

What is on record about it

Amulets on display — the museum's own object records give gallery numbers for wedjat amulets on view in Galleries 103, 109, 120, 126, 127, 130 and 133, and for cippi in Galleries 128 and 134 harvested
Publishes open images — all images of public-domain works released under Creative Commons Zero since 2017; the object records above are flagged public domain cited
Repatriation under way — 27 objects seized on three warrants in September 2022 for return to Italy and Egypt; a statement on collecting practices and a provenance-research team followed. This project has not read a breakdown saying which of the 27 were Egyptian. cited

Where you can see one

The Metropolitan Museum of Art — Wedjat Eye Amulet, faience and aragonite, ca. 1080–664 BCE, 6.5 cm long, on view in Gallery 130 acc. 26.7.1032
The Metropolitan Museum of Art — Wedjat Eye Amulet in gold, 332–30 BCE, 3.2 by 3.7 cm, on view in Gallery 127 acc. 23.2.68
The Metropolitan Museum of Art — Amulet in gold, ca. 1950–1850 BCE, 1.7 cm long, from the Memphite Region, credited to MMA excavations 1920–22, on view in Gallery 109 acc. 22.1.58
The Metropolitan Museum of Art — Magical Stela with Horus the Child — the Metternich Stela — metagraywacke, 360–343 BCE, 83.5 cm high, on view in Gallery 128 acc. 50.85

An accession number appears here only where it was read off a catalogue page that is linked. No link, no number.

What this is near

orgThe Metropolitan Museum of Artthe institution these rooms sit in, and the licence that lets this atlas show its photographs carriesWedjat eyethe amulet this walk is really about — seven galleries of them, in faience, carnelian, obsidian and gold carriesScarabthe other Egyptian class the 1906–1941 seasons supplied with find-spots attached carriesHeart scarabthe large scarab laid on the chest of the dead, held in the same department carriesCippus of HorusGallery 128 has the big one — the Metternich Stela — and Gallery 134 the pocket-sized versions of the same design materialFaiencethe material the labels repeat: crushed quartz, fired, glazed blue or green materialCarnelianthe red stone the same eye is cut from a few cases along traditionEgyptian amulet craftthe tradition these rooms document more completely than any other single building in the Americas personFlinders Petriethe excavator whose method the museum's own Egyptian Expedition followed; he published plates, the Met kept galleries contrastRoom 1: Enlightenment, the British Museumthe comparison in London: a room about the collectors, where these are rooms about the dig storyFree to usethe long read on licensing, where the CC0 dedication behind these object records is the case that works storyDating a charmthe long read on dates; an excavation credit line is why these objects carry narrow ones

What names this one

Each in its own words, from its own page.

held-atCippus of Horuswhere the Metternich Stela stands, two thousand years after somebody walled it up placeScaraba room where a tray of them can be read against each other placeTaweret amuleta room where her amulets and the wands sit within sight of each other contrastRoom 1: Enlightenment, the British Museumthe comparison across the Atlantic: rooms that show what was dug, where this one shows who did the collecting placeThe Metropolitan Museum of Artthe forty rooms inside it this atlas sends a reader to

Where this came from

Egyptian Art (department) — The Metropolitan Museum of Art read 2026-09-17
Plan Your Visit — The Metropolitan Museum of Art read 2026-09-17
The Met Collection API — object records — The Metropolitan Museum of Art read 2026-09-17
Metropolitan Museum of Art — Wikipedia read 2026-09-16
Metternich Stela — Wikipedia read 2026-09-16

Elsewhere

Record updated 2026-09-17. This record as JSON. Every field carries its own provenance; the tier chips above say which.

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