OpenGlyph — Catalogue of the American Public DomainJurisdiction: United StatesRev. 2026.08
Images / art

Two archives, queried live.

Every record below comes from The Met or Smithsonian Open Access and was filtered on that archive’s own rights field before it reached this page. 17 shown for “Papyrus burnisher” — 47 records examined, 30 dropped by the rights gate.

Archives queried 2026-08-27 13:50 UTC · fetched live for this request

Object
Public domainThe Met’s isPublicDomain field is true for this object.
CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian’s metadata_usage.access reads CC0 — a waiver, not an expired term.
Not shownAnything failing its archive’s rights field is dropped server-side and never appears here.
Papyrus burnisher

Papyrus burnisher

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 1981–1802 B.C.

Public domainThe Met
'Egyptian' Pattern Berry Spoon, by Whiting Manufacturing Company, 1866 – 1926

'Egyptian' Pattern Berry Spoon

Whiting Manufacturing Company, 1866 – 1926 · ca. 1875

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Papyrus burnisher

Papyrus burnisher

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 1850–1640 B.C.

Public domainThe Met
Cyperus papyrus L.

Cyperus papyrus L.

Artist not stated in the record

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Papyrus burnisher

Papyrus burnisher

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 1800–1500 B.C. or later

Public domainThe Met
Cyperus papyrus L.

Cyperus papyrus L.

Artist not stated in the record · 11 Jun 1881

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Papyrus burnisher of the Scribe, Merymaat

Papyrus burnisher of the Scribe, Merymaat

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 1479–1425 BCE

Public domainThe Met
Cyperus papyrus L.

Cyperus papyrus L.

Artist not stated in the record · Jun 1937

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Water Bottle from Tutankhamun's Embalming Cache

Water Bottle from Tutankhamun's Embalming Cache

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 1328–1318 BCE

Public domainThe Met
Cyperus papyrus L.

Cyperus papyrus L.

Artist not stated in the record · 8 Oct 1891

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Gameboard and Gaming Pieces

Gameboard and Gaming Pieces

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 1479–1425 BCE

Public domainThe Met
Cyperus papyrus L.

Cyperus papyrus L.

Artist not stated in the record · 5 Feb 1930

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Two-Handled Jar from Tutankhamun's Embalming Cache

Two-Handled Jar from Tutankhamun's Embalming Cache

Artist not stated in the record · ca. 1328–1318 BCE

Public domainThe Met
Cyperus papyrus L.

Cyperus papyrus L.

Artist not stated in the record · 17 Sep 1938

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Cyperus papyrus L.

Cyperus papyrus L.

Artist not stated in the record · 17 Sep 1938

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Cyperus papyrus L.

Cyperus papyrus L.

Artist not stated in the record · 17 Sep 1938

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
Cyperus papyrus L.

Cyperus papyrus L.

Artist not stated in the record · 7 Oct 1964

CC0 (public-domain equivalent)Smithsonian
What was queried

Where these records came from.

Two archives are wired, and only two. Each one is filtered on its own rights field — never on a title match, and never on the presence of an image file.

  • The Met Collection API (Open Access)Rights field: isPublicDomain. 7 matched · 7 examined · 0 dropped by the rights gate. Kept only where isPublicDomain === true and a file URL was published.7 shown
  • Smithsonian Open Access API (api.si.edu)Rights field: content.descriptiveNonRepeating.metadata_usage.access. 1195 matched · 40 examined · 30 dropped by the rights gate. Kept only where metadata_usage.access === "CC0" and an image resource was published.10 shown

These figures describe the pass run at 2026-08-27 13:50 UTC, during this request. A completed pass is kept for 24 hours and replayed for an identical search, which is what keeps repeated queries inside Smithsonian’s 30-requests-per-hour allowance. A pass in which either archive failed to answer is never kept — an outage must not be replayed as though it were a finding about the catalogue.

Wikimedia Commons and the Library of Congress are deliberately not wired. Wikimedia was confirmed, on a live query, to return CC-BY material inside the same result set as genuine public domain works, and filtering it safely has not been designed yet. loc.gov was blocked by bot detection during the source evaluation, so its rights vocabulary has never been observed — and nothing here is built on a field nobody has read.

An image file is a rights claim. It never travels without its field.