The shell, known as the hand of Isis, was used as a cosmetic palette probably for mixing eye-paint, as well as a painter's palette or incense container in later times. Cf. Christie's, London, The Per-Neb Collection, 9 December 1992, lot 78 for similar. Also W. C. Hayes, The Scepter of Egypt, II, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1959, p. 410, fig. 260 for a painter's palette of fine glazed paste still containing traces of red paint in its shell; Egypt's Golden Age: The Art of Living in the New Kingdom 1558-1085 B.C., Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1982, p. 211, no. 250; and A. P. Kozloff (ed.), Egypt's Dazzling Sun, Cleveland Museum of Art, 1992, p. 348, no. 76 for a wooden spoon in the form of a wild dog biting a clamshell.
The delicacy of the above hand with its long, tapering fingers is similar to the hands of clappers and might be of Middle Kingdom date, cf. M. Saleh and H. Sourouzian, The Egyptian Museum Cairo, Mainz, 1987, no. 263 for a pair of ivory hand clappers.