stela
- Museum number
- EA8469
- Description
-
Painted sycomore fig wood stela: there are four registers on this round-topped stela. In the upper register is a winged sun-disk whose uraei enclose a scarab beetle. On either side of the uraei is a recumbent jackal holding a sceptre. In the second register below a sky sit Ra-Horakhty, Atum, and four other deities with disks upon their heads, of which the first two and last are male, but the second to last may be lion-headed and so possibly representing Geb, Shu, Tefnut, and another. In the third register the deceased stands on the right with his arms raised in adoration before an altar on which rest offerings covered by a lotus-flower. Behind it stand Osiris, Horus, Isis, Nephthys, and a fifth deity all in mummiform guise. The figure of the last is faded. There are three lines of indistinct text in the last register with a prayer to Osiris and Isis for the deceased. The stela is cracked at the top and badly worn on its surface which has been applied directly to the wood. The text is nearly effaced. The stela is bordered on three sides and between registers by a band of blue, white, and red rectangles edged in black. The background of the stela was white. The disk is red with blue upper wings, red-striped middle wings, and green lower wings with black tips. The uraei and beetle are blue with blue and red decoration around them. The jackals are black with red sceptres and sashes and blue and red flags. In the second register the sky is blue. The deities have red bodies, green faces apart from Ra-Horakhty's, which is white with black features, blue wigs and feathers, and red disks apart from Atum whose crown is red and white. In the third register the deceased has a red body, blue wig, and white kilt edged in black. The altar is blue with red and blue offerings and a red and blue lotus-flower. The deities have red bodies, green collars, blue wigs, green faces and hands apart from Horus whose face is white with black features, and blue aprons. Osiris has a white crown with blue feathers and a black sceptre. Horus has a red and white crown and black sceptre. The last three carry red cloths and the head-dresses of the first two of them, Isis and Nephthys, are red and blue. The hieroglyphs are black between red lines.
- Dimensions
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Height: 40 centimetres
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Weight: 0.806 kilograms
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Thickness: 3.50 centimetres
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Width: 26.50 centimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Bibliography:
The British Museum, 'A Guide to the Third and Fourth Egyptian Rooms' (London, 1904), p. 77 (no. 9);
E. A. Wallis Budge 'A Guide to the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Egyptian Rooms, and the Coptic Room' (London, 1922), p. 111 (no. 28);
P. Munro, ‘Die spätägyptischen Totenstelen’ (Glückstadt, 1973), p. 241.
- Location
- Not on display
- Condition
- fair - surface worn
- Acquisition date
- 1834
- Department
- Egypt and Sudan
- BM/Big number
- EA8469
- Registration number
- .8469
- Additional IDs
-
Miscellaneous number: BS.8469 (Birch Slip Number)
