stela British Museum

Por um escritor misterioso

Descrição

Round-topped limestone stela of Pasherenptah III: below the usual winged sun disc Pasherenptah, wearing the characteristic sidelock of the High Priest of Ptah and the panther skin of an officiating priest, kneels in obeisance at the left side of the figured scene. Before him is an offering stand stacked with slices of bread and surrounded by hieroglyphs for the invocation-of-offerings formula that will supply him with bread and beer, flesh and fowl, linen garments, incense and unguent in the afterlife. The hieroglyphs before his face supply his titles, name and parentage, and describe the ritual he carries out as 'adoring the god four times'. The deities depicted from left to right, all named and with lengthy epithets, are Osiris, Apis, Isis, Nephthys, Horus, Anubis, Imhotep, deified architect of the first pyramid; and the falcon of the West. All of them grant Pasherenptah otherworldly blessings. The frame at the left is composed of the palm rib, the hieroglyph for 'a year', with Heh, god of millions, in characteristic pose at its base, the whole symbolically wishing the deceased millions of years in the afterlife. The frame at the right is the 'was'-sceptre. The fourteen rows of superbly carved hieroglyphs begin with a standard funerary offering formula on behalf of Pasherenptah, whose numerous titles are listed in full, and continue with a conventional address to the living. Then there follows a detailed autobiography.