Translated by M. François Chabas
This stele is one of the usual funereal tablets which are found in the cemeteries at Memphis and Thebes. The upper part of the tablet is round, and has the two sacred eyes and symbolical signets, which, as well as the winged globe, almost invariably surmount these sacred inscriptions, and of which the meaning has not yet been satisfactorily determined.
Immediately below this emblem are two vignettes: in the first a functionary named Amen-em-ha (“Amen at the beginning”) presents a funereal offering to his father Amen-mes (“Amen's son,” or, “born of Amen”) the steward of [pg 322] the deity's flocks,[439] beside whom is his deceased wife Nefer-t-aru and a young boy, his son, Amen-em-ua (“Amen in the bark”). In the second vignette, a principal priest (heb) of Osiris, dressed in the sacerdotal leopard's skin, offers incense to the lady Te-bok (“The servant-maid”); below is a row of kneeling figures, namely: two sons, Si-t-mau (“Son of the mother”), Amen-Ken (“Amon the warlike”), and four daughters, Meri-t-ma (“Loving justice”), Amen-Set (“Daughter of Amen”), Souten-mau (“Royal Mother”), and Hui-em-neter (“Food for god”). As there is no indication of relationship between the subjects of the two vignettes, it may be inferred that Te-Bok was a second wife of Amen-em-ha.
The lower portion of the tablet is filled up with the following Hymn to Osiris, written in twenty-eight lines of hieroglyphics which are very well preserved except wherever the name of the deity Amen occurs, which has been hammered out[440] evidently at the time of the religious revolution in Egypt under the reign of Amenophis IV, who, assuming the name of Chu-en-aten (“Splendor,” or, “Glory of the solar disk”), overthrew the worship of the older divinities and principally that of Amen-Rā; a change which was again overthrown in the period of his successors, who restored the former letters. From the style of art and other indications it is almost certain that the monument was erected in the reign of Thothmes I of the eighteenth dynasty.
The stele is now deposited in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, and has been published by M. Chabas in the “Revue Archéologique,” May-June, 1857, after a paper stamp taken by the late M. Devéria.
A Hymn to Osiris
1 Adoration of Osiris by the Steward of the flocks, Amen-em-ha, Son of the Lady Nefer-t-ari: he says,
Welcome to thee[441] Osiris, Lord of length of times, King of the gods, of many names, of holy transformations, of [pg 323] mysterious forms in the temples, august being, residing in Tattu, Great One contained
2 in Sokhem, Master of invocations in Ant.[442] Principle of abundance in On; who has the right to command in the place of double justice, mysterious soul, Lord of Kerer, Holy One of the White Wall, Soul of the sun, his very body reposing in
3 Souten-Khnen; author of invocations in the region of the tree Ner: whose soul is existing for vigilance; Lord of the great dwelling in Sesennou[443] the very awful in Shashotep; Lord of the length of times in Abydos.