We can all agree that the Egyptian Stele is a fascinating piece of art, with its enigmatic riddles and tales. Here, we read a precise description of this beautiful art, with thanks to Marie Grilott and Marc Chartier. 💖🙏

The image at the top; via School_Egyptian_-(MeisterDrucke-1029804)

A lovely little stele presented by Mariette at the Universal Exhibition of 1867 in Paris

via égyptophile & Égypte-actualités

Inaugurated on April 1, 1867, the Universal Exhibition in Paris closed its doors on October 31 after welcoming more than 11 million visitors!

It was sometimes up to three hours of waiting before being able to enter the Egyptian pavilion created by Auguste Mariette. A temple had been reconstructed, and he had brought from the Boulaq museum: “samples of Egyptian art at its main periods”.

This is how emblematic pieces made the trip to the French capital, such as the statues of Sheikh el-Beled, Ranefer, Queen “Ameneritis”.… or the jewels of Queen Ah-hotep, not to mention mummies to unwrap.

More “confidential” pieces were present in number, testimonies of the diversity of pharaonic art and this magnificent little wooden stele which charms at first sight.

27.6 cm high, wide. 23 cm and 2.7 cm thick, dated to the XXII Dynasty (approx. 900 BC), it is dedicated to Lady Djedamonioufankh.

If the circumstances of its discovery remain determined, the origin generally indicated is Deir el-Bahari, but also, more rarely, “Thebes” or “Gournah”. Two references are attributed to it, RT 25.12.24.20 and 3365.

It is curved in shape because, as Auguste Mariette points out: “Until the XIth dynasty, the stelae are quadrangular… But from the XIth dynasty, the stele takes the form that is only abandoned on rare occasions. It is rounded from above as if intended to recall the curvature of the sky or the sarcophagi lids.”

The great Egyptologist presents it as follows in the “Catalogue of the 1867 Exhibition”: “Pretty painted stele. A light stucco applied to the wood has been painted in swathes of colours, which gives the painting the dazzling appearance of gouache. “

If it is true that the chromatic palette, particularly rich and harmonious, seduces us, the registers that are declined there, totally different, attract us. They prove that the artist knew – or wanted – to bring the world of the beyond and the terrestrial world closer together.

Mariette sheds this “general” light on the symbolic design of the steles: “The top of the stele is supposed to be lost in the sky. As we descend downwards, we approach the earth. In other words, the stele is divided into three zones.

The upper part of the hanger is thus deciphered by Jean-Pierre Corteggiani (“Egypt of the Pharaohs in the Cairo Museum”): “A curved sky supported by two wa-sceptres resting on the earth; a winged solar disk surmounts the five short columns of a funerary formula intended to provide offerings and provisions to the lady.”

And, as if to create symmetry, two jackals, as if lying on the hieroglyphic inscription, surround an orange vase placed in the very centre, just under the sun.

The central part, which occupies most of the stele, is “devoted” to two characters, standing on either side of a table of offerings, all standing out against a subtle blue background.

In the “Official Catalog of the Cairo Museum”, Mohamed Saleh and Hourig Sourouzian describe this: “As for the main painting, it represents a scene of traditional adoration. The dedicatee of the stele, dressed in a fully transparent pleated dress adorned with a necklace and a long tripartite wig surmounted by a cone of perfume, raises her delicate hands in front of Re-Harakhty. The falcon-headed god is crowned with the solar disc surrounded by a uraeus; he holds the sceptre -ouas and the symbol of life.”

Dame Djedamonioufankh, with her light dress and arms raised in adoration, faces a Re-Harakhty with black flesh who, adorned with his attributes, displays his strength, power and divine power…

Between them is set up a table of offerings laden with food, bread, grapes, meat, poultry, and vegetables. A caring hand has placed delicate lotus flowers there. On each side of the foot of the table, there is an elongated container, orange in colour, placed on a black tripod support, as well as lettuces nicely connected by a vegetable garland.

In the “Guide to the Boulaq Museum”, Gaston Maspero interprets the scene: “Lady Zodamen-Efônkh comes to claim from Harmakhis her share of the sacrifices made to her by her parents.”

As for the lower part of the stele, its design touches us for two main reasons. First of all, because it is an extremely rare scene in the iconography of the stelae, and also because, if it is not the presence of the mourner, the landscape which is reproduced “speaks to us” and that we can almost place it today, in the necropolises of Thebes.

The scene is declined in a rectangular format delimited, at the top and bottom, by two black and thick lines. On the left, the Theban mountain, treated in ochre-red dotted with streaks and white dots (reflecting the sand, rocks and gullies), descends gently towards the wooded plain. Disregarding the perspective and the scale of the figured motifs, the whole is undeniably charming!

Many Egyptologists have looked into this scene, commenting on it in a very beautiful way.

“There is, in fact, a very rare representation of the necropolis; on the left, the tomb, preceded by a pylon surmounted by two pyramidions, is built on the edge of cultivated land on the first sandy undulations of the desert; on the middle, a kneeling woman laments in the usual attitude of mourners, one hand raised above her head; on the right, a table of offerings is set up next to a basin, in the shade of a sycamore and two date palms; it is the funerary garden of which several texts speak, and in which the deceased wishes his soul to return in the form of a bird, to walk along the edge of the basin, to rest on the branches of the trees, or cool off under the sycamore”: such is the reading of Jean-Pierre Corteggiani.

In the “Official Catalog of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo”, one can read: “We see there for the first time a scene of the necropolis where there is no question either of processions or of theories of bearers of offerings. In solitude from the desert, the slope of the cliff where the tomb is dug has been painted pink with white highlights. The highest of which, with cupolas adorned with a coved cornice, rise in the necropolis in front of the tomb. A crouching woman mourns her dead while tearing her hair. Behind her, a sycamore, two palm trees and date palms evoke the garden from which the ‘ba’ of the deceased hopes for shade, freshness and water. The offering table laden with bread and a water basin is indeed at the foot of these trees.”

As for Gaston Maspero, in the “Guide to the Boulaq Museum”, he formulates this interpretation: “The mountain, painted yellow striped with red, covers the field on the left: two small doors surmounted by pyramidions mark the tomb of the lady Zodamen -Efônkh A kneeling woman laments and tears her hair as a sign of mourning: trees, drawn behind her, represent the funerary garden, where the soul will come to frolic and nourish itself at the laden table waiting for it. offerings.”

And finally, here is Auguste Mariette’s analysis, an analysis which certainly motivated his choice to present it in Paris: “The bottom of the monument is occupied by a small composition worth noting. On the right, between the acacias and the date palms that line the edge of the cultivated land, an offering table laden with funerary gifts has been placed. To the left, the tomb of Lady T’at-Amen-aouf-ankh rises on the edge of the desert. A pylon surmounted preceded by two pyramidions; a little further on is the aedicule, which covers the actual tomb. In the centre, a relative of the deceased is kneeling, bareheaded, in the posture of mourners.”

Marie Grillot

Sources:

Auguste Mariette, Universal Exhibition of 1867, Description of the Egyptian Park, 1867
https://scholarship.rice.edu/jsp/xml/1911/9292/229/MarParc.te#index-div6-N1363A
Auguste Mariette, Album of the Boulaq Museum, Mourès, Cairo, 1872
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8626090c/f1.image.r=auguste+mariette.langFR
Gaston Maspero, Visitor’s Guide to the Boulaq Museum, 1883
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k141741b.r=gaston+maspero.langFR
Egypt of the Pharaohs in the Cairo Museum, Hachette Paris, 1986
Mohamed Saleh, Hourig Sourouzian, Official Catalog of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, Verlag Philippe, von Zabern, 1997
Francesco Tiradritti, Treasures of Egypt – The Wonders of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, Gründ, 1999
National Geographic, The Treasures of Ancient Egypt at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, 2002