WA stele, or occasionally stela, when derived from Latin, is a stone or wooden slab, generally taller than it is wide, erected in the ancient world as a monument. The surface of the stele often has text, ornamentation, or both. These may be inscribed, carved in relief, or painted.
WNitocris I served as the heir to, and then, as the Divine Adoratrice of Amun or God's Wife of Amun for a period of more than seventy years, between 655 BC and 585 BC.
WThe Stela of Akhenaten and his family is the name for an altar image in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo which depicts the Pharaoh Akhenaten, his queen Nefertiti, and their three children. The limestone stela with the inventory number JE 44865 is 43.5 × 39 cm in size and was discovered by Ludwig Borchardt in Haoue Q 47 at Tell-el Amarna in 1912. When the archaeological finds from Tell-el Amarna were divided on 20 January 1913, Gustave Lefebvre chose this object on behalf of the Egyptian Superintendency for Antiquities instead of the Bust of Nefertiti.
WThe Stele of Ankh-ef-en-Khonsu is a painted, wooden offering stele located in Cairo, Egypt. It was discovered in 1858 by François Auguste Ferdinand Mariette at the mortuary temple of the 18th Dynasty Pharaoh Hatshepsut, located at Dayr al-Bahri. It was originally made for the Montu-priest Ankh-ef-en-Khonsu i, and was discovered near his coffin ensemble of two sarcophagi and two anthropomorphic inner coffins. It dates to circa 680–70 BCE, the period of the late 25th Dynasty/early 26th Dynasty. Originally located in the former Bulaq Museum under inventory number 666, the stele was moved around 1902 to the newly opened Egyptian Museum of Cairo, where it remains today.
WThe Genealogy of Ankhefensekhmet or Genealogy of the Memphite priestly elite is an ancient Egyptian relief – sometimes referred to as a stela – made during the 8th century BCE, under the reign of pharaoh Shoshenq V of the late 22nd Dynasty. A surviving block is kept at the Egyptian Museum of Berlin. The relief was issued by a priest called Ankhefensekhmet with the purpose of illustrating his own genealogy. The relief traces back Ankhefensekhmet's sequence of ancestors up to 60 generations before, with the earliest individuals dating back to the 11th Dynasty.
WThe Autobiography of Weni is a tomb inscription from ancient Egypt, which is significant to Egyptology studies. Weni the Elder, or Uni, was a court official of the 6th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt.
WThe Banishment Stela or Maunier Stela is an ancient Egyptian stela issued in c.1050 BCE. It contains an amnesty decree of the 21st Dynasty Theban High Priests of Amun Menkheperre.
WThe Bentresh Stella or Bakhtan Stella is an ancient Egyptian sandstone stela with a hieroglyphic text telling the story of Bentresh, daughter of the prince of Bakhtan, who fell ill and was healed by the Egyptian god Khonsu.
WThe Boundary Stelae of Akhenaten are a group of royal monuments in Upper Egypt. They are carved into the cliffs surrounding the area of Akhetaten, or the Horizon of Aten, which demarcates the limits of the site. The Pharaoh Akhenaten commissioned the construction of Akhetaten in year five of his reign during the New Kingdom. It served as a sacred space for the god Aten in an uninhabited location roughly halfway between Memphis and Thebes at today's Tell El-Amarna. The boundary stelae include the foundation decree of Akhetaten along with later additions to the text, which delineate the boundaries and describe the purpose of the site and its founding by the Pharaoh. Total of sixteen stelae have been discovered around the area. According to Barry Kemp, the Pharaoh Akhenaten did not “conceive of Akhetaten as a city, but as a tract of sacred land”.
WThe National Museum of Brazil collections include an exhibition of funerary steles from ancient Egypt.
WThe Coptos Decrees are 18 complete or fragmentary ancient Egyptian royal decrees ranging from the 6th Dynasty to the late 8th Dynasty. The decrees are numbered with letters of the Latin alphabet, starting with "Coptos Decree a" and ending with "Coptos Decree r". The earliest of the series were issued by Pepi I and Pepi II Neferkare to favor the clergy of the temple of Min, while the others are datable to the reign of various kings of the 8th Dynasty, and concern various favors granted to an important official from Coptos named Shemay and to his family members. The decrees reflect the waning of the power of the pharaoh in the early First Intermediate Period.
WDarius the Great's Suez Inscriptions were texts written in Old Persian, Elamite, Babylonian and Egyptian on five monuments erected in Wadi Tumilat, commemorating the opening of the "Canal of the Pharaohs", between the Nile and the Bitter Lakes.
WThe Dream Stele, also called the Sphinx Stele, is an epigraphic stele erected between the front paws of the Great Sphinx of Giza by the ancient Egyptian pharaoh Thutmose IV in the first year of the king's reign, 1401 BC, during the 18th Dynasty. As was common with other New Kingdom rulers, the epigraph makes claim to a divine legitimisation of kingship.
WThe Famine Stela is an inscription written in Egyptian hieroglyphs located on Sehel Island in the Nile near Aswan in Egypt, which tells of a seven-year period of drought and famine during the reign of pharaoh Djoser of the Third Dynasty. It is thought that the stele was inscribed during the Ptolemaic Kingdom, which ruled from 332 to 31 BC.
WThe Hamadab Stela is a colossal sandstone stela found at Hamadab just south of the ancient site of Meroë in Sudan. Now kept at the British Museum, the significance of the stela resides in the fact that it is inscribed with one of the longest known texts in the Meroitic script.
WThe Ikhernofret Stela is an important ancient Egyptian stela dated to the Middle Kingdom and is notable for its veiled description of how the mysteries of the deity Osiris were carried out in Abydos. The stela is 100 cm high and made of limestone. Osiris is depicted standing under a winged sun disk facing Senwosret III. The text is laid out below Osiris in twenty-four horizontal lines. Underneath the text, Ikhernofret, a 12th Dynasty treasurer under Pharaoh Senwosret III, is depicted at an offering table with his family. The rituals celebrated the god's kingship, death and resurrection.
WThe Inventory Stela is an ancient Egyptian commemorative tablet dating to the 26th Dynasty. It was found in Giza during the 19th century. The stela presents a list of 22 divine statues owned by a Temple of Isis, and goes on to claim that the temple existed since before the time of Khufu.
WThe lunette spatial region in the upper portion of stelas, became common for stelas as a prelude to a stele's topic. Its major use was from ancient Egypt in all the various categories of stelas: funerary, Victory stelas, autobiographical, temple, votive, etc.
WThe Merneptah Stele – also known as the Israel Stele or the Victory Stele of Merneptah – is an inscription by the ancient Egyptian Pharaoh Merneptah discovered by Flinders Petrie in 1896 at Thebes, and now housed in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
WThe Metternich Stela is a magico-medical stele that is part of the Egyptian Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. It dates to the Thirtieth Dynasty of Egypt around 380–342 B.C. during the reign of Nectanebo II. The provenance of the stele is unknown.
WSematawytefnakht or Somtutefnakht and other variants, was an ancient Egyptian high official, known for having witnessed the conquest of Persian Egypt by the hands of Alexander the Great.
WThe Decree of Nectanebo I was issued by Pharaoh Nectanebo I of the 30th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt. It regards payments to the local temple, and was recorded on two steles.
WThe Stela of Pasenhor, also known as Stela of Harpeson in older literature, is an ancient Egyptian limestone stela dating back to the Year 37 of pharaoh Shoshenq V of the 22nd Dynasty. It was found in the Serapeum of Saqqara by Auguste Mariette and later moved to The Louvre, where it is still.
WThe Palermo Stone is one of seven surviving fragments of a stele known as the Royal Annals of the Old Kingdom of Ancient Egypt. The stele contained a list of the kings of Egypt from the First Dynasty through to the early part of the Fifth Dynasty and noted significant events in each year of their reigns. It was probably made during the Fifth Dynasty. The Palermo Stone is held in the Regional Archeological Museum Antonio Salinas in the city of Palermo, Italy, from which it derives its name.
WThe Rosetta Stone is a granodiorite stele inscribed with three versions of a decree issued in Memphis, Egypt, in 196 BC during the Ptolemaic dynasty on behalf of King Ptolemy V Epiphanes. The top and middle texts are in Ancient Egyptian using hieroglyphic and Demotic scripts respectively, while the bottom is in Ancient Greek. The decree has only minor differences between the three versions, making the Rosetta Stone key to deciphering the Egyptian scripts.
WThe Rosetta Stone decree, or the Decree of Memphis, is a Ptolemaic decree issued at Memphis by a council of priests confirming the royal cult of Ptolemy V in 196 BC. It is one of a series that affirm the royal cult of the king. It was recorded in Egyptian hieroglyphs, Egyptian Demotic and Ancient Greek, on the Rosetta Stone and the Nubayrah Stele, among others. The bilingual and triscriptual nature of the inscription was key to the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs.
WThe Sebek-khu Stele, also known as the Stele of Khu-sobek, is an inscription in honour of a man named Sebek-khu (Khu-sobek), who lived during the reign of Senusret III discovered by John Garstang in 1901 outside Khu-sobek's tomb at Abydos, Egypt, and now housed in the Manchester Museum.
WThe Shabaka Stone, sometimes Shabaqo, is a relic incised with an ancient Egyptian religious text, which dates from the Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt. In later years, the stone was likely used as a millstone, which damaged the hieroglyphs. This damage is accompanied by other intentional defacements, leaving the hieroglyphic inscription in poor condition.
WThe slab stela was an original form of the steles of ancient Egypt. However, it was horizontal in dimension. Some of the earliest tablets from mid- to late-3rd millennium BC were painted Slab Steles. A small list of Ancient Egyptian dignitaries or their wives had a slab stela.
WThe South Saqqara Stone is the lid of the sarcophagus of the ancient Egyptian queen Ankhenespepi, which was inscribed with a list for the reigns of the pharaohs of the 6th Dynasty from Teti, Userkare, Pepi I, Merenre to the early years of Pepi II under whom the document was likely created. It is essentially an annal document which records events in each year of a king's reign; unfortunately, it was reused in antiquity for Ankhesenpepi I's burial and many of its invaluable inscriptions have been erased.
WThe Stela of Tetisheri is a limestone donation stele erected by Pharaoh Ahmose I, founder of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt. It sits in the construction of his mortuary complex that included a cenotaph to his grandmother Queen Tetisheri, Senakhtenre's Great Royal Wife and grandmother of both Ahmose and his Principal Wife, Ahmose-Nefertari.
WThe Tombos Stela is an ancient Egyptian rock inscription found in the area of Tombos (Nubia), dated to Year 2 of Pharaoh Thutmose I. It attests to his military campaign into Nubia around the area of the 3rd cataract of the Nile. It was discovered around 1829, on a large boulder in Tombos, Nubia on the east bank of the Nile. Thutmose is known to have expanded Egypt’s borders throughout his reign, not only in Nubia, but also by campaigns in the Syria-Palestine area. During the Middle Kingdom, pharaohs such as Mentuhotep II had already expanded into Nubia. However, scholars argue that the Tombos stela is evidence of farther expansion by Thutmose into Nubia than previous kings.
WThe Year 400 Stela, or Stela of Year 400, is an ancient Egyptian stela issued in the 13th century BCE. The meaning of this stela is not entirely clear, but is generally assumed that it celebrates the 400th anniversary of some event related to the deity Seth.