Lower part of a stela from Buhen
about 1800BC (13th Dynasty)
Front of the Buhen stela
The inscription in hieroglyphs on this Ancient Egyptian stela, or commemorative stone, records the formal ritual offering made by Piankhi to the god Osiris to ensure the sustenance of the spirit (ka) of his brother Siamun in the afterlife. Stelae were commemorative tablets. This example is a funerary stela, made of sandstone, which would have been placed in a tomb or in a mortuary temple.
The inscription reads '[An offering which the king gives to……and to Osiris, Lord of Djedu] the Great God, Lord of Abydos, that they may give a voice-offering of bread, beer, oxen, fowl, incense and ointment to the ka of the scribe in charge of the seal of the treasury, Siamun. It is his brother who causes his name to live, the steward of the granary, Piankhi.'
This stela was excavated by the Egypt Exploration Society in 1959-60 at the fortress of Buhen in Southern Egypt. This was one of a chain of fortresses along the River Nile, constructed to defend the border with Nubia. The site was flooded in 1964 when the Aswan High Dam was built and is now submerged beneath Lake Nasser.
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