Stela of the Temple Servant of Amun, Irtihareru

This stela was probably found in one of tombs 811-840 in Asasif (which is on the west bank of Thebes near Deir el Bahri). The Met Museum (acc. no.: 30.3.57) have it now – they think it came from one of their excavations in 1929-1930, but bought it from a Luxor dealer (in 1930).

It belonged to Irtihareru, and we see him standing at the far left and far right of the vignettes. He lived sometime in Dynasty 25 or 26. This stela was part of his funerary goods and has an offering formula on it – asking for offerings to be made to sustain him in the afterlife.

The pictures to accompany the text show him worshipping two gods. These are Re-Horakhty on the left, with his name in the two columns of text in front of his sun disk. And Atum on the right, again labelled in front of his crown. The other columns label Irtihareru in each case.

It’s an interesting mix of neat and a bit sloppy. The gods are well proportioned, but Irtihareru has a smaller head than I’d expect. And the labels for the figures clearly weren’t drafted out in advance – on the left Irtihareru’s name spills out of the column designated for it.