Stela of the Woman Takhenemet in the Brooklyn Museum, August 2007

Stela of the Woman Takhenemet
Pigment and plaster on wood
Third Intermediate Period, Dynasty XXV, circa 775-653 BC
Probably from Thebes
Accession # 08.480.201

Although painted wooden stelae are known from just before Dynasty XVIII (circa 1539-1295 BC), they did not become common until Dynasty XXI (circa 1070-945 BC), at the outset of the Third Intermediate Period (circa 1070-653 BC). Thereafter, they were popular until the end of the Ptolemaic Period (305-30 BC).

These wooden stelae were often deposited inside the burial chamber out of public view. As on countless earlier stelae, the central scene usually shows the deceased making an offering to a deity, but on examples dating to the Third Intermediate Period, the dead person makes the offering directly, without the assistance of another god.

Here Takhenemet pays homage to the hawk-headed solar god Re-Horakhty, who has the guise and costume of Osirus, lord of the underworld. The composite representation illustrates well the merging of religous beliefs that occurred in the Third Intermediate Period with regard to the solar and nether realms.

Text from the Brooklyn Museum label.