Egypt Exploration Society A Stela of the Reign of Sheshonk IV Author(s): T. E. Peet Source: The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Jan., 1920), pp. 56-57 Published by: Egypt Exploration Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3853719 Accessed: 15-01-2016 14:46 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Egypt Exploration Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 138.73.1.36 on Fri, 15 Jan 2016 14:46:47 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 56 A STELA OF THE REIGN OF SHESHONK IV BY T. E. PEET, B.A. PLATE VII shows a stela in the possession of Mr Harding Smith. It is of ordinary Egyptian limestone, has a rounded top and measures 35*5 cm. in height and 23 cm. in breadth. In the upper portion is a scene representing the dead man standing before the goddess Hathor. He appears to be nude, wears on the left side of the head the long curl of plaited hair symbolic of youth, and round his neck he has a necklace of beads from which hangs the sign of life. In his right hand he raises a sistrum, and in his left, which hangs by his side, is a menat. The goddess is clothed in a tightly fitting robe, and holds the sign of power in her left hand, while from her right hangs the sign of life. Behind her is a vertical line of inscription which reads "Recited by Hathor Lady of Tep-ihu." The two vertical lines of inscription behind the dead man read as follows: "The menat in1 ............ in order to propitiate the Goldein One." "The Divine Father Ankh-hor, son of Pemay." The inscription contained in the eight horizontal lines which follow is, like that which describes the scene above, written in poorly cut hieroglyphs mingled with occasional hieratic signs. The translation is as follows: "Year 22 of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt COkheperre¢,Son of Ref Shishak, living for ever. An offering which the king gives to Anubis on his hill, and to Osiris2 Lord of the Westerners, the Great God, Lord of Abydos; offeringqsthat come forth at the voice consisting of bread, beer, cattle, fowl.............cool draughts3, clothing, wine, milk, offerings and meals, every thing good, pure and sweet (?)4 for the ka of the Divine Father, him who is over the secrets of the shrine of Hathor Lady of Tep-ihu, who dwells in5............, eAnkhhor, 1 It is difficult to see how the group below the m should be interpreted. The sign on the right does not seem to correspond to the hieratic form of any sign which would fit the sense. That on the left is, despite the apparent horizontal cut at the bottom, probably merely the stroke. Of the possible sug- gestions, <= would give good sense, "The mnenat in the hand," but would require a ; , which would give "A menat of wood,"is open to the same objection. Perhaps we should read 5 or <~, giving respectively " The nmetatas a protection" or "The menat about or behind (him)." 9 is hardly likely, though palaeographicallymore feasible than the two last. 2 This is clearly an enigmatical writing of the name Osiris. For the writing , cf. JUNKER, Uber das Schriftsystemim Tempelder Hathor in Dendera (Berlin 1903), pp. 6, 26, and for q see Zeitschrift fuir dgyptischeSprache, vol. XLVI(1909), p. 95. I do not know of any exact parallel to the present form. 3 The last two groups are certainly , the five dots in a vertical line representing the water pouring from the vase. This should be read kbhw,"cool draughts." Before this come the plural signs preceded by a group consisting of the hieratic form of some kind of vase with the sign () beneath. This group may contain the expected sntr, "incense," or mrht, "ointment," or even both. The sign 5 in the next line is probably determinative of mnht, but might just conceivably be the word sign for ss, "thread," leaving mnht without a determinative. 4 Not unlike the hieratic for bnr. 5 I can make nothing of this. One expects a town name, since the preceding sign can hardly be other than Imt. This content downloaded from 138.73.1.36 on Fri, 15 Jan 2016 14:46:47 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Plate VII 4^'^Iav y^^ STELA IN THE POSSESSION OF W. HARDING SMITH ESQ., R. B. A. This content downloaded from 138.73.1.36 on Fri, 15 Jan 2016 14:46:47 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions A STELA OF THE REIGN OF SHESHONK IV 57 son of the Divine Father Pemay, son of the Divine Father Pesherenmaut,son of the Divine Father Nesmfn. A good burial' of honour. May your names abide for ever and ever." The stela is of interest in that it gives evidence of a local cult of Hathor. Let us first fix time and place. The king COkheperreCis Sheshonk or Shisak IV, the last king of the XXIInd Dynasty, who ruled during the first half of the eighth century B.C. The title of the goddess, "Lady of Tep-ihu," gives us the scene of the cult, for Tep-ihu is the Greek Aphroditopolis and the modern Atfih, a town on the right bank of the Nile nearly fifty miles south of Cairo. Atfih is indeed no more than an Arabic form of the older name. In Greek times it was the capital of the Aphroditopolite nome. Strabo (Geographica, C. 809) mentions the fact that a sacred white cow was kept in the town in his time. This was undoubtedly an incarnation of the goddess Aphrodite, the Greek form of Hathor, and the old name Tep-ihu, " Head of cattle" or similar, would take back the origin of the cult to an earlier date. But what exactly does the scene represent ? CAnkhh6r,the Divine Father (a common priestly title), is shown to us in the r61leof an 'Ihy priest of Hathor. Now 'Ihy is a name given to Hor-sma-taui, the young son of Hathor, who is sometimes represented on the monuments as rattling a sistrum before her2. The king, too, as impersonating the son of the Goddess is on occasion similarly shown and bears the same title of thy. Consequently the priests of Hathor, who according to Egyptian ideas represent the king, also impersonate Hor-sma-taui and are therefore entitled Ihy (variant .hwy). In the tomb of Amenemhet at Thebes we find a scene which represents ceremonies connected with the annual Festival of Hathor3. Singer-priestesses (hnwt) stand before the goddess, described as Lady of Dendereh, holding up to her the sistruminand the menat-necklace. This last consists of a bead necklace with two menat-pendants so placed as to hang down the back of the wearer. In another part of the scene two ihwy priests of Hathor or Nub "The Golden One," as she is there called, just as in our own stela, advance, holding up in each hand two human-headed castanets. All the objects shown in these representations are instruments of music, including the menats4, which doubtless were of metal and jangled as the wearer danced, and all are, as such, peculiarly the property of the Goddess of Joy and Music. In one of the Middle Kingdom rock-tombs at Mer is a very similar scene5, relating probably to this same annual festival of Hathor, though the fact is not actually stated in the accompanying text. There too we see the priestesses with menats and sistra, and the .hwy priests with the castanets. In another tomb at the same place three ^.hy-priests, whose names are written beside them, are dancing with castanets to the music of a harper who sits before them6. The scene on our stela is now intelligible to us. The deceased man was an .thwy priest of the goddess. In his capacity as her young son he wears the side-curl of youth, and as her priest he presents to her the sistrum and the menat. How far back this local cult of Hathor at Atfith actually goes we have no means of knowing, but proper names and other evidence show it to have been at least as old as the Middle Kingdom. 1 Obviously a muddled writing of krst nfrt. 2 See BLACKMAN,article Priest, Priesthood(Egyptian), in Hastings' Dictionary of Religion and Ethics, and bibliography there given. 3 DAVIES-GARDINER,Tomb of Amenem/et,pp. 94-6, Pls. XIX and XX. 4 See, however, GARDINER,Notes on the Story of Sinuhe, pp. 100-102, where this view is disputed. 5 BLACKMAN,Rock Tombsof Meir, Part I, P1. 2. 6 Op. cit., Part II, PI. XV, pp. 24 if. Joursi. of Egypt. Arch. vi. 8 This content downloaded from 138.73.1.36 on Fri, 15 Jan 2016 14:46:47 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions.