PTOLEMAIC PERIOD, CIRCA 332-30 B.C.

Carved in limestone with traces of original colour, this round-topped stela of a priest of Onuris called Iret-Hor-ru seems almost certainly to derive from Abydos, one of the main centres of the worship of that deity. The lunette of the stela depicts Iret-Hor-ru wearing a broad collar and a long kilt with his arms in an attitude of praise before a table of offerings piled high with a lotus bouquet, bread loaves, and fowl, below which two large sealed wine jars sit on stands. To the left are the objects of his worship: the divine triad of Abydos, composed of standing mummiform figure of Osiris Khentyamentiu, followed by falcon-headed Horsiusiri (Horus, son of Osiris), and finally Isis, these last two each with a single arm raised. All of the figures stand within an enormous shrine topped by uraei, below which a winged sun disk is represented on both the cavetto cornice and the lintel. The shrine is shown as a portable one on a sledge, the front of which may be seen at bottom right; this type of portable shrine is better known from (for example) the canopic shrine of Tutankhamun. Above this scene, the lunette of the stela is dominated by a larger winged sun disk, below which a central nefer sign (meaning “beautiful”) is approached on either side by personified udjat-eyes, each with a single human arm raised in greeting, while the eyes each rest on the heb-sign symbolizing festival. Behind each of these, a sekhem-wand, an emblem of power, stands before a recumbent Anubis jackal. Stylistically, the stela seems to fit well within the Abydos group studied by Munro, but exact parallels make the dating a matter of conjecture. However, a date in the Ptolemaic era seems likely.

The inscription in three horizontal registers of hieroglyphs in sunk relief give the name and titles of Iret-Hor-iru, his father, and his mother. Iret-hor-iru is called “the imy-is priest, the hesek-priest, the one who embraces the udjat-eye, the royal acquaintance,” a sequence of titles extremely well-attested at Abydos during the Late Period. The imy-is priest seems to have been associated especially with the cults of primeval gods Shu and Tefnut, while the hesek-priest was connected to the worship of Osiris. Iret-Hor-iru is also here called “the scribe of the temple of Onuris, Lord of Shayet,” and a series of other titles as well as the name of his father Anhur-iuf-ankh connect both men to this god, whose primary cult place was at Thinis in the Abydos nome (Shayet was probably a nearby cult center of Onuris). The mother of Iret-Hor-iru can be tentatively read as Het-ir-es. Given the preponderance of titles connected to the god Onuris, it is possible that the stela derives from a locality on the eastern bank of the Nile, close to the ancient city of Thinis.