Funerary Stela of Thenet
Description
Object Label: Both of these stelae depict a woman entering the afterlife and approaching or worshipping a god or gods who control entrance to the next world. Both women have yellow skin representing the golden skin of a goddess, thereby indicating that they have resumed their original gender after rebirth and entered the afterlife as women. Gender transformation has ended for them. Details of these stelae reveal the gods who control entrance to the next world. In Stela of the Lady of the House, Hery-ib-Neith, the deceased is led by the god Thoth, who guides her into the presence of the other gods. Here she meets Rehorakhty (a form of Horus) as well as the goddesses Isis and Nephthys. Isis raised her son Horus with the help of her sister Nephthys. This scene suggests that the deceased, too, is tended by these goddesses after her rebirth. Stela of the Lady of the House and Singer, Thenet, depicts another step in the entrance process: Thenet raises her hands in worship to Rehorakhty. Caption: Funerary Stela of Thenet, ca. 945–712 B.C.E.. Wood, gesso, pigment, 10 1/8 x 8 1/4 in. (25.7 x 21 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 37.1385E. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)
AI image analysis GPT-4o-2024-08-06
Machine-generated from the object's image on May 2026. Not curatorial; treat deities, names, and signs below as the model's best reading, not authority.
A painted wooden stela featuring a figure paying homage to a deity.
The artifact is a painted wooden stela depicting a scene with a human figure presenting offerings to a seated deity with a sun disk on its head, likely representing a solar god such as Ra. The composition includes vibrant colors with distinct reds, blues, and yellows. Hieroglyphic inscriptions are visible above the figures, adding textual context to the scene. Notable features include the use of iconography typical of New Kingdom religious art.
Cross-references (2)
- BKM-Accession 37.1385E tier-2
- BKM-Object 4146 tier-2
About this record's data
- From the source institution — accession, description, dimensions, and dating are as catalogued by Brooklyn Museum — Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art.
- AI-inferred — the image-analysis panel (deities, names, signs) is machine-generated and may be wrong.
- Approximate location — most map points are plotted at the site centroid, not the exact findspot.
- Inferred links — cross-references marked with a match method other than explicit-source-field were matched by us, not stated by the source.