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-5.4-nano
Machine-generated from the object's image on Jul 2026. Not curatorial; treat deities, names, and signs below as the model's best reading, not authority.
Painted, gessoed funerary stela showing a seated god-like figure and a kneeling/standing offering figure, with winged solar/falcon-like symbols above and a central column of hieroglyphs.
The image depicts a rectangular, arched-top stela painted on a light ground. The upper register contains red circular discs with black/green outlines and two flanking black bird- or falcon-like heads associated with solar/winged motifs, framing a central red cartouche-like or oval emblem and adjacent vertical inscriptions. The middle/lower register shows two male-presenting figures: one on the left holding one arm forward with a blue-green garment and a staff-like element; the other on the right is a standing or enthroned figure wearing a tall, dark wig/headdress and a long, patterned garment, raising one hand toward a raised offering/censer table before him. Between them is a small offering table with lotus-like or flame-like motifs rendered in multicolored bands. Beneath and around the figures, a horizontal band separates the pictorial registers from the lower border. The stela’s surface shows wear, flaking, and loss of pigment, especially at the lower edges, but hieroglyphic blocks are clearly painted in black and red/orange with occasional white highlights. No Greek/Coptic/Arabic text is visible. The name 'Thenet' is not explicitly readable from the provided image resolution; no clearly isolated cartouche with the name is confidently identifiable.
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.