WALTERS-EG
Art Institute of Chicago (Egyptian) · relief_fragment
Lintel Fragment Depicting Iniuia and Iuy Worshipping Deities
Description
This lintel fragment depicts a couple kneeling with their hands raised in an Egyptian gesture of praise, worshipping the funerary deities Osiris and Isis. It once crowned a doorway in the tomb chapel of Iniuia, a high-ranking official who served under King Tutankhamun, and his wife, Iuy. Hieroglyphs separating the couple from the gods state that they are praising Osiris so that he will give them the “sweet breath” they need to thrive in the afterlife. Ancient Egyptian religion required worshippers to perform acts of devotion toward gods and goddesses in order to receive their favors. Here, that devotion is captured in stone, guaranteeing that Iniuia and Iuy will benefit from it forever.
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.
A limestone lintel fragment painted with traces of pigment, showing two male figures in worship before deities and accompanied by an incised hieroglyphic inscription.
The object is a horizontally oriented lintel fragment with a flat top and weathered breaks along the sides and lower edge. Incised and partially painted decoration runs across the face: on the left, two standing human figures (both holding their hands in a devotional pose) face right toward a group of divine iconography. On the right, multiple deity figures and/or divine symbols appear in registers, including standing figures with characteristic headdresses and possibly a seated deity or offering scene, though details are worn and partially damaged. A dense columnar hieroglyphic text fills much of the remaining surface, with signs incised in shallow relief; exact transliteration is not fully legible at this resolution. The painted pigment appears mainly in muted tones (faded red/brown and darker outlines), consistent with earlier polychromy. No clearly legible modern labels or non-Egyptian scripts are visible.
religious
Unclear; likely Late Period to Ptolemaic based on lintel format and typical deity-worship iconography, but exact dating cannot be confirmed from the image alone.
fragmentary
Deities
unknown (multiple deities shown but individual identifications not confidently readable)
Materials
limestonepigment (faded paint traces)
Signs
incised hieroglyphic signs (various determinatives/phonograms not confidently readable) ×50
Inscriptions (1)
Inscription #1
English description
"Giving praise to Osiris, kissing the earth for Wenenefer, so that he might give sweet breath to the scribe of the silver- and gold-treasuries of the Lord of the Two Lands Iniuia, true of voice, and his wife (lit. sister), the mistress of the house Iuy, favored by Hathor the msitress of the sycamore."
Cross-references (1)
- ARTIC-id 121774 tier-2
Similar inscriptions · by content embedding
About this record's data
- From the source institution — accession, description, dimensions, and dating are as catalogued by Art Institute of Chicago (Egyptian).
- 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.