Funerary Stela Summary

The Funerary Stela was created in the twentieth Dynasty— circa 1190 to 1075 BCE in Aniba, Nubia, Egypt. The piece was constructed out of painted sandstone for the tomb of Mery, a man who oversaw the King’s treasury. An Egyptian story about the sun god Ra as well as hieroglyphics of a hymn to Ra is depicted on the relief. The work of art, the Funerary Stela, represents the Egyptians fascination with their many gods and the afterlife. Egyptians were polytheistic and worshiped many gods such as Ra, Anubis, Osiris, Isis, and many others. To the Egyptians, Ra was the sun god and the creator of everything. Egyptians heavily wanted to live in the afterlife after they passed so they took part in many traditions and rituals to set their
fate in stone. They believed that the sun was located in the afterlife, so they attempted to create paths; for example, the great pyramids were built as ‘stepping stones’ into the afterlife. They would keep art pieces in their tomb to greater their chances. The relief was probably used as an offering or petition [to live in the afterlife] for the sun god. In the funerary stela, Mery is visualized with the gods Ro-Haacht, Maat, the Osiris, Isis, and Mery’s earth family and servants. The scene perhaps shows the connection between human beings and gods during death. Mery specifically stands in front of Osiris, the god most connected to the commemoration of the dead and regeneration; he was especially important due to Egyptians interest in rebirth. The style of the Funerary Stela gives insight to the place in time and the connection to other artwork of that period of the piece. The carving includes a relief with registers and a written section in hieroglyphics. The registers at the top of the stela are compositionally symmetric with each side appearing to be near reversals at first glance. The scenes were painted with gold leaf, a common medium employed to portray royalty, gods, and people of importance. Ancient artists welded the stela with sandstone for the entirety of the structure, possibly due to the accessible nature of the rock. Gold is used to symbolize mortal human’s connection to divinity. The painted sandstone remains primarily preserved—a rarity for the early BCE periods. The humans in the image wear white to indicate their place beneath the gods. Osiris holds a lash and a shepherd's cane to imply his ability to lead as well as his ability to discipline his people. The figures in the piece are drawn with twisted perspective with their bodies facing the front while the heads face the side. The etching is non-naturalistic and is instead stylized with idealized themes since naturally gods would not sit with humans. The image has no perspective and the style is traditional from the time because the humans did not have anatomically correct musculature or proportions. The outlines were drawn in one line thickness because, at the time, Egyptians and other groups had no tool to create variety. The physicality of the funerary stela holds style substance as well. The stela juts out from the wall with a width of about four inches. Located at the top of the relief is a curved overhang; a ledge extends over the bottom. The artists made clear decisions to fashion the work of art with raised sections instead of a flat slab. The slab varied from typical stelas; therefore, the carvers attempted to stray from the norm or at least make the piece exceptional. The funerary stela included stylistic elements common and uncommon of the twentieth Dynasty. The artwork heavily relied on Egyptian myths as the theme; after all, the slab was found in a tomb as an ancient tombstone and as a message to the gods. Finally, the piece represented egyptians cavitation with death, rebirth, and eternity.