Stela of Djedkhonsuiufankh, the Harpist
Unknown · Third Intermediate Period, 1069-664 BC
A small painted wooden panel, hardly bigger than a sheet of paper, shows a man kneeling to play a tall harp before a god. He wears a pleated shirt and kilt, his head is shaved, and his fingers rest on the strings. The harp's upright ends in a human head wearing the blue crown of a pharaoh. Facing him sits Re-Horakhty, falcon headed, wrapped in a shroud, with the sun disc on his head and the crook and flail in his hands; between them stands a table with a ewer and a flower. In the rounded top a shen ring, symbol of eternity, is flanked by two protective wedjat eyes. The cream, brown, red and blue are the original paint over stucco.
The kneeling musician is the owner of the stela, Djedkhonsuiufankh, a Theban priest who chose to be remembered singing a hymn to the sun; the text is that hymn. Such wooden stelae replaced the stone ones of earlier times in the Third Intermediate Period, when Thebes was ruled by the priests of Amun. The stela came to Paris in 1826 with the collection of Henry Salt and has become one of the most reproduced images of Egyptian music.
Did You Know? The top of the harp is carved as a royal head wearing the blue crown, so the instrument itself is a little king.
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