Stele of Meretitef, Musician of Tefnut
Unknown · Ptolemaic period or early Roman period, c. 332 BC-284 AD
In the rounded top of this small limestone stele a winged sun disc spreads beneath the sign of the sky, flanked by two wedjat eyes and two lying jackals of Anubis. Below, a woman in a long dress and mantle, a short rounded wig and sandals holds a flower to her nose while a shaven headed priest in a kilt pours a libation from a situla before her. Facing them stand three gods: Onuris in his tall plumed crown holding a sceptre and the sign of life, then Osiris, then Isis with the horns and sun disc. In the lower register the same woman sits on a lion footed chair with a flower and a flail. Hieroglyphs give an offering formula.
The woman is Meretitef, a musician in the temple of the lioness goddess Tefnut, and the stele was made for her tomb in the Ptolemaic or early Roman period, somewhere between the fourth century BC and the third century AD. The presence of Onuris is fitting, since it was he who in myth brought Tefnut back to Egypt. The stele belongs to the old holdings of the museum, arriving in eighteen forty nine and inventoried in eighteen fifty seven.
Did You Know? The god at the head of the divine line, Onuris, is the mythical hunter who brought back the lioness Tefnut, the very goddess whom Meretitef served as musician.
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