.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
The third prophet of Horus, Nes-pa-ka-shuty, stands in front of his mother with arms raised in adoration before a standing mummiform figure of Re-Harakhty. The lunette is centered on a nefer sign flanked by wadjet-eyes beneath a winged sun disk. Directionally oriented hieroglyphs identify each eye as “the Behdetite,” referring to Horus of Behdet. A table of offerings separates the supplicants from the god, piled high with a lotus resting atop a spouted vessel flanked by two bread loaves. On either side of the table are 2 wine vessels of typical Dynasty 25 form, sealed with conical lids, sit atop their own smaller stands. Despite the appearance of equal height, the sun-disk atop the head of Re-Horakhty reaches well above the top of Nes-pa-ka-shuty’s head or the funerary cone of his mother, who is dressed in a fringed garment of Kushite style. The reading of the mother’s name is uncertain (possibly to be read as Djebau(?)-ruty, but men and women with name elements such as Ruru or Ruty are well known from Abydos (see G. Vittmann, Priester und Beamte im Theben der Spätzeit, p. 49, n. 3). The bottom of the stela is dominated by two lines of inscription providing a typical offering formula naming Nes-pa-ka-shuty, his father Hor, and repeating the name and title of his mother.
This painted stela shows very close similarities to a group of round-topped limestone stelae from Abydos identified by P. Munro, featuring at least two family members standing in a large decorative field before a single deity, always the standing figure of Re-Horakhty (group Abydos I, BIII, see Die spätägyptischen Totenstelen, vol. 1, pp. 94-98; vol. 2, pls. 32-33). The name Nes-pa-ka-shuty is frequently encountered among a prominent family of 25th Dynasty viziers buried at Abydos in Cemetery D (Vittmann, Priester und Beamte in Theben der Spätzeit, 154-155), prior to the transfer of power to Thebes and the burial of Nespaqashuty D in his monumental tomb there (TT 312). The titles and parentage of the individual featured on this stela do not match any of the known men of that name already known from Abydos. This Nespakashuty is of lower status than his more illustrious relatives, but the ultimate Abydene provenance of this piece is virtually certain. The style, format, and paleography of the stela have close parallels with a number of examples in Cairo (Munro, op. cit., pl. 32, figs. 116-118; pl. 33, fig. 121), as well as a stela in Florence (Munro, op. cit., pl. 33, fig. 122), all of which may derive from the same Dynasty 25 workshop. Another close example in Copenhagen, acquired from Abydos in 1900, not included in Munro’s work depicts a woman named Hefrer Glyptotek (M. Mogenson, La collection égyptienne de la Glyptothèque Ny Carlsberg, 1930, p. 106).
This painted stela shows very close similarities to a group of round-topped limestone stelae from Abydos identified by P. Munro, featuring at least two family members standing in a large decorative field before a single deity, always the standing figure of Re-Horakhty (group Abydos I, BIII, see Die spätägyptischen Totenstelen, vol. 1, pp. 94-98; vol. 2, pls. 32-33). The name Nes-pa-ka-shuty is frequently encountered among a prominent family of 25th Dynasty viziers buried at Abydos in Cemetery D (Vittmann, Priester und Beamte in Theben der Spätzeit, 154-155), prior to the transfer of power to Thebes and the burial of Nespaqashuty D in his monumental tomb there (TT 312). The titles and parentage of the individual featured on this stela do not match any of the known men of that name already known from Abydos. This Nespakashuty is of lower status than his more illustrious relatives, but the ultimate Abydene provenance of this piece is virtually certain. The style, format, and paleography of the stela have close parallels with a number of examples in Cairo (Munro, op. cit., pl. 32, figs. 116-118; pl. 33, fig. 121), as well as a stela in Florence (Munro, op. cit., pl. 33, fig. 122), all of which may derive from the same Dynasty 25 workshop. Another close example in Copenhagen, acquired from Abydos in 1900, not included in Munro’s work depicts a woman named Hefrer Glyptotek (M. Mogenson, La collection égyptienne de la Glyptothèque Ny Carlsberg, 1930, p. 106).