Stela of Shishak

The stela is a tall narrow slab made of stone or wood and was usually inscribed or carved in relief with names, laws, and pictures or designs dedicated to the dead. The round-topped funerary stelae appeared in the Middle Kingdom and had continued into later periods. The Stela of Shishak shows the deceased, Shishak, making an offering of bread loaves, cakes and a lotus blossom to the funerary god, Osiris and Osiris consort, Isis, his wife. Osiris is in a mummy form wearing a long divine beard with a wide collar. He has a crown with an uraeus serpent and twin plumes which signifies the king of upper and lower Egypt. He is holding a crook and flail, the symbol of royal authority. Isis is in a traditional dress and long wig. She is wearing a crown of cow horns with sun-disk and uraeus serpent. She holds an ankh sign that is used as a symbol of generation or enduring life. She is extending her other hand in a gesture of supporting for her husband, Osiris. Above the scene is a winged sun disk with two pendants, two uraeus serpents. Below, in eight horizontal registers, is an offering in text invoking two other funerary deities, Ptah-Sokar-Osiris and Anubis. References to various places in the text, suggest that the stela was originally erected in a necropolis near Memphis. I have seen this stela before in texts book and web sites but what has most stood out to me about this stela is the amount of authority and family structure that is seen between a man and his wife.

[Cal State SB ]