Stela of the scribe Kawi

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The stele of the scribe Kawi from the New Kingdom , 18th Dynasty around 1500 BC BC belongs to the Egyptian collection of the Roemer and Pelizaeus Museum in Hildesheim . Commemorative steles like that of Kawi are dedicated to the memory of entire families in several generations and contain prayers to the gods of the dead with the request for sacrifices to be made. The well-preserved, relief and painted stele is made of limestone and measures 52 × 32.3 × 6.7 cm. Remnants of the red body painting of the male figures have been preserved.

Location

The stele of Kawi was in the collection of Wilhelm Pelizaeus in Cairo before 1907 and was acquired in the Egyptian art trade. The exact date of purchase is not documented. It was part of the donation from Wilhelm Pelizaeus to his hometown Hildesheim in 1907. Steles of this type have been found in Abydos , the main place of worship of the god of the dead Osiris named in the sacrificial formula . The steles were set up there in small chapels and along the processional street, which enabled the depicted or named people to participate directly in the Osiris festivals.

description

The stele of the scribe Kawi is very carefully worked in a flat raised relief. The figures stand out clearly from the smooth background of the image fields. In contrast to this, the characters of the sacrificial prayer, which are very fleetingly scratched in places, are at the very bottom of the stele and on the inscriptions to the people. The rounded stone at the top is divided into two display fields. In the upper part of the picture two men sit side by side on a lion-footed chair. Behind them stand their women in a smaller format. The one in front holds a large lotus flower to his nose to inhale its invigorating scent. Lotus flowers were considered a symbol of regeneration. In front of the two seated men is a low sacrificial table covered with offerings, over which a man known as "the scribe Kawi" pours holy water, who is also called the "brother" of the recipient of the sacrifice in the lower text. He is holding a smoker in his left hand. In the lower part of the picture it is a woman who smokes and donates water for four men and two women who sit next to each other on a long bench with a backrest. She is referred to as “his daughter Amun-Mose”, that is, the daughter of Kawi. The first of these is Kawi as the recipient of the victim. He is refreshed by the scent of a lotus blossom. In his right hand he is holding a strip of fabric, the so-called stuff amulet. At the bottom there is a sacrificial prayer to Osiris, the ruler of eternity, the great god, the lord of Abydos for the scribe Kawi. Above the scene, the gable of the stele is filled with two udjat eyes and a shen ring , symbols of protection and eternity. The short sacrificial prayer at the foot of the stele shows that the scribe Kawi had this stele erected as a “brother” (i.e. relative) of the persons depicted, “to keep their names alive”. Although the persons are not expressly referred to as relatives and members of a single family in their captions, this is made clear by the loving gesture with which everyone embraces one another. In this form of commemoration, the Egyptians saw a possibility of eternal life far beyond the existence of mummies and graves. As long as a name is pronounced, its bearer remains alive in people's memories.

literature

  • Arne Eggebrecht : Pelizaeus Museum Hildesheim; The Egyptian Collection (= Zabern's illustrated books on archeology. Vol. 12). von Zabern, Mainz 1993, ISBN 3-8053-1569-4 , p. 55.
  • Wilfried Seipel : Egypt. Gods, graves and art. 4000 years of belief in the hereafter. Volume 1 (= catalogs of the Upper Austrian State Museum. New series no. 22). Landesmuseum, Linz 1989, ISBN 978-3-900746-14-8 , p. 266.
  • Manfred Gutgesell: Stele of Kawi . In: Arne Eggebrecht (ed.): Egypt's rise to world power . von Zabern, Mainz 1987, ISBN 3-8053-0964-3 , p. 352–354 (catalog manual for the exhibition in the Roemer- und Pelizaeus-Museum Hildesheim August 3 - November 29, 1987).
  • Bettina Schmitz : Kawi's stele for his family . In: Nofret - The Beautiful. The woman in ancient Egypt . "Truth" and Reality. von Zabern, Mainz 1985, ISBN 3-8053-0854-X , p. 54–55 (catalog manual for the exhibition in the Roemer- und Pelizaeus-Museum Hildesheim July 15 - November 4, 1985, volume 2).
  • Hans Kayser : The Egyptian antiquities in the Roemer-Pelizaeus-Museum in Hildesheim. de Gruyter, Hamburg 1966, p. 67 u. Fig. 47.
  • Albert Ippel, Günther Roeder : The monuments of the Pelizaeus Museum in Hildesheim. Curtius, Berlin 1921, pp. 91-92.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Roemer and Pelizaeus Museum Hildeshein; Inventory number PM 1261