ARTIC-EG
Walters Art Museum (Egyptian) · statue
Funerary Stele of Tembu
Description
<p>This round topped funerary stela of Tembu is carved in very low relief and brightly painted in red, yellow, blue, and black. The decoration comprises of two registers of offering scenes and a register of inscription on the bottom. The top depicts two Wadjit eyes flanking a shen-ring and water ripples with a bowl. Below this Tembu is seated with his wife on a typical 18th-Dynasty double chair. Under the chair and attached to it by a leash, is a pet monkey, holding a mirror and a cosmetic vase, which is a typical feature of New Kingdom stelae. The table in front of the couple holds loosely arranged offerings of bread, beef, vegetables and lotus buds and two jugs on stands below the table. One of the daughters of the couple stands in front of the large wine jar decorated with a "nymphaea caerulea" and presents a bowl of wine to her parents. The middle register depicts the rest of the family, including Tembu's sons Teti, Tetimose, Teiy, and Ahmose, holding various flowers and two daughters Senetnefer and Henut, holding flowers. Three of the sons wear short military kilts in accordance with their titles, while the fourth son wears a long kilt and a shirt. Between the daughters and the sons, is placed an extremely large jar decorated with a lotus flower, and topped with a clay stopper.</p><p>For the latest information about this object, <cite><a href='https://purl.thewalters.org/art/22.92' rel='external'>Funerary Stele of Tembu</a></cite>, visit the Online Collection of the Walters Art Museum.</p>
AI image analysis GPT-5.4-nano
Machine-generated from the object's image on Jul 2026. Not curatorial; treat deities, names, and signs below as the model's best reading, not authority.
Limestone funerary stele carved in relief with polychrome remains, showing a seated(?) figure and multiple standing attendants before an offering scene and hieroglyphic register text.
The image shows the upper arched portion of a limestone funerary stele with surviving traces of polychrome paint (notably pink/red and dark outlines). In the left field, a human figure seated on a low seat presents or receives offerings (a rectangular offering table/sign and stacked elements are visible). On the right, a large deity-like figure is carved in profile/three-quarter view with stylized features and surrounding symbolic forms; a curved, wing/feather-like or animal-horn-like element appears near the upper right, and a standing figure is positioned nearby. The lower portion contains a horizontal register with multiple standing figures (about a half-dozen) in procession, each with arms raised or holding implements; a continuous band of hieroglyphs spans across the middle/lower area beneath the main scenes. Numerous hieroglyphs are clearly present but the text is too small/blurred to reliably transcribe in full. No Greek, Coptic, or Arabic text is legible. No clear royal cartouche is visible at this resolution.
funerary
unknown
good
Deities
unknown (deity-like figure in right register; not clearly identifiable from the photo)
Materials
limestonepolychrome paint (red/pink and dark pigment traces)
Signs
hieroglyphic text in registers (multiple determinatives/phonograms; exact signs not reliably legible)
Inscriptions (1)
Inscription #1
English description
[Translation] His daughter Mahu; Superintendent Tembu; His wife, mistress of the house Taneane(t); His daughter Senetnefer; His daughter Henut; His son, captain Teti; His son, captain of the ship, Tetimes; His son, captain Teiy; His son herdsman? Ahmose; An offering which the king gives, to Osiris, lord of Busiris, Great god, lord of Abydos, that he may give invocation offerings of oxen, fowl, and every good and pure thing on which the god lives to the Ka of the superintendent, Tembu, his wife, mistress of the house Tanene(t), repeating life, mistress of honor
Connections
Royals
Teti
Cross-references (2)
- Walters-AccNum 22.92 tier-2
- Walters-id 12046 tier-2
Similar inscriptions · by content embedding
About this record's data
- From the source institution — accession, description, dimensions, and dating are as catalogued by Walters Art Museum (Egyptian).
- AI-inferred — the image-analysis panel (deities, names, signs) is machine-generated and may be wrong.
- Approximate location — most map points are plotted at the site centroid, not the exact findspot.
- Inferred links — cross-references marked with a match method other than explicit-source-field were matched by us, not stated by the source.