The Stela of Akhenaten and his family is the name for an altar image in the

Egyptian Museum The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, known commonly as the Egyptian Museum or the Cairo Museum, in Cairo, Egypt, is home to an extensive collection of ancient Egyptian antiquities. It has 120,000 items, with a representative amount on display a ...

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...

which depicts the

Pharaoh Pharaoh (, ; Egyptian: ''pr ꜥꜣ''; cop, , Pǝrro; Biblical Hebrew: ''Parʿō'') is the vernacular term often used by modern authors for the kings of ancient Egypt who ruled as monarchs from the First Dynasty (c. 3150 BC) until the an ...

Akhenaten Akhenaten (pronounced ), also spelled Echnaton, Akhenaton, ( egy, ꜣḫ-n-jtn ''ʾŪḫə-nə-yātəy'', , meaning "Effective for the Aten"), was an ancient Egyptian pharaoh reigning or 1351–1334 BC, the tenth ruler of the Eighteenth Dy ...

, his queen

Nefertiti Neferneferuaten Nefertiti () ( – c. 1330 BC) was a queen of the 18th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt, the great royal wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten. Nefertiti and her husband were known for a radical change in national religious policy, in whic ...

, and their three children. The

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

stela A stele ( ),Anglicized plural steles ( ); Greek plural stelai ( ), from Greek , ''stēlē''. The Greek plural is written , ''stēlai'', but this is only rarely encountered in English. or occasionally stela (plural ''stelas'' or ''stelæ''), whe ...

with the inventory number JE 44865 is 43.5 × 39 cm in size and was discovered by

Ludwig Borchardt Ludwig may refer to: People and fictional characters * Ludwig (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters * Ludwig (surname), including a list of people * Ludwig Ahgren, or simply Ludwig, American YouTube live streamer and co ...

in Haoue Q 47 at Tell-el Amarna in 1912.Wilfried Seipel im Ausstellungskatalog ''Nofretete - Echnaton'', Nr. 47 When the archaeological finds from Tell-el Amarna were

divided Division is one of the four basic operations of arithmetic, the ways that numbers are combined to make new numbers. The other operations are addition, subtraction, and multiplication. At an elementary level the division of two natural numb ...

on 20 January 1913,

Gustave Lefebvre Gustave Lefebvre (17 July 1879 – 1 November 1957) was a French Egyptologist. As inspector for Middle Egypt for the Egyptian Antiquities Service headed by Gaston Maspero, he managed the partage of Ludwig Borchardt's excavations at el- Amarna, ...

chose this object on behalf of the Egyptian Superintendency for Antiquities (the modern

Supreme Council of Antiquities The Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) was a department of the Egyptian Ministry of Culture from 1994 to 2011. It was the government body responsible for the conservation, protection and regulation of all antiquities and archaeological excavatio ...

) instead of the

Bust of Nefertiti The Nefertiti Bust is a painted stucco-coated limestone bust of Nefertiti, the Great Royal Wife of Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten. The work is believed to have been crafted in by Thutmose because it was found in his workshop in Amarna, Egypt. It ...

Description

On the left side Akhenaten sits on a stool, handing a jewel to his eldest daughter,

Meritaten Meritaten, also spelled Merytaten, Meritaton or Meryetaten ( egy, mrii.t-itn) (14th century BC), was an ancient Egyptian royal woman of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt. Her name means "She who is beloved of Aten"; Aten being the sun-deity whom h ...

, who stands in front of him. Nefertiti sits opposite him, on the right hand side, playing with two of their daughters on her lap. These are

Meketaten Meketaten ("Behold the Aten" or "Protected by Aten") was the second daughter of six born to the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten and his Great Royal Wife Nefertiti. She likely lived between Year 4 and Year 14 of Akhenaten's reign. Although little is know ...

and

Ankhesenpaaten Ankhesenamun (, "Her Life Is of Amun"; c. 1348 or c. 1342 – after 1322 BC) was a queen who lived during the 18th Dynasty of Egypt as the pharaoh Akhenaten's daughter and subsequently became the Great Royal Wife of pharaoh Tutankhamun. Born An ...

. In the upper part, in the middle of the stela is the disk of the

Aten Aten also Aton, Atonu, or Itn ( egy, jtn, ''reconstructed'' ) was the focus of Atenism, the religious system established in ancient Egypt by the Eighteenth Dynasty pharaoh Akhenaten. The Aten was the disc of the sun and originally an aspect of ...

, whose rays end in hands holding the symbol of life (

Ankh Progressive ankylosis protein homolog (ANK ilosis H omolog) is a protein that in humans is encoded by the ''ANKH'' gene. This gene encodes a multipass transmembrane protein that is expressed in joints and other tissues and controls pyrophosphate ...

) and are thereby depicted as life-bringing. In the background there are various inscriptions with the names and titles of the people depicted. The stela is bordered on three sides by a band of further hieroglyphs, marked with blue paint, which still partially survives. At the base of the stela are small holes on both sides which indicate that the stela was fitted with wings on each side. The so-called "Doctrinal name" of the Aten used here is still in its first form. The stela's dating to the end of the first half of Akhenaten's reign follows from this, as well as the depiction of the daughters and stylistic features typical of the

Amarna period The Amarna Period was an era of History of Ancient Egypt, Egyptian history during the later half of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt, Eighteenth Dynasty when the royal residence of the pharaoh and his queen was shifted to Akhetaten ('Horizon of the ...

. Such stelae are typical of the Amarna period in Ancient Egypt and are found particularly in the graves at Amarna, which was the capital of Egypt under Akhenaten, with the name Akhetaten. These stelae were altars, which were placed in private chapels or houses for the worship of the royal family and the sun-god Aten.

Allegations of forgery

In an interview for ''

Der Spiegel ''Der Spiegel'' (, lit. ''"The Mirror"'') is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. With a weekly circulation of 695,100 copies, it was the largest such publication in Europe in 2011. It was founded in 1947 by John Seymour Chaloner ...

'' in 2009 in connection with a claim that the

is a forgery, German egyptologist Rolf Krauss argued that the bust is most likely authentic, while this stela is not. As a basis for his view, Krauss claimed, among other things, that the word ''

Maat Maat or Maʽat ( Egyptian: mꜣꜥt /ˈmuʀʕat/, Coptic: ⲙⲉⲓ) refers to the ancient Egyptian concepts of truth, balance, order, harmony, law, morality, and justice. Ma'at was also the goddess who personified these concepts, and regul ...

'' (truth, justice) is written incorrectly in four places. He further criticised the depiction of Akhenaten as

left-handed In human biology, handedness is an individual's preferential use of one hand, known as the dominant hand, due to it being stronger, faster or more dextrous. The other hand, comparatively often the weaker, less dextrous or simply less subjecti ...

, which in his view is contrary to ancient Egyptian iconography. The yellow weathering on the stone was claimed to be fake, not a

patina Patina ( or ) is a thin layer that variously forms on the surface of copper, brass, bronze and similar metals and metal alloys (tarnish produced by oxidation or other chemical processes) or certain stones and wooden furniture (sheen produced b ...

, with the support of colour analysis. Another Egyptologist, Christian Loeben commented favourably, "The relief is a pastiche, a fraudulently manufactured stylistic mishmash""Krimi um die Königin"; Matthias Schulz, in ''Der Spiegel'', Issue No.22 of 25 May 2009, pages 134-135

Bibliography

* ''Das Ägyptische Museum von Kairo.'' von Zabern, Mainz 1986, , No. 167. * Wilfried Seipel in Exhibition catalogue ''Nofretete - Echnaton.'' von Zabern, Mainz 1976, Nr. 47. *

Cyril Aldred Cyril Aldred (19 February 1914 – 23 June 1991) was an English Egyptologist, art historian, and author. Early life Cyril Aldred was born in Fulham, London, the son of Frederick Aldred and Lilian Ethel Underwood, and the sixth of seven childre ...

. ''Akhenaten and Nefertiti'' - Exhibition catalogue for the 150th anniversary of the

Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown H ...

, Brooklyn Museum/ Viking Press, New York 1973, , p. 11, Fig. 2 (Illustration is reversed).

External links

Description of the altar with picture on globalegyptianmuseum

References

{{reflist Egyptian Museum Altars

Forgery controversies Cultural depictions of Akhenaten Cultural depictions of Nefertiti