Stele of Senenmut (1913.100.d)

Description

This limestone relief sculpture is the upper right corner of a stela from Karnak donated by the Reverend Dr Colin Campbell. It shows Senenmut, Hatshepsut’s chief male administrator, standing in front of a (damaged) offering table on which is a the foreleg of an ox (one of the choicest offerings made to the deceased). He is in a short curled wig, a broad collar and fine linen kilt, and wearing an amulet around his neck, making a burnt offering of a goose or duck to a divinity in the missing centre of the stela (only part of the god’s sun-disc headdress survives). The fragment forms the top right corner of a typical round-topped stela, the curved upper edge representing the vault of the sky and the (missing) straight bottom edge the earth. It is a votive stela which would have been placed in a temple. The inscription reads: 'Steward of the perfect goddess, Maat-ka-ra, life to her, Senenmut. Steward of the god’s wife, Neferu-ra, Senenmut.'