Stela of a Woman Named Niseret
Early Dynastic Period
This stela bears the name of a woman who lived in the early days of the Egyptian state. Her stela was found in the royal cemetery in Abydos, which yielded approximately 360 similar stelae, the majority of which belonging to women.
The surface of the stela is weatherworn, but one can still make out the three hieroglyph and the image of a squatting woman, carved in larger proportions. The reading of the name is difficult to translate, as the hieroglyphs belong to the earliest stages of the writing system, before more standard forms were introduced. Thus, her name has been previously rendered as Senba, Niseret, and Nitkhnum. Her figure acts both on the visual level and on the level of the script, serving as a classifier (determinative) for women.
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