Fragments from Stela A of the Chief Steward, Henenu

The fragment preserves parts of three lines of a sunk relief inscription from Stela A of the official Henenu, the best preserved and mostly finely executed of a group of four fragmentary stelae found by Met Egyptologists in his tomb (no. 313) at Deir el-Bahri during the winter of 1922-23. Reconstruction of the approximately thirty-five recovered fragments show that the stela was horizontally oriented and depicted Henenu seated before an offering table laden with food; above and in front of him were lengthy biographical texts. The finely rendered, sunk relief hieroglyphs have sharply cut edges and carefully placed interior details; they do not appear to have been painted. The complete stela, estimated to have been about 218 cm long and 22 cm high, was placed in a shallow recess on the left side of the tomb’s rock-cut vestibule.

As reconstructed and translated by former Met curator William C. Hayes, these three joined fragments belong to lines 6-8 from the center of the stela, in front of the seated Henenu. The text describes Henenu’s official actions on behalf of King Nebhepetre Mentuhotep II. The upper line reads: “…he place[d me as a]…” The middle line reads: “…fear of me was throughout the land. I was…” The lowermost line reads “I [entered] into the house of my lord in order to provide diversion and into [every] place which [he] loved…”

The fragments were originally accessioned as part of 26.3.217.