This brightly painted stela commemorates a man named Amenemhat and his wife Hemet.^[1] Before them is a white pedestal table stacked with food, and to its right another stack of offerings. A smaller-scale man, the couple’s son, also named Amenemhat, appears at the upper right. The younger Amenemhat stands on his own groundline and holds a haunch of beef. A brief hieroglyphic text appears at the top and along the right edge. This type of monument was made to preserve the images and names of the deceased for eternity and to ensure that they had food provisions in the afterlife.1

Egyptian art is highly symbolic and conveys many levels of information. In Egyptian compositions, the most important figures are usually on the left facing right, a position occupied here by Amenemhat and Hemet. Amenemhat stands in front of his wife, indicating his relatively higher status as head of the household. He wears a white kilt with a triangular front panel, a broad collar, and bracelets. He reaches out with both hands toward the offerings before him. Hemet wears a tripartite wig and a V-neck sheath gown with only one of its two broad straps shown. Although the straps would have covered her chest, one breast is shown as an identifier of her gender. She wears a collar, bracelets, and anklets. She places her left hand affectionately on her husband’s shoulder as she sniffs a long-stemmed lotus, a symbol of rebirth.2

Amenemhat and Hemet’s genders are differentiated by the color of their skin. His is dark reddish-brown, a reference to his socially active, outdoor life, while hers is yellow, a reference to her life as an elite woman in the home.3

In Egyptian art, depth or distance from the viewer is represented by height; an object that is supposed to be behind another will be shown above it, a principle that is key for interpreting the offerings on this stela. The white pedestal table in front of Amenemhat is stacked with tall yellow reeds that refer to the “Fields of Yaru,” the realm of the afterlife, and which also imitate tall loaves of bread (see cat. 1). Above the bread—but understood as behind the loaves—are a white object (probably another type of bread), a head of leafy green lettuce, a haunch of beef, and a reddish-brown object, possibly a cow heart. To the lower right of the table are three tall jars for liquid offerings. Above the jars—hence, behind them—is a horizontal line with banding that is supposed to be a mat upon which lay leeks, a lotus flower, a white object (possibly a bread loaf), a joint of meat on the bone, some sort of fruit or vegetable, a short section of ribs, and a cow head.4

The same principle of representation was applied to the offerings behind the younger Amenemhat at the upper right of the stela. The multilevel stack of food should be read from the bottom, with the irregularly-shaped brown objects that likely represent loaves of bread understood as being closest to the viewer. Above them—hence, behind them—are two long loaves of bread and lotus flowers. Each item is shown in isolation without overlapping that would obscure it, but also close enough to other objects to avoid leaving empty spaces in the composition.5

Below the pedestal table to the left is a caption that reads “funerary meal”; below and to the right are a basin and ewer.6

Conventions for Portraying the Human Body

This stela displays the traditional conventions for portraying the human body as a composite diagram made up of different views. The man and woman are shown with their heads in profile, shoulders oriented frontally, and their chests, buttocks, and legs in profile. This was done to give the most characteristic and informative view of the human form. For example, if shown frontally, the head would be an oval that would not represent the contours of the facial features. The eye is represented frontally because it is actually almond shaped, and if rendered in profile with the other facial features, it would be an unnatural wedge shape. The combined perspectives of the rest of the body similarly enabled artists to portray the width of the shoulders, the shape of the breast, the curve of the buttock, and the musculature of the calves. Both feet are shown with an arch because it is an element of the foot. The hands are also composite representations in order to ensure that the most important parts of the hand—the fingers and thumb—were fully displayed. To achieve this, the left (near) hand is inverted with the thumb facing down (see also cat. 1).7

Texts

Hieroglyphs are very closely tied to their representation. The border text and the signs that surround the couple face the same direction as they do, indicating that they pertain to them. Likewise, the text behind their son faces the same direction as he does, because it is his caption, naming him as “Amenemhat.” The signs in front of his father read: “A voice offering for the ka [soul] of the God’s Father, Amenemhat, justified [deceased], born of Ip.” Those around Hemet read: “His beloved wife Hemet, born of Itu.” “Voice offering” refers to the belief that the recitation of prayers for offerings could provide provisions as effectively as images of food or physical offerings.8

In these compositions, an image could serve simultaneously as a hieroglyph. In hieroglyphic writing, a personal name is usually followed by a small figure of a seated man or woman, indicating that the word is a name. However, there are no such determinatives after Amenemhat and Hemet’s names because their large figures serve that purpose.9

The hieroglyphs within the figurative scene are in raised relief and brightly painted with the same detail and care as the figures, further integrating them into the scene. In contrast, those on the border are in sunk relief and filled with Egyptian blue pigment (fig. 1).^[2] This combination of the very time-consuming raised relief carving and the relatively quick sunk relief is seen on other Middle Kingdom stelae.^[3] However, sunk relief was the more commonly employed technique in that era.^[4] Because sunk relief was usually used on the exterior of tombs, while raised relief was used for the interior, the juxtaposition of the two here could indicate that the stela was intended to function as a microcosmic representation of the tomb, with the border text representing the outside of the tomb and the raised relief inside it.^[5] Or, the two techniques may have been used to create a further visual separation between the brightly colored “interior” of the stela that focused on the individuals and their names, and the generic prayer—which does not even mention their names—on the border. In any case, the areas seem to have been carved by different artists, and there is a dramatic contrast in the quality of the carving in the central scene compared to that of the border.10

The border text is a version of the standard prayer to provide food for the deceased: “A gift that the king gives: a thousand of bread, beer, oxen, and fowl, alabaster, linen, offerings, and provisions, and every pure thing upon which the god lives. Revered by Osiris, Lord of Busiris, the Great God, Lord of Abydos.”11

Date

Several features of the composition help establish a fairly narrow range of dates for its manufacture. The pose of Hemet, with her hand on her husband’s shoulder and sniffing a long-stemmed lotus, is seen early in the Middle Kingdom.^[6] The tresses of her wig fall just to the level of the bodice of her dress, a detail that is also seen early in the period.^[7] The composition of the offerings, the text to the left of the table’s base, and the basin and ewer to its right are seen on other stelae from the reign of Senwosret I, as is the composition of large-scale figures with very brief inscriptions.^[8]12

Other Monuments of Amenemhat and Hemet

Because members of the Egyptian elite could afford to commission such stelae, additional information about certain individuals can sometimes be found on other monuments. Although Amenemhat was an exceedingly common name in the Middle Kingdom, Hemet was not, and the relative rarity of her name makes it possible to link the family to two other stelae that bear both names.^[9] One of these examples, now in Cairo, shows the younger Amenemhat, who also appears on the Chicago stela, with his wife Henutsen. The stela’s inscription mentions his father and mother, Amenemhat and Hemet. The text also records that the son held a series of prestigious priestly ranks at Karnak Temple, so it is therefore probable that his father, who held the priestly title God’s Father, also worked in Thebes (now Luxor). It is likely, therefore, that the Chicago stela also originated from Thebes. The other stela portrays Hemet, the daughter of Itu, with her son Amenemhat, but the inscription does not mention Hemet’s husband, indicating that it may have been made after his death.^[10]13

Acquiring the Stela

There are detailed and amusing notes about the purchase of this stela by James Henry Breasted from the Cairo dealer Ralph Blanchard in 1919. Breasted reported that Dr. Gordon, director of the University of Pennsylvania Museum, had laid a claim to the stela but then had “such uncertainty” about it that the dealer was persuaded to sell it to Breasted who, expressing great urgency because the agents from the Metropolitan Museum of Art were “expected hourly,” borrowed a bicycle and “rode as fast as [he] could” … in order to “save” it and a fine bronze jackal [cat. 27] for the Art Institute.^[11]14

Provenance

Ralph Huntington Blanchard (1875–1936), Cairo; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago through James Henry Breasted as agent, 1919.15

Publication History

Thomas George Allen, A Handbook of the Egyptian Collection (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1923), 40 (ill.).16

Karen B. Alexander, The Galleries of Ancient Art, Egyptian, Greek, Etruscan, and Roman: A Guide to the Collection, brochure (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1994), n.p.17

Karen B. Alexander, “The New Galleries of Ancient Art at the Art Institute of Chicago,” Minerva 5, no. 3 (May–June 1994): 29, fig. 1.18

Emily Teeter, “Egyptian Art,” in “Ancient Art at the Art Institute of Chicago,” special issue, Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 20, no. 1 (1994): 14 (ill.), 16 (ill.), 19–20, no. 3.19

Debra N. Mancoff and James N. Wood, Treasures from the Art Institute of Chicago, selected by James N. Wood, Director and President, with commentaries by Debra N. Mancoff (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2000), 68.20

Emily Teeter, Karen B. Alexander, and Mary Greuel, Art of the Ancient Mediterranean World: Egypt, Greece, Italy, with contributions by Edmund Barry Gaither et al., teacher manual (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2001), 13, 17–20.21

Jaromír Málek, Elizabeth Fleming, Alison Hobby, and Diane Magee, Topographical Bibliography of Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic Texts, Statues, Reliefs and Paintings, vol. 8, Objects of Provenance Not Known, pt. 3, Stelae (Early Dynastic Period to Dynasty XVII) (Oxford: Griffith Institute, 2007), 138.22

Geoff Emberling and Emily Teeter, “The First Expedition of the Oriental Institute, 1919–1920,” in Pioneers to the Past: American Archaeologists in the Middle East, 1919–1920, ed. Geoff Emberling (Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 2010), 47, 48, fig. 4.17.23

Karen B. Alexander, “From Plaster to Stone: Ancient Art at the Art Institute of Chicago,” in Recasting the Past: Collecting and Presenting Antiquities at the Art Institute of Chicago by Karen Manchester (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2012), 28.24

Emily Teeter, “Collecting for Chicago: James Henry Breasted and the Egyptian Collections,” Oriental Institute News and Notes 226 (Summer 2015): cover illustration, 2, 9.25

Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings at the Art Institute of Chicago: Highlights of the Collection, selected by James Rondeau (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2017): 12 (ill.).26

Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings at the Art Institute of Chicago: Highlights of the Collection, selected by James Rondeau, rev. ed. (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2019): 12 (ill.).27

Ashley F. Arico, “Reading Ancient Egyptian Art: A Curator Answers Common Questions,” Art Institute of Chicago ARTicle (blog), July 14, 2020.28

Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings at the Art Institute of Chicago: Highlights of the Collection, edited by James Rondeau, rev. ed. (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2025): 14 (ill.).29