Donation Stela of Osorkon I dated to year 6

Donation Stela of Osorkon I dated to year 6

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

From the Third Intermediate Period through the Saite Period a large number of stelae are preserved that, like this one, record the donation of land to temples. These give an unusually rich view into temple and land organization. Most often non-royal persons actually made the gift, and the gift was probably destined for the support of the donor's funerary cult. The donation was generally made through an intermediary somehow attached to the temple and who must have derived some benefit for his agency. For reasons of decorum, usually the reigning king was depicted as the official donor in the scene at the top. Probably because of the nature of land development, almost all such stelae relate to areas in the north of the country. King Osorkon I offers the hieroglyph for field to the gods Re-Harakhty and Nebet-Hetepet. The hieratic text below records the king commanding one Djet-tah-iuf-ankh to make a donation of fields in the region of Heliopolis for the benefit of the Divine Father and Mayor of Heliopolis, Hori.

Egyptian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Donation Stela of Osorkon I dated to year 6Donation Stela of Osorkon I dated to year 6Donation Stela of Osorkon I dated to year 6Donation Stela of Osorkon I dated to year 6Donation Stela of Osorkon I dated to year 6

The Met collection of ancient Egyptian art consists of approximately 30,000 objects of artistic, historical, and cultural importance, dating from about 300,000 BCE to the 4th century CE. A signifcant percentage of the collection is derived from the Museum's three decades of archaeological work in Egypt, initiated in 1906 in response to increasing interest in the culture of ancient Egypt.