E.Me 66: A Caromemphite Figural Stela in the British Museum

Abstract

This article presents a new edition of a fragmentary Carian stela. The stone was spoliated from the Carian necropolis west of Memphis and reused in the lining of the Baboon Catacombs in the Sacred Animal Necropolis at Saqqara. The two fragments have been kept at London’s British Museum since their excavation in winter 1968–1969. Although long known, this stela has never received a full publication. While the text is very damaged, much of the original adoration scene is preserved, adding to the small corpus of Caromemphite art. This sheds light on the working practices of Carian artists in Memphis in the sixth century BCE.

Introduction

This paper presents a Caromemphite stela from Saqqara. Two joining fragments were excavated from the Baboon Catacombs of North Saqqara in the 1968–1969 Egypt Exploration Society (EES) campaign. ¹ Both were found among debris in the Upper Gallery of the Baboon Catacombs. ² They were assigned the same EES number, H5-1363, and the EAO number 3161 (written in Arabic on the stones’ long side: ٣١٦١). The two fragments were then transferred to the British Museum in London alongside fourteen other Carian inscriptions from Saqqara. The upper fragment has the inventory number BM EA67238 and the lower BM EA67239. ³

This stela was first published by Geoffrey T. Martin (1979) with a line drawing. Martin’s edition omitted the tip of the sun-disk’s wing and the Carian text. ⁴ This initial oversight meant it was omitted from the otherwise comprehensive edition of Carian inscriptions from the Saqqara excavations prepared by Olivier Masson (1978). Sue Davies’ full archaeological report of the Baboon Catacombs (2006) includes a short description of the stela’s two fragments, noting but not giving a reading of the Carian inscription. She labelled the stela the ‘Baboon Catacombs Object’ number BCO-48. ⁵

The Carian legend was first read by Frank Kammerzell, who was alerted to the inscription’s existence by staff at the British Museum’s Egyptology department in 1990. Kammerzell gave a reading of the text in a footnote to his monograph. ⁶ He was writing at a time of rapid change in the scholarly understanding of Carian. Ignasi Adiego (2007) republished Kammerzell’s reading with only minor changes to reflect the progress in the decipherment. Crucially, the value of letter #22 was updated from a tectal *k’ to a nasal n. ⁷ It should be noted that Adiego did not inspect the stone himself. His edition should be considered exactly equivalent to Kammerzell’s. ⁸ In his full catalogue of Carian inscriptions, Adiego gave the text the number E.Me 66. ⁹

Kammerzell: ---].[..]u[….]p[.]k’.[--- Adiego: —].[. . u] [. . .]p[-]n[—

Although the relief and inscription have both been addressed in passing previously, the stela is in need of a synthetic overview.

The two fragments together formed the upper right part of a round-topped limestone stela (figs 1 and 2). A partial join can be made between the upper and lower fragments. The upper fragment measures at its greatest extent 112 by 118 mm; the lower, 147 by 165 mm, excluding mortar. Both are 74 mm thick. Much of the right edge is preserved. It proceeds straight on the lower fragment but curves gently on the upper, consistent with Egyptian round-topped stelae. The lateral face is gently cambered, as on other Caromemphite stelae. This would originally have allowed it to slot into a wall niche. Overall, the original stela was probably manufactured in the second half of the sixth century BCE, alongside other Caromemphite figural stelae.

Fig. 1

E.Me 66 (photo: courtesy of the British Museum).

Fig. 2

E.Me 66, with mortar in dark grey and damage in light grey. Ancient pigments not shown (drawing: author).

Tool marks are preserved on its rough-worked rear face. There is a substantial amount of ancient mortar on the lower-left part of the lower fragment and a smaller amount on the back top-right corner of the upper fragment. Aggressive tool marks on the left half of the front face of both fragments show they were still joined when spoliated. The two fragments were broken all around, but not apart, when the stela was repurposed to line the Baboon Catacombs in the fourth century BCE. Their separation probably dates to the Catacombs’ looting in late antiquity. ¹⁰

The right part of a figural relief is preserved. An adoration scene was originally depicted. Typical of Late Period Egyptian art, this genre was particularly popular on Caromemphite stelae. ¹¹ Here, it was bounded below and to the right by incised lines.

The deceased is shown at the rightmost side of the scene, facing left, with his arms raised in worship. His hair is styled in a short bob and he wears a short slanted kilt with a body sash and otherwise bare torso. ¹² Substantial traces of red pigment on both fragments show his skin was originally painted, contrasting with the otherwise undressed stone around. ¹³

Before him is an offering table piled with four round loaves of bread, one visible trussed duck, and a large open lotus. The offerings are remarkably similar to those of E.Me 12, although the style of the offering table is different. This table has a flared base, like E.Me 13. The bottom of the offering table hovers above the adorant’s foot and the tip of his kilt obscures one of the offered loaves. The scene may have been cramped; on large stelae, the offering table is normally set at ground level before the adorant.

By comparison with other Caromemphite adoration scenes, the lost left and central portions of the scene would originally have featured Osiris enthroned with Isis standing behind him. The tip of Osiris’ feet or robes may be seen before the base of the offering table.

Above the adorant’s head is the tip of a wing of a sun-disk. The lack of detailed feathers is not atypical for Caromemphite stelae. The element would originally have filled the upper part of the curved stela.

Before the adorant’s head is an incised box. This would traditionally have held hieroglyphs naming the adorant in his voice. The stele E.Me 9 shows these ‘speech bubbles’ before each figure, populated with Egyptian hieroglyphic text, above a more general Egyptian–Carian quasi-bilingual in the exergue. ¹⁴ In most other examples from the Caromemphite corpus, however, these ‘speech bubbles’ were left blank, and the stelae bore only monolingual legends. ¹⁵ This was presumably because some combination of the stonecutter, commissioner, and/or deceased was not literate in Egyptian hieroglyphs. This tallies with the relative lack of multilingualism seen elsewhere in the Caromemphite corpus; every single known false door stela produced by the Carians bore a monolingual inscription. Hieroglyphs, as visual elements, nonetheless held symbolic significance as core components of the Caromemphite offering scene. ¹⁶ Although the ‘speech bubbles’ were not populated with text, they were conserved as mandatory components, like the food offerings or the solar disk. This adaptation highlights the relationship between the Carian community at Memphis and the tradition of Egyptian art which, in the process of imitation, they made their own.

The stela of E.Me 66 shares a range of stylistic features with the three grand Caromemphite stelae that were cut in the same hand: Masson (1978) Nos 4 (= Adiego 2007 E.Me 12), 5 (= E.Me 13), and 5a (anepigraphic). Martin and Nicholls characterised the so-called ‘Saqqara Master’ by an imitation of Egyptian art using elements of East Greek artistic technique and iconography. ¹⁷ E.Me 66 shares many qualities with these three stelae. These include the reliance on incised linework rather than full sunken relief, the elements of and emphasis on the adoration scene, the aforementioned use of empty ‘speech bubbles’, and of course the inclusion of a Carian alphabetic legend. It does not, however, appear to have been done in the hand of the ‘Saqqara Master’. Compositionally, for example, the amount of blank stone below the groundline rules out the inclusion of a tall Thoth as in the three relevant artworks. It is regardless unclear whether further scenes were illustrated below the adoration scene. Other Carian stonemasons created similar, perhaps derivative, works: E.Me 14 and a stela in Durham (DUROM.1971.139) are all also in different hands. E.Me 66 nonetheless shows the vigorous output of Carian artisans in the production of monumental art for their community.

The Carian legend is situated to the right of the figural scene, delineated by an incised line that serves as the text’s baseline. This cut border extends below the groundline on which the adorant stands and appears to curve slightly at the top. Very little of the original Carian text survives. Two letters are well preserved, and parts of perhaps two more survive. Reading direction cannot be determined. The text originally stood approximately 10 mm tall. As on many other Caromemphite stelae, a small amount of black pigment survives in the furrows of the lettering. Like the red paint on the skin of the deceased, this technique was adapted by the Carians from Egyptian art and artists around them.

On the lower fragment, one letter stands out quite clearly: u, letter #19. ¹⁸ The strokes are deep, with a mistake on the leftmost hasta, which was in part cut twice. It has no stem and its arms curve very slightly outwards. Among the Caromemphite stelae, stemless #19 is as common as its allograph with a stem. It is palaeographically unremarkable.

It is unlikely that this u was the original start or end of the text. At the far right edge of the extant fragment, a surviving diagonal hasta would conform with the oblique form of a (letter #1) often seen in Caromemphite inscriptions, ¹⁹ or perhaps $\hat{k}$ (letter #21). One would expect the original unbroken E.Me 66 to have been taller and include further scenes of worship in lower registers. The small amount of preserved lettering therefore probably comes from the middle of the original text.

On the upper fragment, two distinct letters can be observed, only one of which is clear. Towards the right, near the break, is letter #17 s. Its outermost hastae are relatively vertical and touch the incised groundline. Its central vertex is raised. Kammerzell read this instead as letter #24 p, taking the incised border of the scene that serves as the text’s groundline to be the horizontal baseline of the letter. There are however no known parallels in Carian epigraphy for a #24 that integrates its baseline into the incised groundline. In E.Me 12, 13, and 14, a p given above an incised groundline hovers such that its horizontal is a clear and distinct stroke. On the other hand, this form of #17 with a raised midpoint has parallels in E.Me 4, 5, 27, 35, and 53; it is perfectly plausible to read s here.

The leftmost letter on the upper fragment is less legible. It consists of a clearly defined central stem, with dark pigmentation, which disappears up into damage just after further strokes branch off to either side. Kammerzell read this as k’; under the modern transcription system, this would be n. The clear continuation of the stem after the diagonal hastae branch off it rules out a reading of letters #14 t, #28 ý, or #29 k. Although n may be the most likely reading, its form is unusual. The diagonal strokes appear uncharacteristically bowed. It may instead be preferable to read #21 $\hat{k}$ . The text cannot be restored regardless.

A chip separates the two letters on the upper fragment. Kammerzell rendered this [.], suggesting that a character was lost. It is unlikely that there was space for a letter here. On the lower fragment, perfectly blank stone survives either side of the u: 9 mm leftwards to the broken stone’s edge, and 16 mm rightwards to the diagonal hasta. This broad kerning fits the space on the upper fragment perfectly. At its widest, the distance between the two surviving letters on the upper fragment is 12 mm. Given this letter spacing, there was room for approximately two letters in the damage and gap between the u of the lower fragment and the s of the upper.

To the left of the damaged n/ $\hat{k}$ , blank stone continues for perhaps 20 mm. No traces of lettering are visible. It is hypothetically possible that the inscription could have continued in the incised border around the top of the sun-disk, as on E.Me 4.

I therefore provide a revised transcription of the text as follows:

← —(?)]n.^?s[. .]u.[— or → —].u[. .]sn.^?[(?)—

We would expect the legend to give the name of the deceased. Unfortunately, not enough survives to confidently restore the text.