Stela of Amenemhat and His Mother Yatu

Middle Kingdom, Dynasty 12, ca. 1976-1794 BCE
Stone, pigement, Height: 59.1 cm (23 1/4 in.); Width: 42.5 cm (16 3/4 in.)
Gift of Henry H. Getty and Charles L. Hutchinson,
Art Institute of Chicago #1892.35
Photo © Joan Ann Lansberry

(From the info card)
"This stele, or decorated stone monument, depicts a 'marshaller of the troops' named Amenemhet and his mother. He is portrayed holding a fly whisk, a symbol of authority. A beer jar with drinking straw is under his chair. The hieroglyphic text is a prayer to the god of the underworld, Osiris: "May he give a mortuary offering of bread and beer, oxen and fowl, linen, clothing, every good and pure thing upone which [the god] lives, for the ka [soul] of the guardsman Amenemhat, deceased.""