Stela of the Great Steward Iat with Uhemmenu Offering a Drink

The Louvre gives this stela two dates. The first is the early 18th Dynasty, the opening of Egypt's New Kingdom. The second, followed by a question mark, is the present day, which means that part of what you see may be modern work. The Swiss Egyptologist Michel Valloggia devoted a whole article to the stone in 2016.

The scene is a funerary meal. Iat, who held the title of great steward, the manager of a large estate, sits in a broad collar before a table of offerings, and a standing man holds out a vessel to him. The inscription names this man Uhemmenu and calls him a cupbearer. Two sacred udjat eyes look down from the rounded top. The prayer below asks Osiris, lord of Busiris, for bread, beer, meat and fowl, and that Iat may drink water on the riverbank. The stone came to the Louvre in 1827 with the collection of Bernardino Drovetti, the French consul general in Egypt.