Take, for instance, the dating of a stela erected under Rameses II.
The stela relates the conflict that ensued when Tafnekht endeavored to unite Lower Egypt in a confederacy and invade the Upper Country.
We learn from the stela that by some means he had obtained the suzerainty over Upper Egypt, which was governed by local kings and nomarchs; while Lower Egypt was similarly divided but independent.
Stone carving of upper mandible and head, Copan, Stela B (Maudslay, I, Pl.
In addition to the ornamental crosshatching on the beak, which is also seen on the glyph from the same stela (Pl.
Copan, Stela 10, where the entire head appears in a much conventionalized form.
A carving showing the whole body of the bat is used as a glyph in Stela D from Copan (Pl.
A carving of the entire bird may be shown on Stela D from Copan (Pl.
Much doubt is attached to the identification of the glyph of the month Kayae[TN-8] from Stela A, Quirigua (Pl.
In consequence of this jaguar initial, Stela A becomes particularly noticeable, because one of the personages upon it has a beard, whilst the other is masked as an ocelot or jaguar.
The fourth in the Bavian group of sceptres somewhat resembles the trident tripartite emblem which occurs on the Sargon stela and the Esarhaddon stela of Nahr-el-Kelb (figured by Dr.
In 1895 Mr. Teobert Maler unearthed in the centre of the public square at "El Seibal," Guatemala, a sculptured stela exhibiting the figures of a chieftain over whose head an open hand was carved.
On the east side of Stela P, it is succeeded by 22 glyphs and a carved design which seems to indicate the beginning or end of the count.
As Landa tells us that they erected stelae to commemorate the 20-year period, the inference to which the Copan Stela F leads us is that it is a katun and that the twenty glyphs carved on it are year-signs.
The fourth sceptre on Esarhaddon's stela is like that represented as inserted into one of the altars on the Bavian stela, and terminates in a recurved ram's head.
On Stela B two sides exhibit 13 glyphs each and the back 2+ the initial.
A groove upon it shows that it was surmounted by some emblem in metal, perhaps a hawk, like the obelisk represented on a funerary stela in the Gizeh Museum.
The chamber and door are in some cases represented by only a shallow recess decorated with a stela and a table of offerings (fig.
The stela partakes of these new characteristics in wall-decoration.
Precisely as the stelaepitomised the whole chapel, so did the sarcophagus and coffin epitomise the sepulchral chamber, thus forming, as it were, a vault within a vault.
We here see the mummy of Hûnefer placed upright before his stela and his tomb (fig.
According to the Stela of Bakhtan,[24] a statue of Khonsû places its hands four times on the nape of the neck of another statue, so transmitting the power of expelling demons.
As a matter of fact, the stela symbolised the door leading to the private apartments of the dead, a door closed and sealed to the living.
These tombs are built with large bricks, a niche and a stela sufficing for the reception of sacrificial offerings.
The serdab, therefore, was transformed, and combined with the stela of the ancient mastabas.
Mariette Pasha, when excavating at San, the ancient Zoan, found a stela which had been erected in the reign of Ramses II.
In a hieroglyphic stela lately discovered at Saqqarah, and now in the Gizeh Museum, we read of an earlier parallel to the Tyrian Camp at Memphis seen by Herodotos.
We learn from the stela that, in the time of King Ai, in the closing days of the eighteenth dynasty, there was already a similar "Camp" or quarter at Memphis which was assigned to the Hittites.
Babylonia, slew its king Zamama-sum-iddin and carried away a stela of Naram-Sin and the famous code of laws of Khammurabi from Sippara, as well as a stela of Manistusu from Akkuttum or Akkad.
He also conquered the land of Asnunnak and carried off from Padan a stela belonging to a refugee from Malatia.
Babylon; a bowl and a stela of storm-god, both with incised inscriptions; doubtless spoil of war or tribute brought from Syria.
Mr. Bowditch favors the lower figure, chiefly because it is the lower, and thus puts Stela 9 at A.
The inscription of this XIIth dynasty sandstone stelafrom the cemetery must be divided in the middle.
Limestone stela of the end of the XIIth dynasty, from the cemetery, dedicated by a certain Sabna to his father, who had the same name and was a prophet of Amon.
What walls these were the stela does not state, but the evidence from the pottery would support the idea that they were the great town walls.
Ahpula's death, we shall have the date of Stela 9 of Copan as A.
The date found on Stela 9 of Copan, which is the earliest date of these stelae of that place, in which the numbers preceding the period glyphs are given by the line-and-dot method, is 54.
In this place (on Stela C of Quirigua) 4 Ahau 8 Cumhu is reckoned thus: "Grand cycle glyph .
The soldier kept his place before the stela and contemplated the distance.
On the famous stela of the Vultures, now in the Louvre, a sort of wicker-work cage is represented, filled with captives who are waiting to be put to death by the mace of the king.
We are transported to the cannibal's kitchen of some African chieftain, such as that represented on a curious stela found in Darfur, and now in the museum of Constantinople.
On the other hand, on a stela now at Palermo a list is given of kings who seem to have reigned over Northern Egypt while the Pharaohs of Nekhen were reigning in the south.
So on a stela translated by Professor Maspero (Recueil de Travaux, iv.
The most interesting fact is that even the theological Hadad-stela makes no mention of a female goddess.
Another stela stands 26 feet out of the ground, and, as Stephens said, has probably 6 or 8 feet buried.
And yet in 1886 a granite stela was found by Professor Flinders Petrie containing a hymn of victory in honour of Meneptah the son of Ramses II.
The stela of Meneptah, on which the name of "Israelites" occurs, implies that they had already been lost to sight in the desert.
Nor were the lesser dynasties of the Delta allowed, according to the Stela of Pianchi, to cross the threshold of the Pharaohs because they were unclean and ate fish.
On a Stela in the Leyden Museum I have discovered that a certain Psamtik, a member of the fallen dynasty, lived till the 17th year of Amasis' reign, and died at the age of seventy-five.
Decorated with multicoloured palm-leaf frieze; this was the funerary stela of Teta-ky.
There was no evidence to show to which of these two tombs this stela belonged.
As evidence of the earlier plundering we may mention the fact that fragments of one stela were found in two separate tombs (Nos.
A ‘dug-out’ painted coffin burial with roughly painted shawabti box, and the lower portion of the stela found in Tomb No.
These divisions had no justification on the stela found at Susa, which divides only lines and even occasionally cuts a word in two.
Whether any monumental stela with this inscription survived so long after the Susa examples had been carried off is not yet certain.
These columns were read from left to right and downward precisely like those of a modern newspaper, but each column goes across thestela like a belt.
On the front of the stela sixteen columns are preserved, and traces of five more which have been intentionally erased.
The back of the stela completely preserves twenty-eight columns, except where a few natural faults in the stone obscure the characters.
But the text on the stela was certainly copied from a clay tablet which may well have shown division-lines between the laws.
Ahau 13 Ceh, and Stela I, the 5-tun period next following, that ending 9.
Although the Initial Series on the west side of Stela C at Quirigua undoubtedly refers to an earlier date than the Initial Series on the Copan monument, it does not follow that the Quirigua monument is the older of the two.
The student will note also that the date on Stela 2 at Quen Santo is less than a year later than the date recorded by the Initial Series on the Temple lintel from Chichen Itza (see fig.
The Initial Series on Stela 10 at Tikal is the only exception known.
In figure 77, A, is shown the Initial Series on the east side of Stela C at Quirigua.
These are in the Temple of the Cross at Palenque and on the east side of Stela C at Quirigua.
Another stela contains the jackal, or genius of the departed, with propitiatory offerings from his friends.
Near to this is another stelaof great beauty, engraved in low relief and cavo-relievo, coloured.
He built a temple far up the Nile at Wadi Halfa and there set up a stela commemorating his victories over the tribes of Nubia.
Professor Hilprecht would place E-dingir-ana-gin after Lugal-zaggisi, and see in the Stela of the Vultures a monument of the revenge taken by the Sumerian rulers of Lagas for the conquest of the country by the inhabitants of the north.
When Pharaoh himself deigned to officiate, the memory of the event was preserved by a stela engraved upon the rocks.
On the following plate is given the first half of an inscription carved on the sides of stela B from Copan[11].
The third example of an inscription given on the plate shows four squares of picture-writing from Stela D at Quirigua[12].
The second example on the plate gives the commencement of an inscription from the east side of Stela F at Quirigua.
The space at the top of the stela is reserved for representations in high relief of the god Samas, holding out his hand to the king, who is standing before him, giving him the stylus, with which to write his laws.
On another fragment of the same stela it seems that we witness the construction of a sepulchral tumulus.
The stela terminates in an imitation of a gabled roof, often provided with two acroteria.
The most ancient statues discovered in the temple of Golgoi may date back from the epoch at which the Assyrian conqueror Sargon erected at Citium (Larnaca) the triumphant stelaon which he relates that his vessels have vanquished Cyprus.
This stela is sculptured on a block of sandstone, covered with bas-reliefs and inscriptions.
Hammurabi was king of Babylon, and the stela on which his law is engraved was taken from Chaldæa.
Stela of Hammurabi, on which his code of laws is engraved.
The stela was brought from the castle of Birejik, not from the site of Carchemish, as M.
We shall recognise the same characters of dryness and rudeness in the black basalt stela of the same king, Marduk-nadin-akhi.
Often, especially when the tombs were those of rich men, a stela or cippus of small size appeared above them, and marked the position of the cave and the opening of the shaft.
