This wooden funerary stela depicts the “Lady of the House” Tahy before the sun god in falcon form, followed by Isis. The figures stand beneath a winged sun-disk and are separated by a single vertical line of hieroglyphic text. Tahy’s diaphanous gown reveals her form-fitting sheath below; the sleeves and hem of her dress are accentuated with dark bands of color. J.H. Taylor (“Theban Coffins from the Twenty-Second to Twenty-Sixth Dynasty: Dating and Synthesis of Development,” in Taylor and N. Strudwick, eds., The Theban Necropolis: Past, Present and Future) has indicated that the “…sleeved robe ending at mid-calf, sometimes with an overlying flap…seems to be introduced towards the end of the eight century B.C.” The narrow shape of the funerary cone atop her head, flanked by vegetation, allows a more precise dating into the 7th-6th centuries B.C. A man called Na-aa-tef-nakht is named in the vertical line of text separating Tahy from the standing deities; he is probably meant to be understood as her father. Her mother Na-menekh-Amun is clearly named on the horizontal line of text below, as is her mother’s father Djed-Montu-iuf-ankh, who was a God’s Father of Amun and Sekhen-Wedjat priest (“One who embraces the Eye of Horus”). The bright green, yellow, blue and red pigments with densely drawn solid black hieroglyphs are also seen on contemporary coffins. Stelae of this type seem to be exclusively found at Thebes, the likely provenance of this piece (see D.A. Aston, Burial Assemblages of Dynasty 21-25: Chronology-Typology-Development, pp. 349-355).
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