Untersuchungen zur Uberlieferungsgeschichte der Horusstelen: Ein Beitrag zur Religionsgeschichte Agyptens im 1. Jahrtausend v. Chr. 2 vols.

• Author: Bianchi, Robert Steven
• Position: Reviews of Books

Untersuchungen zur Uberlieferungsgeschichte der Horusstelen: Ein Beitrag zur Religionsgeschichte Agyptens im 1. Jahrtausend v. Chr. 2 vols. By HEIKE STERNBERG-EL HOTABI. Agyptologische Abhandlung, vol. 62. Wiesbaden: HARRASSOWITZ VERLAG, 1999. Pp. xiv + 307, ix + 202, 60 plates. DM 136 (paper).

The present work represents the first systematic study of the so-called Horus-on-the-crocodiles stelac, excluding statues guerisseuses, which are nevertheless acknowledged and mentioned in passing where relevant. The work is remarkably non-polemical, because the author regards these frequently encountered works of art as expressions of cyclic rejuvenation. Adhering to this theme, she avoids/eschews arguing against the commonly held view that these monuments were either apotropaic, intended to ward off evil, real and imagined, or medicinal agents, which in some cases might be physically applied to a wound. (1) The work would be invaluable for this revised interpretation alone, but in reaching her conclusion, the author also contributes immeasurably to other areas of investigation.

She begins her exegesis with a group of stelae representing the god Shed, redating those with Amarna contexts with good reason to the Ramesside Period. In so doing, she places these stelae into the context of emerging personal piety, a subtext to which she continues to return, and associates them with the god Amun. Via an elaborate set of conceits characteristic of the polyvalent nature of ancient Egyptian religious tenets, she demonstrates how text and images on these stelae are associated with an extraordinary transformation of the god Osiris into the god Amun. Such a transformation would then appear to stand at the beginning of a tradition which received its fullest expression during the Roman imperial period, when some coffins make manifest in their design, texts, and decoration this same transformation. (2)

In a tightly argued chapter, she convincingly demonstrates how Shed came to be associated with Horus the child and how that association must he understood in terms of a unio mystica of terrestrial and solar deities. These associations were pioneered by theologians of the Ramesside period, and must be regarded within the broader landscape of Ramesside innovation in other spheres. (3)

These innovations were furthered during the immediately following epoch which the author attempts to define in narrow chronological terms. Here and later in her discussion of the stelae created during the fourth to third centuries B.C. she concedes that oftentimes the chronological divisions of ancient historians cannot accommodate art historical developments into which they are forcibly placed. In this specific instance, the accommodation is further blurred by the continuing debate about the chronology of the Third Intermediate Period. (4) As a result, the author opts to label this era of the continued development of the Horus stelae as the Libyan Period, primarily because of the prosopographical evidence.

This period is...