When clearing a burial pit in Thebes archaeologists unearthed a wooden funerary stela. The translated inscription reads: ‘Ra-Harakhty, the great god, lord of heaven, may he give offerings to Osiris, to the scribe of the treasury, Aafenmut’. The inscription means that Aafenmut the scribe asks the lord of heaven, Ra-Harakhty, to give offerings to Osiris. Indeed, there is an image of the scribe on the right separated by an image of the table with offerings in the middle and the image of the falcon-headed god on the left [fig. 1]. The inscription does not describe what the stela depicts.

 

The relationship between word and image presupposes that there is a rather clear distinction between the two. Mitchell relates the issue to visual representation and language as a division between ‘the seeable and the sayable’. Such distinction is harder to make when the image often is the word like in Egyptian hieroglyphic language. Taking the funerary stela from the Twenty-Second Dynasty as an example, this essay aims to argue for the complementary relationship of text and image in relation to the meaning conveyed to the viewer as well as beliefs of ancient Egyptians. The essay describes the stela gradually throughout the essay as not to confuse the reader.