Stele of Revealing - Ankh-ef-en-Khonsu

The Stele of Ankh-ef-en-Khonsu i (also known as the Stele of Revealing) is a painted, wooden offering stele, discovered in the 1858 at the mortuary temple of Hatshepsut at Dayr al-Bahri by François Auguste Ferdinand Mariette.

It was made for the Montu-priest Ankh-ef-en-Khonsu i. Discovered near his coffin ensemble of two sarcophagi and two anthropomorphic inner coffins. It dates to circa 680/70 BCE, the period of the late Dynasty 25/early Dynasty 26. Originally located in the former Bulaq Museum under inventory number 666, the stele was moved around 1902 to the newly opened Egyptian Museum of Cairo (inventory number A 9422; Temporary Register Number 25/12/24/11), where it remains today.

The stele is made of wood and covered with a plaster gesso, which has been painted. It measures 51.5 centimeters high and 31 centimeters wide. On the front Ankh-ef-en-Khonsu i as a priest of Montu can be seen; he is presenting offerings to the falcon-headed god Re-Harakhty ("Re-Horus of the Two Horizons"), a synchronistic form of the gods Ra and Horus, who is seated on a throne. The symbol of the west, the place of the Dead, is seen behind Re-Harakhty. Above the figures is a depiction of Nut, the sky goddess who stretches from horizon to horizon. Directly beneath her is the Winged Solar Disk, Horus of Behdet.



The stele is painted on both faces with Egyptian texts, some of which are Chapter 91 of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, while the back of the stele records eleven lines of text from Chapters 30 and 2.



According to Aleister Crowley, his wife Rose reported a revelation from the god Horus, through his messenger Aiwass. The couple went to the Bulaq Museum (no longer in existence), near Cairo, to see if she could recognize Horus on Monday, March 21, 1904. Rose recognized an image of the god on this painted stele, which at the time bore the catalogue number 666, a number holding religious significance in Thelema.

According to Crowley, the stela depicts the three chief deities of Thelema: Nuit (Egyptian Nut), Hadit (Egyptian Behdety), and Ra-Hoor-Khuit (Egyptian Re-Harakhty ["Re-Horus of the Two Horizons"]).



The stele is also known as the "Stele of Revealing" and is a central element of the religious philosophy Thelema founded by Aleister Crowley.