[Funerary Stela] Funerary objects attest to ancient Egyptians' sense of the continuity of life through death and beyond. Egyptians placed stelae in tombs to ensure the availability of the necessities that a person's ka, or soul, would use in the afterlife. This stela depicts a man and woman seated before a table covered with food.

The inscription reads in part: "A boon . . . to Osiris, Ruler of Eternity, the Great God . . . that he may give invocation offerings consisting of bread and beer . . . and all good things on which God lives."

Courtesy of the National Museum of Natural History, presented as a Bicentennial Gift to the American People by the Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, July 1976
Limestone funerary Stela: Egypt; New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty (about 1420 B.C.)

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