Funerary stele of Kai

Funerary stele of Kai

The coloured stele made of limestone features the representation of two persons on the facing side – Kai and his wife before the sacrificial table with an abundance of sacrificial gifts of food and drink. It was customary to carve a special text on the stelae that the visitors to the tomb had to read aloud. According to the beliefs of the Egyptians, by pronouncing of this so called "sacrificial formula" food and drink would be transformed into the form that ka – the lower form of the soul – could consume.

This sacrificial formula is written in the Egyptian language in ten vertical lines and is called peret-heru ("exiting of the voice") and the gifts are enumerated. The text runs from right to left. Middle Kingdom (21st to 17th century B.C.).