By Caroline Roberts, Conservator
Hey, Ugly Object fans! It is great to be back at the Kelsey part-time and working with the collection again. One thing I’ve missed most about being away from the museum are the surprises — the chance discoveries than can happen while examining artifacts up close. This month’s Ugly Object is a rather unassuming funerary stela from Terenouthis, Egypt, showing a woman with upraised arms. At first glance, it doesn’t look like there’s much going on here beyond the carved figure, and I was not expecting to find more than a few small traces of pigment in the woman’s chiton. But as soon as I shined a UV light over the surface, hidden figures emerged! Look closely and you might be able to see a fringed shroud hanging over the woman’s left arm, an Anubis figure reclining on a plinth to her left, and below the woman’s feet … a painted inscription!
At what point did these images disappear? A photograph of the stela shows faint traces of the shroud, canine figure, and inscription, but the fact that they aren’t mentioned in the Terenouthis stelae’s published catalogue suggests that these elements had nearly disappeared by the early 1960s. Today, they are all but invisible to the human eye. Thankfully, some trace of the original paint remains in a form that is sensitive to UV light. This makes me wonder … how many other stelae have images and inscriptions that await rediscovery?
Stay tuned for more!
