Hamadab stela

Most of the surface is writing. Forty-five lines run across this sandstone stela, below the surviving lower portions of carved figures. The text names Amanirenas and Akinidad, members of the ruling house of Kush, the ancient kingdom to Egypt’s south. The stone dates to the late first century BC. Its writing is cursive Meroitic, a script used in Kush. Being able to recognise its signs and sounds has not solved every question about the language. Names can be identified while much of a passage’s meaning remains difficult. It helps to separate the act of reading signs from the fuller task of understanding what they say. The stela takes its name from Hamadab. In the gallery, the long block of writing gives an immediate sense of a text intended to endure. Look up from the lines to the remains of the figures. Writing and royal imagery originally shared the monument, even though each survives with different gaps.