False-door stele of Iry

Iry’s funerary stele takes the form of a doorway surrounding a scene of the deceased at an offering table. In an Egyptian tomb, a false door stood in the funerary chapel, where relatives could approach and leave food and drink. The monument connected the living family’s offerings with the continued life of the deceased. Its images and inscriptions worked together. The seated figure remained beside the laden table, while the writing preserved his identity. Such stelae were understood as a way of keeping a person’s name alive after death. The door shape gave this enduring encounter an architectural frame within the chapel. The owner was Iri-en-achti, called Iry. He was a priest of the cult of Khufu, the pharaoh associated with the Great Pyramid at Giza, and a superintendent of the pyramid. Those titles record duties connected with the king’s funerary cult. They do not establish that Iry lived during Khufu’s reign.