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I scanned this image from a book sometime in July 2004. I did find a text file I'd saved regarding it:
"Part of a block from the funerary temple of King Sahura at Abusir showing various deities leading foreign captives to the king. The deities are drawn on a larger scale than the foreigners and stand in a separate register above their prisoners. In their rear hands they hold ropes that cross into the lower register and attach to the captive figures. Above the deities the top of the register is bounded by a starry sky hieroglyph, but no such border is found above the prisoners and, in fact, the two registers are not separate units. Rather, they must be read together, as the ropes running from one to the other suggest, with the captives visually placed beneath the feet of the gods to show their subject status. The latter is further emphasized by the way in which most of the prisoners have their arms contorted and tied into a variety of uncomfortable positions. Although the paint has been lost from this piece, it is still possible to appreciate the extremely high quality of the relief carving. The figures of the gods exhibit the broad shoulders and low small of the back characteristic of male figures in this period."
I did an extensive search at Flicker for the Berlin Egyptian museum, and didn't find this relief. That doesn't prove it's not in their holdings, for I found one website which explains:
"Ludwig Borchardt excavated and brought to Berlin many columns and relieves from the funerary temple of the king Sahure in Abusir. Since there was not enough space to exhibit the columns in the new Museum at that time these were stored in a Charlottenburg depot where they were much damaged during the 2nd world war. At the end of the 1980 with the support of the society for the promotion of the Egyptian Museum (Vereins zur Förderung des Ägyptischen Museums e.V. ) restored and re-erected in an extension to the then existing Egyptian museum in Charlottenburg.
the columns will also remain in Charlottenburg and will be visible after the opening of the new Scharf-Gerstenberg Museum in 2008.The final move of the columns to the Museum island will have to wait until the completion of the reconstruction works in ca. 10 years."
So it may be some time before photos can be brought forth. Meanwhile, I'm not entirely certain of this book's data. I looked up Abusir, and learned it is part of the Memphis area. "Memphis was the ancient capital of the first nome of Lower Egypt." "The modern cities and towns of Mit Rahina, Dahshur, Saqqara, Abusir, Abu Gorab, and Zawyet el'Aryan, south of Cairo, all lie within the administrative borders of historical Memphis ( 29°50?58.8?N, 31°15?15.4?E). Memphis was also known in Ancient Egypt as Ankh Tawy ("That which binds the Two Lands"), thus stressing the strategic position of the city between Upper and Lower Egypt." (Source Wikipedia)
But let's look at the relief itself. The god accompanying Set must be Amun, because he has Amun's characteristic tall hat. Now look at the hieroglyphs:
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Could this be from the town site of Ancient Egyptian Nubt near Naqada? "Its name derives from ancient Egyptian nub, meaning gold, on account of the proximity of gold mines in the Eastern Desert." (source Wikipedia). "Naqada was the necropolis of the town of Nubt, the town of gold, known in Greek as Ombos. It had been devoted to the god Set, or Set of Nubt, Nubty, as he is called in the Pyramid Texts, and as evidenced by inscribed blocks found at Naqada." (source touregypt.net) Set clearly has associations with Nubt. But Nubt (Naqada) is quite a bit south of the Memphis regions, where author Gay Robins asserts was this relief's origin: |

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This still doesn't rule the book's conclusions out. Perhaps Set and Amun were depicted bringing foreign invaders in the Naqada region to the pharoah. (Or perhaps the 'Nubt' hieroglyphs are more as a title, "the dweller in Nubt"?) I did note that in Budge, the 'mountain' hieroglyph could also refer to 'foreign territories':
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![]() "Amun and Seth united, from the Temple of Seth in Ombos" 16 W. M. F. Petrie and J. E. Quibell, Naqada and Ballas, London,1896, pl. LXXIX.
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| "Under Ramessu III some reconstructions went on, and a priest Userhat made new lintels to doorways of the chambers in the N.E. corner of the temenos. One lintel of his (pl. LXXIX) shews Set and Amen seated back to back over the intertwined Nile plants. On the left side Userhat is "Beloved of [Amen lord] of the thrones of the two lands who is in Karnak. [Giving praise] to thy ka, Oh Lord of the gods, that he may grant long life and a good old age . . . in Karnak to the ka of the prophet of Set, Userhat, makheru." On the right side is, "Set Nubti lord of the South land, great god, lord of heaven, fair child of Ra. Giving praise to thy ka, Set, the very valorous, [that he may give]. . . in Thebes to the ka of the prophet of Set, Userhat." And behind the figure is, "made by his son, who makes his name to live, for the ka of the prophet of Set, Userhat." (_Naqada and Bellas_, Petrie, page 70) |