In 1935, a team led by U-M professor Enoch Peterson excavated a vast necropolis located in the ancient Roman city of Terenouthis, Egypt. Hundreds of painted mudbrick tombs were uncovered at the site, and each tomb was adorned with a limestone grave marker. These markers (or stelae) were carved and painted with images of deceased individuals or groups, funerary iconography like shrouds and jackal figures, and in many cases, Greek inscriptions recording the person’s name and age at death. Some epitaphs offer more personal notes, referring to the deceased person as “worthy,” “devoted” to their families, and “Be of Good Cheer!”.
The Terenouthis stelae are a fascinating group of artifacts that tell a story of the lives and beliefs of ordinary people living in Roman Egypt. The Kelsey preserves roughly 200 of these objects, and they are cataloged in a 1961 publication by archaeologist Finley Hooper in the Kelsey Museum Studies Series. The Kelsey Conservation department has spent nearly 15 years studying the stelae, with the primary goal of slowing their deterioration and preserving them for the future. And as we have examined and documented these objects, we’ve made new discoveries—some of which we really did not expect!
While imaging a group of stelae as part of our 2021–2023 NEH grant project to investigate pigments and dyes in the Kelsey’s Roman Egyptian collections, we noticed something interesting under ultraviolet light. Beneath the feet of the figure on KM 21021, there is a seemingly smooth, blank area where one might expect to see a person’s name carved or painted in Greek. But nothing is visible to the eye. However, shining UV light onto this area revealed a painted, partial inscription that Finley Hooper did not see in 1961. It reads, “—onamounis, about 19 years old.”
We’ve found 12 additional stelae with previously invisible inscriptions and funerary imagery such as banquet scenes. A new line of investigation has emerged from this discovery: what caused these images to fade in the first place? We want to learn more about the period of the stelae’s history between their excavation and Hooper’s 1961 catalog. Because even though the stelae were discovered nearly 100 years ago, we still have more to learn about the people they commemorate.
