Red granite offering table of king Senwosret III

This offering table is arguably the most important historical item in the NMI Egyptian collection, as part of the evidence for the military and building activity of king Senwosret III in Nubia. Royal offering tables are rare, and generally in the hardest materials, as in this case granite. Offerings were placed upon a reed mat, reproduced in stone as the offering tables of the dynastic periods. Here the hieroglyph hetep 'offering' is written on the surface. The sign comprises a bound reed mat with a domed offering-loaf. Around the upper edge runs a symmetrical hieroglyphic text, giving the five royal titles and names of Senwosret III with the epithets 'beloved of Khnum lord of the Cataract area and of Satet lady of Elephantine' and 'beloved of Dedwen foremost of Nubia'. The offering table may have stood originally in a temple built by Senwosret III in his frontier fortress at Semna on the Second Cataract.