Ankh-auf-mut lived in Egypt’s Late Period, around the 600s BCE, when wooden funerary stelae were set up to guide the dead toward a favorable judgment. The hieroglyphs call him the son of Sa-Amon, a priest of Amen, a title that tells us he grew up in the temple world of Thebes and knew its rituals well.The scene moves to the hall of judgment. Ankh-auf-mut steps forward, holding lotus blossoms—the scent meant to please the gods. Between him and Osiris rises a piled offering table: bread, beer, and bouquets, everything a soul might need. Osiris sits calmly on a low throne, crook and flail crossed over his chest, a red sun-disk topped by twin ostrich plumes signaling mastery of life and death.Above, the scarab Khepri rolls the morning sun into the sky, watched by two baboons who greet dawn with their cries. For the living, this image promised sunrise after night; for Ankh-auf-mut, it pledged rebirth after burial. The stele closes the circle: priestly son, faithful offerings, judging king, and the sun that rises again, tying one man’s hope to the cosmic rhythm Egyptians trusted for millennia.

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Painted stela of Ankh-iuf-mut