Tutankhamen's Restoration Stele

Tutankhamen's Restoration Stele

The good ruler, performing benefactions for his father (Amen) and all the gods, for he has made what was ruined to endure as a monument for the ages (5) of eternity and he has expelled deceit throughout the Two Lands, and justice was set up [so that] it might make lying to be an abomination of the land, as (in) its first time. Now when his majesty appeared as king, the temples of the gods and goddesses from Elephantine[1] [down] to the marshes of the Delta [had... and] gone to pieces (or fallen into neglect). Their shrines had become desolate, had become mounds overgrown with [weeds]. Their sanctuaries (or chapels) were as if they had never been. Their halls were a footpath (or trodden roads). The land was topsy-turvy and the gods turned their backs upon this land.

If [the army was] sent to Djahi[2] to extend the frontiers of Egypt, no success of theirs came at all. If one prayed to a god to seek counsel from him, he would never come [at all]. If one made supplication (or petition) to a goddess similarly, she would never come at all.

[1] Elephantine: At the southern border of Egypt.
[2] Djahi: region in Canaan, possibly in the Judean hills.


Sources: Pritchard, James B. Ancient Near Eastern Texts. Princeton, 1969, pp. 251-252