right|thumb|250px|The Famine Stela, with some carved sections missing.
The Famine Stela is an inscription written in Egyptian hieroglyphs located on Sehel Island in the Nile near Aswan in Egypt, which tells of a seven-year period of drought and famine during the reign of pharaoh Djoser (reigned ca. 2686–2648 BC) of the Third Dynasty. It is thought that the stele was inscribed during the Ptolemaic Kingdom, which ruled from 332 to 31 BC. The inscription has been tentatively dated to the reign of king Ptolemy V (205 – 180 BC).
Description
The Famine Stela was inscribed into a natural granite block whose surface was cut into the rectangular shape of a stela. The inscription is written in hieroglyphs and contains 32 columns. The top part of the stele depicts three Egyptian deities: Khnum, Satis and Anuket. In front of them, Djoser faces them, carrying offerings in his outstretched hands. A broad fissure, which already existed at the time of creating the stela, runs horizontally through the middle of the rock. Some sections of the stela are damaged, making a few passages of the text unreadable.
At the time of the first translation of the stela, it was thought that the story of a seven-year-famine was connected to the biblical story in Genesis 41, where a famine of seven years also occurs. More recent investigations have shown that a seven-year famine was a motif common to nearly all cultures of the Near East: a Mesopotamian legend also speaks of a seven-year-famine and in the well known Gilgamesh-Epos the god Anu gives a prophecy about a famine for seven years. Another Egyptian tale about a long-lasting drought appears in the so-called “Book of the Temple”, translated by German Demotist Joachim Friedrich Quack. The ancient text reports about king Neferkasokar (late 2nd dynasty), who faces a seven-year-famine during his reign.
The Famine Stela is one of only three known inscriptions that connect the cartouche name Djoser (“the blessed one”) with the serekh name Netjerikhet (“divine of body”) of king Djoser in one word, helping to confirm the two are referring to the same person. Therefore, it provides useful evidence for Egyptologists and historians who are involved in reconstructing the royal chronology of the Old Kingdom of Egypt.