Famine Stela

The Famine Stela is a hieroglyphic inscription on Sehel Island in the Nile near Aswan, Egypt, describing a seven year drought and famine said to have struck during the eighteenth regnal year of the Old Kingdom pharaoh Djoser, around 2686 to 2648 BC. Though set in Djoser's reign, scholars date the stela's actual carving to the Ptolemaic period, roughly 332 to 31 BC, possibly under Ptolemy V, and read it as a text composed by priests of the god Khnum. It recounts how Djoser consulted the priest Imhotep, who determined that Khnum controlled the Nile flood from Elephantine, and how Khnum promised in a dream to restore the river after Djoser issued decrees enriching his temple. The inscription is valued by Egyptologists both for connecting Djoser's cartouche and serekh names and for illustrating how Ptolemaic era priests used a legendary past king to assert their temple's ancient claims.