Oriental Antiquities

Stele of the Scribe Tarhunpiyas

Stele of the Scribe Tarhunpiyas AO 19222 Richelieu room 5 Not currently on display This funerary stele shows a scribe depicted as a child on his mother’s knees. He is holding a hunting falcon; his writing tablet is in front of him.

This work calls to mind the

Prophet Ezekiel’s vision of a

“man dressed in linen, with a scribe's ink-horn in his belt”

and who received the order to

“go through the midst of the city and set a mark on the foreheads” of faithful men. - Ezekiel 9:2

The Hebrew word is taw, the last letter of the alphabet, which at the time was written in the form of a cross (verse 4, note). A mark of belonging (Isaiah 44:5), which was also to become a symbolic mark of survival.