NEW KINGDOM, DYNASTY XVIII, FIRST YEAR OF THE REIGN OF AMENHOTEP IV/AKHENATEN, CIRCA 1353 B.C.

The figure of the Pharaoh seems to be depicted in the traditional style, rather than in the radical new style which was soon to develop under Akhenaten. Likewise there is no sun-disk with arms over the king's head, but there seems to be a winged sun-disk in the upper curve of the lunette, which would have been traditionally expected. As such this stele fragment apparently belongs to the earliest period of Amenhotep IV's art and iconography. As noted above, the nomen is erased. It likely originally read "Amenhotep," as the king was called in the earliest years of his reign, and was erased during the Amarna period when he changed his name to Akhenaten. The effaced vertical column of hieroglyphs would most likely have contained the first part of an early form of the Aten names, and on the missing portion of the stele, there would most likely have been a deity in the form of a falcon-headed anthropomorphic sun-god facing the king (see for example, Redford, Akhenaten, pp. 64-65). The god's arm (later erased) may have been reaching forward in the preserved lower left corner and extending a staff or scepter with a symbol representing 100,000 years.
It is likely that the lower portion of the stele was a historical text and that the impetus for the commission was an event which ended successfully for the king and for which he is thanking the god. When the king changed his name to Akhenaten, the name Amenhotep was erased and not replaced. After the Amarna period, the names of the Aten in the column were erased. As such, we believe that this stele was defaced on two different occasions in antiquity.