23 June 2025
An Egyptian stela for the highly-born woman Imaw: one of the oldest items in the British Library
Have you visited the British Library’s current family exhibition Story Explorers: A Journey through Imaginary Worlds (19 May 2025- 18 January 2026) and wondered why is there an ancient Egyptian funerary slab from 2000 BC in the Library?
Almost twenty years ago, in 2006, the British Library received the Talbot Collection as a major gift from Mrs. Petronella and Janet Burnett-Brown. Petronella’s late husband Anthony was the great-great grandson of William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-77), who was the British inventory of photography. Janet was Anthony's sister and together they managed the Talbot photographic collection and archive at their home at Lacock Abbey until the early 2000s.
The Talbot Collection included an extensive archive of Talbot's correspondence, notebooks, negatives and photographs, alongside scientific instruments and other ephemera that illustrated the breadth of Talbot’s cultural and scientific interests and achievements. Talbot's interests were in fields as diverse as mathematics, botany, astronomy and the decipherment of Assyrian cuneiform. In additional to the manuscript and photographic component of this collection, there is a group of ancient Egyptian funerary objects—including shabti figurines and stelae – which are now viewed the oldest items in the British Library.
A late 11th to early 12th Dynasty (c.2000 BC) Egyptian funerary stela for the highly-born woman Imaw (or Iamu). British Library, Talbot Stela 11. Rectangular limestone stela, some remaining red pigment, measuring 51.6cm (width) x 48.3cm (height) x 8.8cm (depth). Acceptance in Lieu of Inheritance Tax, 2006. Gift of Petronella Burnett-Brown and Janet Burnett-Brown.
Last spring, our doctoral placement student Grace Exley, had the opportunity to research the object histories and provenance of the twenty-six Egyptian funerary objects that were once collected by Talbot. Grace undertook extensive archival research at the Library, consulting Talbot’s archive, auction catalogues, and key academic sources. She prepared detailed catalogue records and provided a helpful summary:
William Henry Fox Talbot had a long-standing interest in ancient cultures, publishing multiple books on classical and antiquarian subjects. He was especially interested in translating ancient languages, particularly Assyrian, which is perhaps the best known of his antiquarian interests. However, Talbot was initially interested in Egyptian hieroglyphics, even sending them to his mother and half-sister as translation challenges. He was well-connected to a number of Egyptologists, including Karl Lepsius (1810-1884), Samuel Birch (1813-1885), and William John Bankes (1786-1855). He even met the famed Italian strongman and explorer of the tomb of Seti I, Giovanni Battista Belzoni (1778-1823) in 1820.
Where Talbot acquired his Egyptian collection is unclear. It seems he grew the collection by acquiring pieces over time from various sources. For example, it seems Talbot’s cousin Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot (1803-1890) tried to find Egyptian antiquities for Talbot on his trip to Egypt in 1827 (British Library, Add MS 88942/2/117). Talbot was also aware of various auctions of antiquarian material, such as the 1836 sale of James Burton Junior’s Egyptian collection in London (as illustrated by a letter sent to Talbot, Add MS 88942/8/76). It is therefore likely that Talbot acquired his Egyptian objects over an extended period, supported by the one reference Talbot made to purchasing Egyptian artefacts in his pocketbook for 1836-1837. Talbot wrote that he had purchased a hieroglyphic manuscript and a hieroglyphic tablet (p.18), followed by three more hieroglyphic tablets (p.19). These references are within Talbot’s accounts, and the brief details mean that it is impossible to tie these entries to specific stelae. The hieroglyphic manuscript was sold at auction in the 1980s, along with other items from Talbot’s Egyptian collection.
Of the twenty-six Egyptian objects that are now at the British Library, we selected one of the stela to be featured in the Story Explorers exhibition. With the exhibition team Nicola Pomeroy, Mariam de Haan and Stephen Nicholls wishing to feature a range of Library objects to demonstrate the vast range of material types held in the collections (not just books!), we brought to their attention the Egyptian collection. In the gallery, the stela is featured alongside an early 20th century Javanese shadow puppet and an educational shellac record from the Talking Book Corporation that featured man made vocalisations of foxes!
The selected stela is the largest in size held in The British Library. Rectangular in shape, it is cut out of limestone with some pigments still visible in the relief. It dates to the late 11th to early 12th Dynasty (c.2000 BC). It was prepared for the highly-born woman iAm-Hqt, Imaw (or Iamu), with two registers incised in sunken relief. The five lines of hieroglyphics in the upper register give the deceased's titles, 'the sole royal ornament, priestess of Hathor', and ask not only for commodities (bread, beer, oxen, geese, alabaster, and linen) in thousands, but also a good burial in her tomb in the necropolis of the Western desert.
Detail showing the visible residue of pigments in the relief. British Library, Talbot Stela 11.
The lower left part of the stela shows the deceased, Xkrt-nswt watt Hm(t)-nTr HtHr iAm-Hqt, in two mirror images. She wears a long, close-fitting dress with a wide collar and straps, as well as a wig decorated with curls, and both mirror images hold long, spear-headed sticks or staffs. On the right are two other figures, one male and one female. The female is likely Hm(t)-nTr HtHr iAmit and the male, whose arms are outstretched, is unnamed and wears a kilt in late Old Kingdom to early Heracleopolitan style. There is one column of hieroglyphics in the lower left corner of the slab, which seems to be a continuation of the five horizontal lines of text, reading: "for the revered one before the great god iAm-Hqt".
Detail of Xkrt-nswt watt Hm(t)-nTr HtHr iAm-Hqt, in two mirror images. British Library, Talbot Stela 11.
During Talbot's lifetime and in subsequent years, the Egyptian collection was on display throughout his home at Lacock Abbey, in Wiltshire. Talbot used objects found in his home for his photography experiments and even photographed this particular stela, as cited by Grace in her research. The photographic print, a salted paper print, can be viewed on the Talbot Catalogue Raisonne Project website.
Until the 20th century, the Talbot family owned Lacock Abbey and the surrounding village of Lacock and it was his descendant Matilda Talbot (1871-1958) who presented the village and the home to the care of the National Trust in 1944. Anthony and his family would live at Lacock from 1971 through the 2000s.
Talbot's collection of photographs, archives and objects were formally presented to the British Library in 2006 by the family of Anthony Burnett-Brown. Until last year, a selection of the Egyptian items remained on display at the Fox Talbot Museum in Lacock and were brought to the Library for permanent storage. For researchers wishing to consult the collection, Talbot's manuscripts can be consulted in the Manuscripts Reading Room while the photographs and objects in the Print Room (located inside the Asia and Africa Reading Room). For researchers wishing to consult the collection, appointments can be made by sending an email to [email protected].
Grace Exley and the Visual Arts Team