This object is rare, but not unique

To learn more about an object, we might look at other examples of similar objects and the context in which they were found.

The Leiden museum possesses three similar objects, but only one of them still has the uninscribed counterpart, like our AAL 146. They are all inscribed with the same sort of text (but more about that later).H. GOEDICKE, The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 54 (1968), 23–30. There are four more in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, three of which are again pairs of similarly shaped stones. In those three particular cases, both halves are inscribed; in each case the same text is written on both halves. Two more examples of similarly inscribed stones exist, but their current location is unknown.

The Cairo examples are important because their provenance is known - as opposed to the Leiden ones. They were found in 1943-44 by the Egyptian archaeologist Zaki Saad, in the cemetery of Helwan, to the south of Cairo.Z.Y. SAAD, Royal Excavations at Saqqara and Helwan (1941-1945), Cairo 1947, 105-107, pl. XLII-XLIII. This vast cemetery was used throughout Egyptian history, but it is chiefly known for its earliest periods, from approximately 3100 to 2600 BC. Most burials in Helwan are mere pits, some of them once had modest rectangular structures of mudbrick on top.E.C. KÖHLER, Archéo-Nil 18 (2008), 113–130.

The tombs in which Saad found the inscribed stones are from a slightly later period; probably, they all date from the so-called Fourth Dynasty (ca. 2550-2440 BC), the time of the great pyramids at Giza. One of the Cairo stones mentions Pharaoh Khafre, the builder of the second-largest Giza pyramid. The inscribed stones come from the graves of women; according to the texts, these women had been priestesses in the temple of El-Kab, in the south of Egypt.H.G. FISCHER, Orientalia 29 (1960), 187–190. Some of the stones have actually been found beside their skeletons.

Let us now move back to our Leiden example.