Published: Golenischeff, _Metternichstele_ (with German translation).
Translated: Budge, _Legends of the Gods_, p. 157.
This inscription is sculptured on a round-topped stela of serpentine
(?), fixed in a square pedestal. It was found at Alexandria at the
beginning of the nineteenth century, and was presented to Prince
Metternich by Mohamed Ali in 1828.
The front, back, and sides of both stela and pedestal are sculptured
with horizontal and vertical lines of inscription and with
mythological figures. The stela belongs to a class of amuletic
objects, usually called Cippi of Horus, which are inscribed with
magical spells against all animals "biting with their mouths or
stinging with their tails." This stela is the largest Cippus of
Horus known. On the front is sculptured in high relief the figure of
Horus represented as a naked child, standing on two crocodiles, and
holding a lion, a gazelle, scorpions, and snakes in his hands. He
stands within a shrine, which is surmounted by the head of Bes. Isis
and Thoth, the goddesses of the South and North, and other
mythological figures and emblems are within and without the shrine.
Above this scene are horizontal registers filled with figures,
possibly representing scenes from legends which are now lost.
The text which preserves the story of the scorpions of Isis is
inscribed on the back of the tablet, ll. 48-70. The date of the
stela is about 370 B.C., in the reign of Neotanebo I. of the xxxth
dynasty.