Egyptian, New Kingdom, 18th - 19th Dynasty, 1400-1186 B.C.

Limestone, pigments

H: 19 cm (7.4 in)

Serial: 19459

The iconography and purpose of the ushabtis seem to have been standardized from the late New Kingdom. These figurines functioned as substitutes for servants in the afterlife that would be needed to complete chores of daily life for the deceased master. Even in the most humble tombs, such funerary figurines simply made of terracotta or raw clay and covered with a white wash are found. The ushabtis are often made of blue faience; stone (steatite, alabaster/calcite, limestone, sandstone, occasionally quartzite); metal (bronze or other noble metals, usually available to the wealthiest classes); wooden examples are rarer.

The statuette is in the form of a mummy, wrapped in a shroud and standing upright with both feet together. The hands wearing bracelets are crossed on the chest and hold a pair of A-shaped hoes, tools necessary for agricultural work. The facial features are carefully modeled and suggest the individual portrait, the long outlined eyebrows are especially notable. The beard is fragmented. The ushabti wears a tripartite wig with locks of hair indicated by incised lines. The part of the broad beaded collar adorns the chest, it is seen in the front between the long parts of the wig. There are bracelets at the wrists. The usual lines with hieroglyphic inscription, the name and the titles of the statuette’s owner, as well as the traditional quotation from Chapter 6 of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, are not presented here, this probably suggests that the piece has been left unfinished.

PROVENANCE

Ex- European private collection, France, ca. 1970’s.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

AUBERT J.-F., AUBERT L., Statuettes égyptiennes: Chaouabtis, Ouchebtis, Paris, 1974.

BOVOT J.-L., Chaouabtis : des serviteurs pharaoniques pour l’éternité, Paris, 2003.

BOVOT J.-L., Les serviteurs funéraires royaux et princiers de l’Ancienne Égypte, Musée du Louvre, Département des antiquités égyptiennes, Paris, 2003.

NEWBERRY P.E., Funerary Statuettes and Model Sarcophagi, Catalogue général des antiquités égyptiennes au Musée de Caire 53(2), Cairo, 1930.

SCHNEIDER H.D., Shabtis : an introduction to the history of ancient Egyptian funerary statuettes with a catalogue of the collection of the National Museum of Antiquities at Leiden 1-3, Leiden, 1977.