Egyptian ushabti from museum collection
Price: on request
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Object number
AR3022
| Object: |
Wooden Egyptian ushabti
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| Material: |
Light wood with dark paint
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| Period: |
19th to 20th dynasty of ancient Egypt. C. 1292 BC to 1085 BC, New Kingdom. |
| Description: |
Egyptian funerary statuette with a mummy shaped body, wearing a tripartite wig, arms crossed in front of the chest.
Despite of the paint flaking off it is still clearly visible as a dark reddish brown slip. The wig is coloured in black.
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| Background: |
In Ancient Egypt, a tradition of equipping the graves of the deceased with small funerary figurines gradually became established. The figurines were made of clay, stone, wood or metal, some were covered with faience. They were named with the ancient Egyptian word for "answerer". Transcriptions for this are ushabti, shabti or shawabti. Most commonly used and apparently popular were terracotta ushabtis covered with a fine greenish or blue faience. They were usually 10cm to 20cm tall. Those who could afford it had the ushabtis elaborately engraved or simply painted. The fine engravings of many pieces survived until today. Paint suffered more from the ravages of time, but fortunately some painted figures too have been preserved. The majority of the ushabtis found shows strong erosion and can only be recognized as such by their outlines. Or they were already that basic in their appearence when made in order to cut costs. Ushabtis have been resting with the deceased since the Middle Kingdom of Ancient Egypt around the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. The earliest known figurines date from the 11th Dynasty. It seems they represented the dead initially, but their function changed until the New Kingdom. At that time the ushabti were to serve as workers in the afterlife, standing in for the deceased, so that he or she was freed from hard physical labour (6th chapter of the Book of the Dead). With this change in purpose it made sense to add more ushabtis to the grave increasing the labour force. This resulted in up to 365 ushabtis per tomb, e.g. for Tut-Anch-Amun - one "answerer" for each day of the solar year. Either the figures were placed directly in the grave or else richly painted or otherwise decorated vessels were used for storage, the best known type being the so-called wooden ushabti boxes. |
| Dimensions: |
22cm high. 6.5cm wide.
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| Condition: |
Feet reattached. Stable crack from neck to hip, otherwise body fully intact. Original paint still intact on large parts of the surface. Red inscription "X55.240" on the bottom, inventory number of the Newark Museum.
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| Provenance: |
Acquired by us in 2020 from an US American auction house. Consigned by the US American Newark Museum of Art. The ushabti was included in the museum collection in 1955 as inventory number "X55.240". It was in the educational lending collection since at least 1971. A card with a description and a card with notes on loans comes with the figurine.
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| References: |
Cf. H. A. Schlögl, A. Brodbeck, Ägyptische Totenfiguren aus öffentlichen und privaten Sammlungen der Schweiz (1990), p. 119, no. 60 und p. 121, no. 62.
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| Literature: |
A good introduction and overview on Egyptian ushabtis in just one volume is given by Glenn Janes in Shabtis: A Private View - Ancient Egyptian Funerary Statuettes in European Private Collections.
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| Authenticity: |
We unconditionally guarantee the authenticity of every artefact, all items are subject to our lifetime return policy on authenticity.
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