Egyptian Ushabti from the Late Period
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Object number
AR3251
| Object: |
Egyptian Ushabti
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| Material: |
Mintgreen faience.
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| Period: |
26th to 30th dynasty. , Approx. 664 BC to 341 BC, Late Period of Ancient Egypt. |
| Description: |
Tall Egyptian funerary statuette with a mummy shaped body. The statuette has a back pillar and rests on a small base plate. Wearing a tripartite wig on the elongated head, with visible ears and attached beard. The arms are crossed in front of the chest, holding an agricultural implement in each hand, a seed basket on the back of the left shoulder. The front and sides are inscribed with hieroglyphs, arranged in nine horizontal bands and separated by horizontal lines. It reads as a standard formula for Egyptian funerary statuettes, however, since these formula exist in numerous variants and the encrustations do not allow reliable identification of the hieroglyphs, no reading has so far been possible without further cleaning. It is an artistically high quality figurine, quite beautiful to look at. |
| 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: |
17.1cm high. 19.6cm high including modern mount.
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| Condition: |
Great condition. The figurine is complete and intact. Despite slight abrasion of the surface, the hieroglyphs are still easy to make out, although not easily legible due to the heavy find encrustations. The shabti is glued to a modern base made of black lacquered wood.
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| Provenance: |
Acquired by us in 2021 on the German art market. Previously in the German private collection U. H. Acquired into the collection at Sotheby's London, auction 20 November 1978, lot 22.
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| References: |
Cf. H. D. Schneider, Shabtis, part II, p. 169 and part III, p. 59, no. 5.3.1.92. Cf. H. A. Schlögl, Corpus der Ägyptischen Totenfiguren der öffentlichen Sammlungen Krakaus, p. 215, no. 45. Cf. G. Janes, Shabtis: A Private View, p. 194, no. 99. |
| 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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