Ushabti of the 22nd dynasty
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Object number
AR2204
| Object: |
Ushabti of the Third Intermediate Period
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| Material: |
Green faience with black paint.
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| Period: |
Around 22nd dynasty, c. 946 BC to 834 BC. Third Intermediate Period of ancient Egypt. |
| Description: |
Mummiform Egyptian funerary statuette. Wearing a wig, hands are held in oposing position in front of the chest, joint legs and feet. Further details in black paint, agricultural implement in each hand, a seed basket on the back, a hair band with knot (seshed), and a column of hieroglyphics framed by two vertical lines. The inscription is not completely decipherable. Only the title wcjr, Osiris, can be recognized. The opposed hands suggest Tanis as origin. |
| 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: |
110mm height.
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| Condition: |
Very good condition. Fully intact without restorations. Surface slightly worn, but black paint still visible in parts. Also parts of the hieroglyphs are intact, however not fully decipherable. Sticker from Davies Antiques to the rear of the ushabti reading "9A 22 Dyn".
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| Provenance: |
Acquired by us in 2017 from the private posession of M. Voos, Germany. Inherited by M. Voos from the German private collection H. Herbst. Acquired 1975 July 19th at Davies Antiques, London for the Herbst collection and brought to Germany (a copy of the original invoice is available).
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| References: |
Cf. W. v. Haarlem, Corpus Antiquitatum Aegyptiacarum, Allard Pierson Museum Amsterdam, p. 77f, inv.no. 9470 and p. 83f, inv.no. 9474. Similar H. A. Schlögl, A. Brodbeck, Ägyptischen Totenfiguren aus öffentlichen und privaten Sammlungen der Schweiz, p. 173, no. 106 and p. 214, no. 137. |
| Literature: |
On Tanis see Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Tanis - L'or des pharaons (1987).
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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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