Ancient Egyptian Faience 上質で大きなシャブティ。高さ16.5 cm。後期時代、第26–30王朝、紀元前664–332年

Fine shabti ushabti

Ancient Egypt, Late Period, 26th–30th Dynasty, 664–332 BC

Faience

Height: 16,5 cm without stand.

Provenance:
- Private collection, Roger de Montégudet (1880–1925), Paris, France.
- Private collection, Paris, France, acquired by descent from the above.

Condition: Intact.

Description:

Ushabti of very fine craftsmanship, featuring a light blue faience mummiform figure with arms crossed over the chest. In the left hand it holds a hoe; in the right, a hand plough and the braided cord for the seed bag carried on its back. The ushabti stands on a trapezoidal base and is supported by a back pillar. The facial details are finely rendered; the ears protrude beneath the tripartite wig, and the false beard is long and braided, with a slightly curled tip.

The Egyptian Afterlife was understood as a mirror of the real world, where both good and evil also had their place. The unjust and the wicked were punished for all eternity, while the righteous enjoyed a comfortable existence traveling with the solar god. Even so, the blessed dead were still obliged to fulfill human needs and responsibilities, just as they had in life; having something to eat and drink in the Afterlife was a constant concern. In the Realm of the Dead, where all the deceased—men and women, masters and servants, kings and queens—were part of a hierarchical society governed by the gods, everyone was required to labor in the Fields of Iaru. They had to be ready to cultivate, sow, and harvest.

In earthly life, these basic productive tasks were carried out by those belonging to the lowest levels of society. To avoid this fate, the Egyptians sought a magical solution: they had one or more figures made of themselves to present when the emissaries of the ruling god Osiris summoned them to fulfill their obligations. Thus, these statuettes, included in the funerary assemblage of the tomb, were images that represented both the master and the servant.

They are known as ushabtis, the earlier term being sabty or shabty, derived from sawab, whose meaning corresponds to the Greek word “persea,” a sacred tree from which the ancient Egyptians began to make these funerary effigies. It was during the Third Intermediate Period, in the 21st Dynasty, around 1080 BC, that the term wsbty—that is, “ushebty”—began to be used. From that point on, “ushabti” derived from the verb wsb, “to answer,” meaning “the one who answers.”

Ushabtis were incorporated into burials in ancient Egypt from the First Intermediate Period onward. Their use increased during the Middle Kingdom, when the Egyptians began to write in the Coffin Texts a formula, number 472, so that the ushabtis would respond to the call: “The Justified N. says, ‘O you ushabti, who have been made for N., if N. is called upon for his duties, or if any unpleasant work is imposed upon N. as upon any man in his labor, you shall say: here I am. If N. is called upon to supervise those who work there, to return to the new fields to till the land, or to transport sand by boat from East to West, you shall say: here I am. The Justified N.’” This formula came to be written on the ushabtis themselves, which is why in most cases they appear inscribed. From the New Kingdom onward, many innovations were introduced, and examples with longer texts—those found in Chapter VI of the Book of the Dead—began to proliferate. Even so, in many cases the text includes only the name of the deceased, or a basic formula, along with the name of a relative or the most important titles they held.

Ushabtis were initially made of wax, especially in the beginning; later they were made of wood, and toward the end of the Middle Kingdom stone began to be used. From the New Kingdom onward, the material par excellence became faience. It is known that they were mass-produced thanks to the preservation of molds and because in some cases the inscribed texts were unfinished, lacking the name of the owner. Their most popular form was that of a mummy, until the introduction, toward the end of the 18th Dynasty, of figures decorated with everyday clothing. Many carried tools for working the land, such as baskets, picks, or hoes, referring to the tasks they were expected to perform in the Afterlife on behalf of their masters. Their iconography, texts, materials, colors, and placement within the tomb may suggest additional symbolic meanings.

Sometimes they were placed inside wooden boxes, which could be either richly decorated or very simple. During the New Kingdom, they even came to be placed in miniature sarcophagi.

While at first they were considered replicas of the deceased, in the New Kingdom and afterward they came to be seen as servants or a kind of slaves of the inanimate owner, which led to the production of large quantities. Initially, only one ushabti was made for the deceased; however, over the course of different dynasties, large numbers of these figurines were produced: 365 worker shabtis, one for each day of the year, made up of men and women, including specialists in different activities. They were sometimes directed by 36 overseers, distinguishable by their kilts, one for every ten worker shabtis (hence they are known as “chiefs of ten”). The number exceeds 400 examples and became the standard until the end of their production in the Ptolemaic Period (332–30 BC). Such was the fear of performing these tasks demanded by Osiris that in some burials additional ushabtis were included as “substitutes” for the main ones.

It is logical to think that no pharaoh wished to carry out this kind of labor with his own hands, so when required, he would read the inscription written on the body of the ushabti, and it would come to life to answer the call, replacing him in the work.

Faience ushabtis were modeled from a two-part mold. The seam was then removed, and while the paste was still damp, the details of the figure were refined and the registers were laid out, onto which the hieroglyphic inscriptions were carved. This process made each ushabti unique, even when the same mold was used. Faience is a material composed of fine sand cemented with a soda-based silicate (sodium carbonate and bicarbonate derived from natron). Fired in an oxidizing atmosphere at around 950°C, the mixture produced a glazed finish, as the carbonates formed a vitreous layer on the surface. It was a simple process and therefore an inexpensive material. Green and blue tones were achieved by adding small amounts of copper oxide, obtained from malachite or azurite. Red tones were produced with iron oxide, deep blues with cobalt, and black by mixing iron and manganese oxides with water. It was enough to paint the desired details with a brush before firing in order to achieve different colors.