Ushebti. Egypt, Saita period, Dynasties XXVI to XXX (663-341 BC).
Greenish-brown faience.
In very good condition.
Attached is a report issued in the 1970s by Ricardo Batista Noguera, former director of the Archaeological Museum of Barcelona, of the Archaeological Museum of Olérdola (Barcelona), of the Archaeological Museum of Catalonia and municipal archaeologist of Tossa de Mar.
Attached is a photocopy of the purchase invoice from 1984.
Measurements: 13.5 x 4 x 2.5 cm.
Ushebti with a mummiform body, as they were never represented in the clothes of the living. It has inscriptions along the front related to agricultural work, as these figures were used as servants in the fields of the divinities. They replaced the deceased in these duties and were therefore represented with the most common tools: the hoe and the hatchet. The piece we present here shows the typical smooth tripartite wig, braided beard and arms crossed over the chest, with the aforementioned tools. The feet rest on a base.
Ushebtis, an Egyptian term meaning 'those who respond', are small statuettes that in ancient Egypt were placed in tombs as part of the grave goods of the deceased, and whose function was to replace them in the work they were to perform in the afterlife. Most were made of ceramic, wood or stone, although in the richest tombs they could be found carved in lapis lazuli. The oldest surviving examples come from the Middle Kingdom, although references to them can be found in texts from the end of the Old Kingdom. After the sacred scarabs, ushebtis are the most numerous and possibly the most characteristic pieces of Egyptian art that have survived to the present day. Throughout the ages they have always had the same function in the religious sphere, but while during the Middle Kingdom they were conceived as a representation of their owner before Osiris in the work of tilling the kingdom of the shadows, replicas of the deceased, from the New Kingdom onwards they came to be seen as his servants or slaves, and were produced in large numbers.