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Identity and dating.
Certain characteristics suggest the shabti is a priest or pious
man of the 19th Dynasty. The hands on the skirt signify an attitude of
praying (Schneider 168). Priests, required to have their entire bodies
clean-shaven, were usually depicted bald-headed (Strouhal 225). Faience
shabtis, rare in the Middle Kingdom (about 1980-1630 B.C.), became
more common in the post-Amarna Period, after about 1336 B.C. Faience shabtis
in the “dress of the living” appeared during the Ramesside Period (about
1292-1075 B.C.), but glazed figures with back pillars and hands on skirts
belong to the early 19th Dynasty (Petrie 12; Schneider 107, 162).
Technique. The shabti
is made of Egyptian faience, that is, a ceramic material composed mainly
of crushed quartz or quartz sand with small amounts of lime (calcium oxide)
and alkali (salt from plant ash or natron) to help cement the quartz grains
together. Adding water creates a faience paste, which is then shaped by
hand or poured into a mold. The quartz body is then coated with a soda-lime-silica
glaze, which when fired, develops its typical bright blue-green color
due to the presence of copper in the glaze. Black decorations and text
are painted on the glaze before firing (Nicholson 50-5).
The Names of Funerary Figurines.
Funerary figurines known as shabtis, shawabtis, and ushebtis
appeared in ancient Egyptian burials from the 12th Dynasty (about 1938-1759
B.C.) to the end of the Ptolemaic Period, or 30 B.C. (Schneider 16-7).
The statuettes were most commonly called shabtis until the end
of the New Kingdom (about 1075 B.C.), but villagers at Deir el-Medina
(the settlement inhabited by the workmen who built and decorated the royal
tombs in the Valley of the Kings from about 1539 to 1075 B.C.) preferred
shawabti. Throughout the Third Intermediate, Late, and Ptolemaic
Periods (about 1075-30 B.C.), ushebti was the standard term (Spanel
1986, 249). Like most catalogues, this website disregards shawabti
and refers to the funerary figurines as shabtis or ushebtis.
Etymology. Scholars
have proposed different theories regarding the etymology of shabti.
According to Birch (1864-5) and Newberry (1908), shabti derives
from the ancient word swb, meaning “persea tree.” Both claim that
shabtis were originally made of this wood. According to Schneider
(233), sycamore, tamarisk, acacia, and to a lesser extent, ebony and coniferous
woods were used. He suggests that shabti may stem from the verb
wsb, meaning “answer” or “respond,” or from words for “food” and
“meal” such as s3bw, in reference to shabtis as procurers
of food. (Olson [69] notes that while shabti tasks are related
to agriculture, shabti texts lack chores associated specifically
with the harvest: “The work performed by the funerary figurines was of
a preparatory nature, and ended with the planting of the crops.”)
Inscriptions and function.
Some shabtis are uninscribed, but most bear a text from Chapter
6 of The Book of the Dead. This spell magically brought to life
shabtis to act as substitutes for the deceased and perform his
or her obligatory agricultural and other civil service tasks in the Underworld.
Some were inscribed with simply the name of the deceased and possibly
a funerary formula summoning Osiris, god of the Underworld, on the deceased’s
behalf (Scepter I 327). Others, supplied by relatives, included
a dedication formula and shabti spell “to cause [both] their names
to live” in the Underworld and continue their earthly relationship (Schneider
46; Stewart 8, 12). Some shabtis of the 13th Dynasty (about 1759-1630
B.C.) include hieroglyphs of reptiles, birds, and humans that the artists
mutilated fearing that the signs were potentially harmful to the deceased
(Stewart 15).
History of Development.
Shabtis replaced small, uninscribed wax and clay figurines of the
First Intermediate Period (about 2130-1980 B.C.) and varied widely from
the 12th Dynasty to the end of the Ptolemaic Period (Scepter I
327). Initially made of wood or stone, shabtis of alabaster (calcite),
faience (a glazed ceramic), terra cotta, and occasionally bronze, ebony,
and glass began to appear at the beginning of the 18th Dynasty (about
1539-1295/92 B.C.), the most innovative phase in the development of shabtis
(Spanel 1989/90, 148). Rare forms include double shabtis and milling
servants. Other forms, such as shabtis in costumes of daily life
and overseer shabtis wearing projected kilts and holding whips,
appeared throughout the 19th Dynasty (about 1292-1190 B.C.) and later
(Schneider 260). Worker shabtis in “Osirian pose” (mummiform with
arms crossed under their wrappings) carried agricultural equipment including
baskets, hoes, and picks (Stewart 37-9). In the Third Intermediate Period
(about 1075-656 B.C.), workers wore black bands (fillets) around their
heads, and ushebtis of later periods (664-30 B.C.) were always
made of faience and had false beards (Schneider 321; Stewart 29).
Numbers of Shabtis.
The owner’s economic status and master/servant relationship determined
how many shabtis were buried in the tomb. From the Middle Kingdom
until the late 18th Dynasty (about 1980-1295/92 B.C.), burials rarely
exceeded five shabtis per owner, directly corresponding to the
number of former servants owned by the master. Royalty from the 18th Dynasty
onwards, who included shabti gangs varying from a few dozen to
some hundreds, are an exception. Throughout the 19th and 20th Dynasties
(about 1292-1075 B.C.) owners, no longer associating shabtis with
individual servants, bought numerous figurines of various materials and
quality (Schneider 46, 266-7). By the end of the 21st Dynasty (about 1075-945
B.C.), the number of ushebtis for one owner increased considerably.
One burial could contain an “ushebti gang” of 401, with one worker
for each day of the year and one overseer for each group of ten workers
(Schneider 320). No longer directly associated with individual servants,
the figurine’s function altered from substitute to slave. Large numbers
of ushebtis circulated throughout the Third Intermediate and Late
Periods (about 1075-332 B.C.) and were often made of unfired clay, a cheap
substitute for faience (Stewart 44-5).
In
Nubia, funerary figurines have been found only in royal tombs. Taharqa,
a king of the late 25th Dynasty (about 690-664 B.C.), included more than
1,000 ushebtis placed in rows around the walls of his burial chamber
(Fazzini 110; Silverman 309; Spanel 1988, 111).
Cost and Distribution.
New Kingdom shabtis were relatively inexpensive, costing one to
three deben each (Olson 25). In comparison, baskets, workers’ aprons,
and simple amulets each cost one deben while footstools and leather
sacks were priced two deben each (Gutgesell 372). Simple laborers
had around 200 deben (around 30 months’ pay) to spend on their
burials (Gutgesell 372). Yet within three New Kingdom cemeteries containing
tombs belonging to owners of differing social ranks (“wealthy and less-wealthy”),
only a few tombs at each site included shabtis—and not all high-status
tombs contained funerary figurines (Olson 303). Because shabtis
could be manufactured from materials such as pottery or faience, they
were readily available, indicating that expense does not explain the
shabtis’ limited distribution (Olson 20, 305). The restricted use
of shabtis may suggest some type of divine approval was required
or reflect social practices not yet understood.
Stewart
(31-2) asserts that clay funerary figurines continued to be made for “commoners”
even after the production of royal Egyptian ushebtis ceased with
the last pharaoh of the 30th Dynasty, Nectanebo II (362-343 B.C.). According
to Schneider (9, 62) shabtis from the 12th Dynasty onwards were
produced for privileged citizens and royalty only.
Unpublished.
Cited sources: Richard
Fazzini, Images for Eternity: Egyptian Art from Berkeley and Brooklyn
(New York: Publishing Center for Cultural Resources, 1975); Manfred Gutgesell,
“Economy and Trade,” in: Egypt
371-5; Paul Nicholson, “Materials and Technology,” in: Florence Dunn Friedman
(ed.), Gifts of the Nile: Ancient Egyptian Faience (London: Thames
and Hudson, 1998), 50-63; Stacie Lynn Olson, “New Kingdom Funerary Figurines
in Context: An Analysis of the Cemeteries of Aniba, Gurob, and Soleb,”
(diss. Pennsylvania University, 1996); W. M. Flinders Petrie, Shabtis
(London: British School of Archaeology in Egypt, 1935); Scepter
I 327; Hans Schneider, An Introduction to the History of Ancient
Egyptian Funerary Statuettes with a Catalogue of the Collection of Shabtis
in the National Museum of Antiquities at Leiden I-III, (Leiden: Rijksmuseum
van Oudheden, 1977); David Silverman (ed.), Searching for Ancient Egypt:
Art, Architecture, and Artifacts from the University of Pennsylvania Museum
(New York: Cornell University Press, 1997); Donald Spanel, “Notes on the
Terminology for Funerary Figurines,” Studien zur Altägyptischen
Kultur 13 (1986), 249-53; Spanel
1988; Donald Spanel, “Two Unusual Eighteenth-Dynasty Shabtis in the
Brooklyn Museum,” Bulletin of the Egyptological Seminar 10 (1989/90),
145-67: Harry M. Stewart, Egyptian Shabtis (Buckinghamshire: Shire
Publications LTD, 1995); Eugene Strouhal, Life of the Ancient Egyptians
(London: Opus Publishing LTD, 1992).
Other useful sources:
Donald Spanel, “Funerary Figurines,” in Mummies
and Magic 125-6.
(EAM)
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