Ushabti

Ushabti


 * Other Names:**

//Shabti, Shawabti//, //Ushabty, Ushebti//


 * Meaning of Name:**

"Follower" or "The One Who Answers"

 //Ushabti// were small funerary figurines that were placed in tombs among the grave goods for over 2,000 years. They were made of clay, wood, stone, bronze, silver, beeswax, terracotta , ivory, glass, or faience. The //Ushabti// were believed to magically animate after the dead had been judged, and work for the deceased as a substitute laborer and to perform all the routine chores of daily life for its master in Sehet Aaru. In later periods the //Ushabti// began to be seen not simply as workers but also as protectors.

 At first, //Ushabti// were mummiform, wrapped in linen, and deposited in tiny coffins. Occasionally they were made to look like the tomb owner, or were named and modeled after the deceased's real-life servants. Starting in the 18th Dynasty, //Ushabti// began to be fashioned with baskets, sacks, hoes, ploughs, saws, and axes to help them with their work. Others carried food and offerings for the deceased. Some //Ushabti// were modeled as soldiers complete with shields, bows, and arrows, ensuring that the deceased would be protected for all eternity.

During the late Old Kingdom, these single figures evolved into elaborate models with, for example, groups of butchers shown to scale within a tiny slaughterhouse, or miniature scribes recording the amounts of grain placed in a dollhouse-sized granary. These //Ushabti// models were often elaborately painted, and clothed in strips of linen.

//Ushabti// models prepared beer and wine, milled grain, formed dough into loaves, fished in miniature barques, inspected stables of cattle, washed laundry, cooked banquets, danced and played senet, mourned the deceased, and manufactured pottery, linen, and metal goods, all within tiny model houses and towns, complete with walled gardens, pools, tiny food offerings, and miniature chairs and beds. Model harpists, sistrum-players, and singers ensured that the afterlife would be full of music. Unsurprisingly, some of these models show signs of wear, as if they had been played with by the children of the household.

From the 21st Dynasty on, //Ushabti// became common and numerous in graves. In some tombs the floor was covered with a great many //Ushabti// figurines; in others the //Ushabti// were neatly packed into boxes. The number provided in a tomb often reflected the wealth and importance of the occupant. The famous tomb of Tutankhamen contained 413 //Ushabti//, 365 of these were workers (one for every day of the year) and 48 overseers. The tomb of the pharaoh Taharqa had more than a thousand. Produced in huge numbers, //Ushabti// are, with scarabs, the most numerous of all ancient Egyptian antiquities to survive.


 * Quotes from the Book of the Dead and other sources:**

"Hail, <span class="wiki_link_ext">//Ushabti// Figure! If the Osiris be decreed to do any of the work which is to be done in Sehet Aaru, let everything which standeth in the way be removed from him - whether it be to plough the fields, or to fill the channels with water, or to carry sand from the East to the West. The <span class="wiki_link_ext">//Ushabti// Figure replieth: 'I will do it, verily I am here when thou callest.'"

Magical Objects