Anyone visiting an Egyptian collection almost always meets rows of small mummy-shaped figures, arms crossed on the chest and farming tools in their hands. These are ushabti, funerary figurines placed in tombs by the dozen or by the hundred. Their function was precise and, in its way, very practical: to answer in place of the deceased whenever he was called to work in the afterlife.
The name
The Egyptians used three different terms, corresponding to different periods and places:
| Term | Main period of use | Probable meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Shabti | Middle and early New Kingdom | Perhaps linked to a kind of wood |
| Shawabti | New Kingdom, Theban area | A variant of the former |
| Ushabti | Third Intermediate and Late Period | "The one who answers" |
The form ushabti was already interpreted by the Egyptians as derived from the verb usheb, "to answer". Whether or not this was the original etymology, the new name expressed the figurine's task well.
Chapter 6 of the Book of the Dead
The text inscribed on many ushabti is chapter 6 of the Book of the Dead, derived from an older Coffin Texts spell. In essence it says:
"O ushabti, if the deceased is called to do any work that is done in the necropolis, to cultivate the fields, to irrigate the banks, to carry sand from east to west, 'Here I am', you shall say."
The spell reveals how the Egyptians imagined the afterlife. The Field of Reeds was a farming landscape, like the Nile valley, where the deceased lived in plenty. Yet even there compulsory labour existed, like the corvée the state imposed in life for canals and fields. The ushabti was the substitute who took that duty upon itself.
Change over time
Origins
The first examples appear in the Middle Kingdom and are often single figures, in wax or wood, representing the deceased himself, almost a spare body. Only gradually does the figurine become a servant.
The New Kingdom
In the New Kingdom ushabti multiply and take up the tools of labour: hoes, picks, a basket on the back. Royal tombs held large numbers of them; Tutankhamun's burial equipment included hundreds, some of great refinement.
The Late Period
In the Third Intermediate and Late Periods an organised system spread: one ushabti for each day of the year, plus an overseer for every ten workers. The overseers are recognisable because they are not mummiform, but dressed in the kilt of the living and holding a whip.
Materials and colours
Ushabti were made in many materials, according to the means of the patron:
- blue or green faience, the most common and characteristic;
- painted wood, frequent in the New Kingdom;
- stone, such as limestone, serpentine or granite for the finest pieces;
- terracotta, for more modest burials;
- bronze or glass, in exceptional cases.
The blue-green colour of faience was not merely decorative: it recalled vegetation, rebirth and light, qualities desired for life in the beyond.
Ushabti boxes
The figurines were often kept in painted wooden boxes shaped like shrines, placed in the tomb beside the coffin. Some show the deceased and protective deities. These boxes show that ushabti were thought of as a team, an organised group serving their owner.
An image that acts
Ushabti illustrate a constant principle of Egyptian magic: the image, accompanied by name and spell, acts. The figurine did not merely represent a servant; once animated by the word, it was one. The name of the deceased inscribed on the figure's body bound it to him, while chapter 6 defined its task.
Studio Esoterico Cornelio sees in ushabti a very clear example of how the Egyptians conceived the afterlife not as an abstraction, but as an orderly continuation of life, with its fields, its seasons and even its duties.
In short
- Ushabti are funerary figurines meant to work in place of the deceased.
- They often bear chapter 6 of the Book of the Dead, which calls them to answer "here I am".
- The terms shabti, shawabti and ushabti belong to different periods.
- In the Late Period, 365 workers were used with an overseer for every ten.
- Blue-green faience evoked rebirth and vegetation.
