To assure themselves a comfortable afterlife, Egyptians stocked their tombs with at least one figurine called an ushabti, who acted as a servant in the afterlife. The message carved on each of the figurines explained that if the deceased is called on to do any work in the afterlife, the ushabti will respond with “Here I am” and will do the job. Some tombs had as many as one ushabti for every day of the year and another 36 overseers to keep order. All but the poorest citizens provided themselves with some kind of funerary furnishings. Products for burial and the labor to produce them made up a large industry in Egypt.
Date
Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.
O [thou] ushabti whom N. has instructed, lo, obstacles have been set up for him yonder. If (N.) is counted off for any work that is to be done in the god's domain, as a man to his duties, to cultivate the fields, to irrigate the shores, to transport sand of the east (and) of the west, "Here am I" shalt [tyou] say.
"[Belonged to] the scribe of the treasure of the god's (i.e., the kings') wife, Nebseni."
Dimensions
28 × 8.3 × 6.4 cm (11 × 3 1/4 × 2 1/2 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Henry H. Getty and Charles L. Hutchinson
Reference Number
1892.28
IIIF Manifest
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Thomas George Allen, A Handbook of the Egyptian Collection (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1923), 64 (ill.), 66n1.
Thomas George Allen, The Egyptian Book of the Dead: Documents in the Oriental Institute Museum at the University of Chicago, Oriental Institute Publications 82 (University of Chicago Press, 1960), 12-13, 65, 66, 72, 289, pl. CVI.
Erhart Graefe, Untersuchungen zur Verwaltung und Geschichte der Institution der Gottesgemahlin des Amun vom Beginn des Neuen Reiches bis zur Spätzeit (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrossowitz, 1981) 1:114.
Emily Teeter, “Egyptian Art,” Ancient Art at the Art Institute of Chicago, Museum Studies 20, 1 (1994), 21-22 (ill.), no. 6.
Anne K. Capel and Glenn E. Markoe, eds., Mistress of the House, Mistress of Heaven: Women in Ancient Egypt, exh. cat. (Hudson Hills Press/Cincinnati Art Museum, 1996), 117 (ill.), 203-204, cat. 49.
Douglas Brewer and Emily Teeter, Egypt and the Egyptians, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), cover illustration.
Karen B. Alexander, “From Plaster to Stone: Ancient Art at the Art Institute of Chicago,” in Karen Manchester, Recasting the Past: Collecting and Presenting Antiquities at the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), 21.
Long term loan to the Oriental Institute Museum at The University of Chicago, October 10, 1941 - January 14, 1993.
Art Institute of Chicago, Ancient Art Galleries, Gallery 154A, April 20, 1994 - February 6, 2012 (except period of loan).
Cincinnati Art Museum, Mistress of the House, Mistress of Heaven: Women in Ancient Egypt, October 19, 1996 - January 5, 1997 and Brooklyn Museum, February 20, 1997 - May 18, 1997.
Art Institute of Chicago, When the Greeks Ruled: Egypt After Alexander the Great, October 31, 2013 - July 27, 2014.
Art Institute of Chicago, Life and Afterlife in Ancient Egypt, Feb. 11, 2022 - present.
Mohammed Mohasseb (1843-1928), Luxor, Egypt; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1892; price reimbursed by Henry H. Getty and Charles L. Hutchinson, 1892.
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