The form of this ushabti, a figurine left in the tomb to perform labor for the deceased, is typical of the Late Period, with its tall, slender, mummiform shape, tripartite wig, and slender, curved false beard. The almond-shaped eyes are topped by heavy brows. His nose is long with a narrow bridge and flared nostrils. He has a narrow mouth with thick lips and large ears with a sharply defined helix. His hands emerge from the shroud, crossing over the chest and holding a hoe and the rope for a seed bag (visible on the rear left shoulder) in the right hand and a pick in the left. The figurine stands on a pedestal. It has an uninscribed back pillar. The hieroglyphic text of the Book of the Dead Spell 6 that calls upon the ushabti to work on behalf of the deceased is arranged in nine horizontal lines from one side of the back pillar to the other. The name, Horudja, and the name of his mother, Shedet, are given in the first line. Figurines of this period are usually green or blue (see cat. 41), which in many cases has degraded to white. The fading on this example is due to the water in the flooded tomb from which it was excavated.^[1]1

Horudja was a common name in the Late Period, and this particular Horudja is differentiated from the others by his title, Priest of (the goddess) Neith, and by the addition of his mother’s name, Shedet. Horudja’s tomb was initially dated by W. M. Flinders Petrie to “about the end of the twenty-sixth dynasty,” but on the basis of the style of the ushabtis from the tomb, it has been reassigned to Dynasty 30.^[2]2

Additional Views of Cat. 42

In his commentary on the manufacture of the ushabtis of Horudja, Thomas George Allen suggested that they “all were hand-modeled, forming several well-defined groups with variations in size, details, and quality,” apparently in an attempt to account for the seventeen variations recovered from this tomb.^[3] However, multiple molds in various sizes and with differences in their overall appearance were often used to produce ushabtis for a single individual.^[4] There is also often considerable difference in ushabtis that were made from the same mold because the details of the tools, face, and especially the inscription were picked out and refined with a sharp tool between the stages of molding and firing. The figurines for Horudja thus appear to be, like others of this period, mold made.3

Modern History

This ushabti has a fascinating modern history. It was excavated by the archaeologist W. M. Flinders Petrie in 1881 from an intact tomb of Horudja’s family at Hawara in the Fayum. In what must go down in the annals of archaeology as one of the most difficult and unpleasant operations, Petrie cleared and documented the flooded tomb over the course of three months. As he described it:4

Down a well, forty feet deep, and in a pitch-black chamber, splashing about in bitter water, and toiling by candle-light, all the work had to be done; and dragging out large blocks of masonry in a very confined space in such circumstances is slow and tedious. While thus mining the way to the expected burial, we lit on a hole in the masonry filled with large ushabtis standing in rows, two hundred in all, of the finest workmanship; and before long, on the other side of the sarcophagus, two hundred more were found in a similar recess.^[5]5

He had to work in the pitch-black darkness much of the time, “stripped naked, and in filthy brackish water,” as he recovered the figurines with his feet, passing them up to his hands.^[6]6

The Egypt Exploration Fund was awarded a number of the Horudja ushabtis by the Egyptian Antiquities Service. In a brilliant public relations move, the group’s founder, Amelia B. Edwards, donated examples to museums at which she spoke. She visited Chicago in 1890 and presented the Art Institute with this excellent example, which became the first ancient Egyptian object in its collection.7

For more on shabtis and ushabtis, see About Shabtis and Ushabtis.8

Provenance

Found at Hawara, Egypt, 1881; Amelia B. Edwards (1831–1892), London; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1890.9

Publication History

W. M. Flinders Petrie, Kahun, Gurob, and Hawara (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, and Co., 1890), 19.10

Thomas George Allen, A Handbook of the Egyptian Collection (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1923), 7, 71 (ill.).11

W. M. Flinders Petrie, Seventy Years in Archaeology (London: Sampson Low, Marston and Co., 1931), 96.12

Thomas George Allen, The Egyptian Book of the Dead: Documents in the Oriental Institute Museum at the University of Chicago (Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 1960), 12–13, 63, 65, 67, 75, 77, 289 (as OIM 17980).13

Emily Teeter, “Egypt in Chicago: A Story of Three Collections,” in Millions of Jubilees: Studies in Honor of David P. Silverman, ed. Zahi Hawass and Jennifer Houser Wegner (Cairo: Conseil Suprême des Antiquités, 2010), 2:303.14

Karen B. Alexander, “From Plaster to Stone: Ancient Art at the Art Institute of Chicago,” in Recasting the Past: Collecting and Presenting Antiquities at the Art Institute of Chicago, by Karen Manchester (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2012), 20, fig. 4.
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