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These ushabtis is mock faience and 180mm in length. -The ancient Egyptians believed that the hereafter was not a place totally devoid of hardship. Just as in life, many would be required to provide agricultural labour in the afterlife. From the late Middle Kingdom until the Graeco-Roman Period, those who could afford it would take to the grave one or more funerary statuettes to carry out the farming duties for them. Terms for them include - shabti, shawabti and ushabti. In the l8th Dynasty the statuettes started to combine the mummiform figure of the deceased with agricultural or other implements.
The inscriptions on the statuettes quote Chapter 6 from the Book of the Dead and direct the figure to carry out tasks for the deceased.
O shabti, allotted to me, if I be summoned or if I be detailed to do any work which has to be done in the realm of the dead; if indeed obstacles are implanted for you therewith as a man at his duties, you shall detail yourself for me on every occasion of making arable the fields, of flooding the banks or of conveying sand from east to west; "Here am I," you shall say.
An increase in the number of funerary statuettes can be detected in the Ramessid Period; in the Late Period there were often large numbers of them in the tomb of one person - sometimes one for each day of the year, plus another 36 overseers - making a total of 401. In fact, even much earlier, Tutankhamun's tomb was equipped with 413 shabti figures - the extra 12 were monthly overseers.
The Egyptian solar year had 365 days. Their weeks were ten days long. Therefore there were 36 weeks which equaled 360 days. The extra five days were special and had a god appointed to each one. A full set of Ushabtis were;
36 x 10 workers- 360
36 overseers- 36
5 gods- 5
Monthly overseers-12
Equals 413 in a full set.
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