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The ushabti (also called shabti or shawabti, with a number of variant spellings) was an ancient Egyptian funerary figurine. The Egyptological term is derived from 𓅱𓈙𓃀𓏏𓏭𓀾 , which replaced earlier 𓆷𓍯𓃀𓏏𓏭𓀾 , perhaps the nisba of 𓈙𓍯𓃀𓆭 " Persea tree".
Ushabtis were placed in tombs among the grave goods and were intended to act as servants or minions for the deceased, should they be called upon to do manual labor in the afterlife. The figurines frequently carried a hoe on their shoulder and a basket on their backs, implying they were intended to farm for the deceased. They were usually written on by the use of hieroglyphs typically found on the legs. They carried inscriptions asserting their readiness to answer the gods' summons to work.ushabti. (2003). In The Macmillan Encyclopedia.
The practice of using ushabtis originated in the Old Kingdom of Egypt ( to 2100 BC), with the use of life-sized reserve heads made from limestone, which were buried with the mummy. Most ushabtis were of minor size, and many produced in multiples – they sometimes covered the floor around a sarcophagus. Exceptional ushabtis are of larger size, or produced as a one-of-a-kind master work.
Due to the ushabti's commonness through all Egyptian time periods, and world museums' desire to represent art objects, the ushabti is one of the most commonly represented objects in Egyptology displays. Produced in huge numbers, ushabtis, along with scarabs, are the most numerous of all ancient Egyptian antiquities to survive.
Shabtis were servant figures that carried out the tasks required of the deceased in the underworld. It was necessary for the owner's name to be inscribed on an ushabti, along with a phrase sending them to action, written in the hieratic script.
The shawabti were a distinct class of funerary figurines within the area of Thebes during the New Kingdom.
The term ushabti became prevalent after the 21st Dynasty and remained in use until the Ptolemaic Kingdom.
It is thought by some that the term ushabti meant "follower" or "answerer" in Ancient Egyptian, because the figurine "answered" for the deceased person and performed all the routine chores of daily life for its master in the afterlife that the gods had planned for them, although it would be difficult to reconcile this derivation with the form shawabti.Wendy Doniger, Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of World Religions, Merriam-Webster 1999, p.1121
(Example: the deceased Ramses would have been described as "Osiris Ramses").
In rare cases different chapters of the Book of the Dead are written. Furthermore, ushabtis often mention the name and the titles of the owner, without the spells of the Book of the Dead.
Before being inscribed on funerary figurines, the spell was written on some mid-Twelfth Dynasty coffins from Deir el-Bersha (about 1850 BC) and is known today as spell 472 of the Coffin Texts.Coffin Text 472 in A. Gardiner, Egypt of the Pharaohs: An Introduction, p.32
In the 18th Dynasty during the reign of Akhenaten, the figurines were inscribed with an offering addressed to the sun disk Aten, rather than the traditional speech of the ushabti figure. The ushabti was believed to magically animate after the dead had been judged, and work for the dead person as a substitute labourer in the fields of Osiris. From the New Kingdom onwards, it was often referred to as servant.
From the 21st Dynasty on, ushabtis became common and numerous in graves. In some tombs the floor was covered with a great many ushabti figurines; in others the ushabtis were neatly packed into ushabti boxes. At times, several hundred ushabti were placed in a deceased Ancient Egyptian's tomb, but pharaohs had considerably more of these servants than commoners, and king Taharqa had more than a thousand.R. N. Longenecker, Life in the Face of Death: The Resurrection Message of the New Testament, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing 1998, p.28 Some tombs contained overseer or 'reis' ushabtis holding a whip, which were responsible for groups of ten ushabti each (ten being a common administrative division, for example in the armies). These overseers became rare during the Late Period.
The tomb of Tutankhamun had a large number of ushabtis of varying sizes, and most were ornate, with hieroglyph statements.27 distinct ushabtis (all given titles), gold foil, multi-columned hieroglyphs, to simple blue . They were divided into groups: some honored Osiriform gods, gold-foiled; some were more simple of wood, or faience.
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