ANCIENT EGYPTIAN SHABTI OF HORUDJA ‡
30TH DYNASTY, C. 380 - 343 B.C.
Estimate: £15,000 - £20,000
Classical Ancient Art // Form Through Time
Auction: Classical Ancient Art - 21st March 2024 at 2pm
Description
faience, a shabti for Horudja, priest of the goddess Neith, depicted in typical fashion, holding the hoe, pick, and seed-sack over his left shoulder, and wearing the tripartite wig and beard, the nine lines of inscription around the body terminating at the back pillar reading as follows:
“The illuminated one, the Osiris, the Priest of Neith, Horudja, born to Shedet, justified, he says: O these ushabtis, if counted upon, the Osiris, the Priest of Neith, Horudja, born to Shedet, justified, to do all the works that are to be done there in the realm of the dead – now indeed obstacles are implanted there – as a man at his duties, “here I am!” you shall say when you are counted upon at any time to serve there, to cultivate the fields, to irrigate the river banks, to ferry the sand of the west to the east and vice–versa, “here I am” you shall say.”
raised upon a 19th / early 20th century wooden base with the inscription “HERU-UJA. A Priest of Neith. XXVI Dyn From HAWARA. F.P. 1890”
Dimensions
21.6cm tall
Provenance
Provenance:
Discovered by Flinders Petrie in 1888 during excavations at Hawara
Subsequently part of an old English private collection, collection number 388
Private collection, France, accompanied by French antiquities passport
Footnote
Note:
Shabtis, known also as “answerer figures”, were placed in a tomb so the owner's spirit would not have to perform manual labour in the afterlife. They were often inscribed with chapter 6 of the Book of the Dead, the shabti text, a spell that compels the shabti to substitute itself if the owner is asked to till the fields, irrigate the land, or transport sand from east to west.
The present example is notable for having been excavated by the British archaeologist Flinders Petrie at Hawara in 1888. Petrie, born in 1853, was a pivotal figure in the field of archaeology, and was particularly renowned for his work in Egypt. The excavations at Hawara are particularly famed for the discovery of the Fayyum Portraits, a large collection of ancient Roman-Egyptian funerary portraits dating back to the 1st century A.D. These lifelike portraits were found covering the faces of mummies and are considered some of the finest examples of Roman-Egyptian art. Also uncovered was the tomb of Horudja, a priest of the goddess Neith during the 30th Dynasty (380-343 B.C.). Petrie found nearly 400 shabtis belonging to Horudja, distributed between two niches at either end of the sarcophagus, with the present example an exceptional surviving example of the shabti makers craft.
For another shabti of Horudja, please see The Metropolitan Museum of Art, accession number 90.7.