Shabti, bright blue faience picked out in black: five horizontal bands of hieroglyphs, single vertical column down back

Inscriptions / Translations:  '(1) The illuminated one, the Osiris, Nefereru, (2) O, this shabti (3) which has been allotted to do any work (4) which is done in the netherworld; to cultivate (5) the fields, to flood the riverbank, (6 - back) to transport by boat sand from east to west'

Bibliography:  H. D. Schneider, ‘Shabtis. An introduction to the History of Ancient Egyptian Funerary Statuettes with a Catalogue of the Collection of Shabtis in the National Museum of Antiquities at Leiden’, 3 vols., Leiden 1977.

Georganteli, E. and Bommas, M. (eds.) 2010. Sacred and Profane: Treasures of Ancient Egypt from the Myers Collection, Eton College and University of Birmingham. London. (Page 54, Entry No. 38).

Reeves, N. (ed.) 2008. Egyptian Art at Eton College and Durham University: Catalogue of a loan exhibition to Japan, 24 February-30 November 2008. With contributions from C. Barclay, T. Hardwick, S. Quirke, N. Reeves, J. Ruffle,

H. Schneider, and S. Spurr (Page 144, Entry No. 190).

For background on shabtis, see, for instance, J. H. Taylor, ‘Death and the Afterlife in Ancient Egypt’, London 2001, 112-135.

Notes:  It is interesting that, in comparison to other similar shabti inscriptions both within and outside of this collection, there is no 'voice' presented here, though it is perhaps implicit through the conventional spell formulae.

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