Description: Turquoise faience mummiform shabti, with eyes, eyebrows, headband, implements, basket and vertical column of hieroglyphs indicated in black paint. Has tripartite hair, seshet fillet tied at back of head, carries 2 hoes, seed bag in the middle of back with straps over shoulders. Inscription names the owner as the priest of Amun, Nesankhefenmaat (Ranke 174.6).
Cultural Significance: Typical Third Intermediate Shabti of faience, during this period it was usual for burials to include a shabti for each day and overseer shabtis (around a total together of 400 being included in a burial) to provide a tomb owner with workers in the afterlife to fulfil their obligations to farm in the afterlife fields. A number of shabtis of the priest of Amun, Nesankhefenmaat are known in collections with provenance originating from the 1899-1900 excavation season at Abydos which were distributed by the Egypt Exploration Fund. They appear to derive from an intrusive deposit in an 18th Dynasty tomb, D11, and noted in the publication as private name number 87.
Comparanda: NML 24.9.00.108, 56.21.588, 56.22.603; British Museum EA32717; Bolton Museum 1900.54.131; shabti auctioned Hansons 11 Feb 2019 (Julian Bird Collection ex-Christies lot 132 April 2011).

Inscriptions / Translations:  The Osiris, priest of Amun, Nesankhefenmaat, true of voice for eternity.

Bibliography:  D. Randall-Maciver & A.C. Mace, El Amrah and Abydos 1899-1901, Egypt Exploration Fund, London 1902, Pl. LIX, 87.

Notes:  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. Schneider classification: VIIIA1/W19/H1/I5/B13b/Tp7a/P

Note that the provenance might be EEF/ERA excavations between 1880 and first years of 1900, probably Abydos. It is noted by Nicholas Reeves in his essay in the Egyptian Art at Eton College Exhibition Catalogue that David Randall MacIver sent a consignment of material from the Abydos Excavations (p.4).