Hi
Senatus,
Ushabti/shabti are not the most photogenic of objects. The inscriptions are notoriously blurry and yours is no exception.
I believe your's dates to the Late Period, circa 26th Dynasty or perhaps later.
The ushabti spell may go back to the Pyramid Texts. It was incorporated into the
Coffin Tests as Spell 472. See: Faulkner, R.O. The Ancient
Egyptian Coffin Texts, Volume II, Spells 355 - 787. Warminster, Aris &
Phillips, 1977. pages 106 and 107. And it is to be found in the Ancient
Egyptian Book of the Dead. See:
Budge, E.A.W., The Papyrus of Ani.
London, 1895 (Dover re-print 1967).
Quite often the spell was abbreviated and changed slightly with the passing centuries.
I checked the following publications but to no avail, nothing similar or parallel.
1. Chappaz, Jean-Luc. Les Figurines Funéraires Égyptiennes du
Musée D’Art et D’Histoire et de quelques
Collections Privées. Geneva, Aegyptiaca Helvetica, 1984.
2.
Newberry, Percy E. Funerary Statuettes and Model Sarcophagi, Indices et Planches, Troisième Fascicule,
Catalogue Général
des Antiquités Égyptiennes du
Musée du Caire, Service
des Antiquités de L’Egypte. Cairo, 1957. Volume 3.
3.
Petrie, W.M.F.
Shabtis. British School of Archaeology in
Egypt.
London, 1935 (
Phillips and
Malter re-print, 1974).
I also checked some articles in journals but nothing similar to yours. They are:
1. Loret,
Victor Les Statuettes Funeraires de
Musee de Boulaq in Receuil de Travaux Relatifs...
Paris, 1863, pp. 89 - 117. text in
French.
2.
Birch, Samuel. On Sepulchral figures in Z.A.S. 1864, pp. 89 to 96 and 103 to 108; and 1865, p. 4 to 8, 20. (Zeitschriftfur aegyptische sprache und altertumskunde)
3. Borchardt, Ludwig von. in Z.A.S. 1894, p. 111 to 117 (Zeitschriftfur aegyptische sprache und altertumskunde) Einiges uber die Todtenstatuetten
4. Gardiner, A.H. A statuette of the High Priest of Memphis, Ptahmose in Z.A.S. 1906, p. 55 - 59.
If you would like to look further, may I suggest the following:
1. Corpus Antiquitatum Aegyptiacarum published several volumes on
shabti along with the
collections of some European museums.
2.
Schneider, Hans D.
Shabtis, An Introduction to the
History of Ancient
Egyptian Funerary Statuettes with a
Catalogue of the
Collection of
Shabtis in the National Museum of Leiden. 3vols., Leiden, 1977
3.
Stewart, Harry M.
Egyptian Shabti, Shire Egyptology Series, paper.
4.
www.shabticollections.com/shabtibookreviewsoverview.html - a great site for books about
shabti.
5. I only have volume 3 of
Newberry's
work sited above, perhaps you could view volumes I and 2.
5. There are probably more books and sites out there.
I
hope this helps... question... can you read other languages? There are books available in
French,
German and
Spanish.
Russ
