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Details
LOT 0498
Egyptian Glazed Faience Shabti Collection
PTOLEMAIC PERIOD, 332-30 B.C.
1 3/4 - 3 1/2 in. (54 grams total, 46-91 mm).
Comprising five mummiform figures in different colours, each with a false beard and wearing a lappet wig. [5]
Provenance
Acquired on the UK art market before 2000.
Property of an Essex, UK, gentleman.
This lot is accompanied by an illustrated lot declaration signed by the Head of the Antiquities Department, Dr Raffaele D'Amato.
Literature
Cf. Petrie, W.M.F., Shabtis, London, 1935, pl. XLV, nos. 615, 645, and 649, for comparable examples.
Footnotes
Shabti figures were created to perform heavy manual tasks on behalf of a person in the afterlife. The body of a shabti typically resembled a mummy from the neck down and was often depicted holding tools such as baskets, mattocks, and hoes. Over time, the number of shabtis in a standard elite burial increased, so that from the Third Intermediate Period onward, it became common to have at least 401 figurines, comprising 365 workers, one for each day of the year, plus 36 overseers, one for every ten workers.
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