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Ushebti for the Lady Semset

The mummiform figure stands on an integral trapezoidal base against an uninscribed back pillar. The body is incised with a framed column of hieroglyphic inscription giving the name of the deceased: Semset and maternal origin, born to Shepenbastet.

Egypt, Memphis

Beginning of the Ptolemaic Period , 300-250 BC

Blue-green Faience with incised hieroglyphic inscription

Height 12.5 cm ( 4 7⁄8 in )

Private collection Paris, France, acquired prior to 1990

H. A. Schlögl & C. Meves-Schlögl: Uschebti-Arbeiter im ägyptischen Totenreich, Harrassowitz Wiesbaden 1993 : p 62-63
P. E. Newberry: Funerary Statuettes and Model Sarcophagi, Catalogue General des Antiquites Égyptiennes du Musee du Caire, Westminster 1957
H. Ranke: Die Ägyptischen Personennamen, Glückstadt 1935, Band I 307-27

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The mummiform figure stands on an integral trapezoidal base against an uninscribed back pillar. The body is incised with a framed column of hieroglyphic inscription giving the name of the deceased: Semset and maternal origin, born to Shepenbastet. The face has smooth rounded contours and a long braided false beard, and is framed by a striated tripartite wig. At her chest her hands protrude from the wrappings and hold a crook, a flail in raised relief and the twisted rope of a seed bag suspended behind the left shoulder. These agricultural implements indicate the ushebti’s function to perform labour on behalf of the deceased in the afterlife.

Most ushebtis since the Late Dynastic Period provide the name of the owner’s mother as a means of identification. From that time until the Ptolemaic Period, when they disappeared, such funerary statues now called weshebtis (answerers) as a definition of their function, were moulded in faience and featured a back pilar and trapezoidal base. Some burials contained no less than 336 figurines.

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