TAA i.3.29.1

THE SEPULCHRAL STATUETTES CALLED SHAWABTI-FIGURES.
 

     These small sepulchral statuettes were placed in the tomb to 

act as servants of the deceased. The deceased in the under-

world became a subject of Osiris, and he was supposed to work 

in the world beyond the tomb as he had done in this world. For 

that reason statuettes, known as shawabti-figures, were placed 

in the tomb to act as substitutes for the deceased to relieve 

him of any irksome duties he might be called upon to do. As 

the deceased was mummified in the likeness of Osiris, so these 

sepulchral figures take that same mummy form. Many of them 

were dedicated by actual servants of the deceased, whom, in that 

way, gave their services to their master in the under-world as 

they had done during his daily life. And these figures by being 

his substitute they represent him, bear his insignia as well as 

his names and titles. Hense^sic in this series we find these stat-

uettes, although always of mummy form in compliment to the de-

ceased, represented wearing the appropriate attributes of either 

the private or the official life of the king. Some bear merely 

his prenomen and nomen, titles and epithets, while others bear as 

well the formula included in the VIth. Ch. of the Book of the 

Dead which reads:

          "O Shawabti, if the Osiris N be appointed in the Netherworld 

to perform any of the tasks that are performed yonder, even as a 

man is bounden, namely, to cultivate the fields, to flood the 

meadows, or to carry the sand of the East to the West, then speak 

thou, 'Here am I.' "

          With these figures are even rêises (overseers of gangs) who 

hold the ribbon and the flagellum, and with them are quantities 

of miniature agricultural implements.