Images(7)

Shabti Jar Belonging to Hori

Artist Unknown

Datecirca 1295–1069 BCE

MediumNile silt clay, white slip, and black paint

DimensionsH. 8 3/4 in. x Diam. 9 7/16 in.; Inner rim diam. 4 1/4 in. (22.2 x 24 cm; 10.8 cm)

ClassificationsCeramics

Credit LineGift of the James G. Hanes Memorial Fund

Object numberG.73.8.10

On View

On view

Label TextThe terms shabti and ushabti refer to small funerary figurines used at very specific periods and are not interchangeable. Their function evolved somewhat over the millennia, but from the New Kingdom onward, they served as magic servant statuettes that worked on behalf of their owners in the afterlife. Even pharaohs owned such figurines.

Stored in ceramic jars or wooden boxes, a full set would include 365 servant figurines and 36 overseers, identifiable by their apron, totaling 401. Including servant statuettes in tombs may derive from the sacrificial burial of servants in some predynastic- and early dynastic-period graves—an inhumane practice the Egyptians quickly abandoned.

[C. Rocheleau, "The People's Collection, Reimagined," 2022]ProvenanceMathias Komor Fine Arts & Antiquities, New York, NY; sold to NCMA, 1973.Published References"Recent Acquisitions" (exhibition catalogue), North Carolina Museum of Art Bulletin 12, no. 3 (March 1974), cat. no. 30, illus. (b-w) 38.

Caroline M. Rocheleau, “A Sixth Shabti Jar Belonging to Hori,” in JSSEA [Journal of the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities] 37 (2010), 79–89, illus. 80, fig. 1.

“Shabti Jar Belonging to Hori,” in North Carolina Museum of Art Preview (Fall 2012), 24–25, illus. (color) 25.

Caroline M. Rocheleau, Ancient Egyptian Art [Systematic Catalogue of the Collection] (Raleigh, NC: North Carolina Museum of Art, 2012), cat. no. 16, illus. (color) 42; detail (color) and translations 117.
Exhibition HistoryRaleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, “Recent Acquisitions,” June 16-August 18, 1974.

Raleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, Egyptian Gallery, April 22, 1974-February 13, 1978.

Raleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, "The People's Collection, Reimagined," October 7, 2022–present. Object Rights Statement

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