Clay mould for the production of mummiform faience
Ushabtis. Ushabtis were funerary
figurines placed in tombs among the grave goods and
were intended to act as
substitutes for the deceased, should he be called
upon to do the manual labour in the
afterlife. They were used from the Middle Kingdom
(around 1900 BC) until the end of
the Ptolemaic Period, nearly 2000 years later.
Ushabtis were believed to magically
animate after the dead had been judged, and work for
the dead person as a substitute
labourer in the field of Osiris. This is why they
sometimes carry hoes, to execute the
hard manual labours mentioned in Chapter VI of the
Book of the Dead: “whether it be to
plough the fields, or to fill the channels with water, or
to carry sand from the East to the
West”.
Moulds are exceedingly rare, as they can be found
only in the original ancient
workshops, were they would have been used to make
the high number of statuettes
needed to fill the space around the sarcophagus in
the burial chamber. Moulds for the
production of Ushabtis are part of the most important
collection of Egyptian antiquities
in the world, including the Museum of Cairo and the
Egyptian Museum of Turin. A
positive is provided along with the purchase of the
mould.
Bibliography: Borla M. 2003, “Les statuettes
funéraires du Musée Égyptien de Turin: un
panorama de la collection à travers les exemplaires
les plus singuliers”, Dossiers
d'archeologie 9, p. 29.
- (ES.7158)
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