Ushebti; Egypt, Lower Epoch, 664-323 B.C.

Ushebti; Egypt, Lower Epoch, 664-323 B.C.
Fayenza.
Broken in half. Restored.
Provenance: Georges Savès collection.
Measurements: 11 cm (height).

Ushebti of mummiform form, with arms crossed on the chest and hieroglyphs inscribed on his body.

The ushebtis are small statuettes that were deposited in the tombs as part of the funerary trousseau of the deceased. The oldest preserved specimens come from the Middle Empire, although we already find references to them in texts from the end of the Ancient Empire. Throughout time they always maintained the same function in the religious sphere but, while during the Middle Empire they were conceived as the representation of their owner before Osiris in the tasks of farming in the kingdom of the shadows, replicas of the deceased, from the New Empire onwards they came to be seen as servants or slaves of the deceased, being made in large quantities.

This piece comes from the collection of Georges Savès (1908-1985), a French numismatist and collector with a deep vocation for archaeological study. Heir to a family tradition of collecting, he devoted himself fully from the 1950s to historical and numismatic research, especially on Toulouse and Gallic coins. Throughout his life, he assembled an eclectic collection of archaeological, ethnographic and artistic pieces, enriched in 1966 with the acquisition of part of the Roger Bédiat collection. Author of specialized studies, his legacy remains a reference in the academic and patrimonial fields.