Ushabti (Funerary Figurine) of Horudja (Late Period, Dynasty 30 (380–343 BCE)): Artwork and History

Ushabti (Funerary Figurine) of Horudja (Late Period, Dynasty 30 (380–343 BCE)) is in the Art Institute of Chicago collection. The museum lists its creator attribution as Egyptian; Hawara, Egypt.

The work and its context

The Art Institute of Chicago describes the work:

To assure themselves a comfortable afterlife, Egyptians stocked their tombs with at least one figurine called an ushabti, who acted as a servant in the afterlife. The message carved on each of the figurines explained that if the deceased is called on to do any work in the afterlife, the ushabti will respond with “Here I am” and will do the job. Some tombs had as many as one ushabti for every day of the year and another 36 overseers to keep order. All but the poorest citizens provided themselves with some kind of funerary furnishings. Products for burial and the labor to produce them made up a large industry in Egypt.

Object facts

• Title: Ushabti (Funerary Figurine) of Horudja
• Date: Late Period, Dynasty 30 (380–343 BCE)
• Artist attribution: Egyptian; Hawara, Egypt
• Place of origin: Egypt
• Medium: Faience
• Dimensions: 21.9 × 6.6 × 4.7 cm (8 5/8 × 2 5/8 × 1 7/8 in.)
• Type: Funerary Object
• Department: Arts of Africa
• Reference number: 1890.30

Collection credit

Gift of Miss Amelia B. Edwards

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The description above is credited to the Art Institute of Chicago and reused under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0; HTML formatting has been converted to plain text. Other catalogue metadata and the public-domain image are provided under CC0 1.0.