Shabti of Mentuemhat

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Large stone shabtis, known from the late Middle Kingdom and 18th Dynasty, reappeared in the 25th Dynasty for the pharaohs, Theban God's Wives, and highest officials of Dynasty 25 at Thebes. Mentuemhat, the powerful 'count' of the Theban region, had several such shabtis. Three of them were excavated by the Metropolitan Museum in the vicinity of his tomb in Western Thebes. Mentuemhat preceded the usual shabti spell with a magical formula that had been used on shabtis of Amenhotep III (ca. 1390-1352 BC) and on certain others of that king's time. The formula gives attention to Abydos as a place of special access to Osiris. It asks that the gods there in Osiris's presence (probably ancestral kings) remember Mentuemhat before Osiris so that Mentuemhat can participate in the sacred city's festivities. It also asks that those same gods remember him when he is asked to provide his own food in the Netherworld, so that the shabti can take his place as the standard shabti formula requests.

Egyptian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Met collection of ancient Egyptian art consists of approximately 30,000 objects of artistic, historical, and cultural importance, dating from about 300,000 BCE to the 4th century CE. A signifcant percentage of the collection is derived from the Museum's three decades of archaeological work in Egypt, initiated in 1906 in response to increasing interest in the culture of ancient Egypt.

Metropolitan Museum of Art