Shabti of Siptah

Shabti of Siptah

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This shabti belongs to Siptah, the penultimate ruler of the Nineteenth Dynasty. Shabtis were placed in a tomb so the owner's spirit would not have to perform manual labor in the afterlife. The figurines were often inscribed with the "shabti text" – chapter 6 of the Book of the Dead – a spell that exhorts the shabti to substitute itself if the owner is asked to till the fields, irrigate the land, or transport sand from east to west. To this end, even royal shabtis are often depicted clutching a pick and a hoe, and with a basket hanging over one or both shoulders. Theodore M. Davis, who discovered the tomb of Siptah (KV 47) in 1905, found there hundreds of fragments of Egyptian alabaster. Many of these belonged to between 40 and 50 shabtis inscribed with the names of Siptah. Some were sections of funerary vessels. The rest belonged to at least three sarcophagi and two canopic chests, one belonging to Siptah, the other to a Queen Tiye, who has not yet been identified with certainty.

Egyptian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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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.