Funerary Figurine of Nesikhonsu
Description
Object Label: Shabties were included in tombs to perform agricultural work in place of the deceased in the afterlife. Many of them are inscribed with Chapter 6 of The Book of the Dead, which says they will dig irrigation ditches, cultivate crops, and carry sand. Others only bear the name and title of the owner. The earlier examples included here are inscribed in ink while in the later examples the text is part of the mold, which clearly saved labor. Shabties and scarabs, beetle-shaped amulets associated with rebirth and the sun god, are the most common Egyptian antiquities to survive to modern times. Caption: Funerary Figurine of Nesikhonsu, ca. 1075–945 B.C.E.. Faience, 6 1/2 x 2 3/8 x 1 1/2 in. (16.5 x 6 x 3.8 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Evangeline Wilbour Blashfield, Theodora Wilbour, and Victor Wilbour honoring the wishes of their mother, Charlotte Beebe Wilbour, as a memorial to their father, Charles Edwin Wilbour, 16.185. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)
AI image analysis GPT-4o-2024-08-06
Machine-generated from the object's image on May 2026. Not curatorial; treat deities, names, and signs below as the model's best reading, not authority.
A blue faience shabti figure with hieroglyphs inscribed on its lower half.
The artifact is a small shabti figure made from blue faience, a material commonly used in ancient Egypt for funerary objects. The figure has its arms crossed over its chest, a typical pose for shabtis, which were meant to serve the deceased in the afterlife. The lower half of the figure is inscribed with a column of hieroglyphs, likely a spell or identification related to its funerary function. The craftsmanship is indicative of the detailed work typical in such funerary items, suggesting it was intended for an individual of some status.
Cross-references (2)
- BKM-Accession 16.185 tier-2
- BKM-Object 3155 tier-2
About this record's data
- From the source institution — accession, description, dimensions, and dating are as catalogued by Brooklyn Museum — Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art.
- AI-inferred — the image-analysis panel (deities, names, signs) is machine-generated and may be wrong.
- Approximate location — most map points are plotted at the site centroid, not the exact findspot.
- Inferred links — cross-references marked with a match method other than explicit-source-field were matched by us, not stated by the source.