Shabty of Iuy
Description
Object Label: The Egyptians manufactured funerary figurines, originally called shabties, as early as Dynasty 12 (1932–1759 B.C.E.). The earliest shabties are inscribed with either the deceased’s name (see nos. 1 and 2) or a simple form of Chapter 6 of the Book of the Dead. The rarity and high quality of the early shabties suggest that they were costly items produced for privileged persons. Later, Chapter 6 began appearing more frequently on funerary figurines. The text mentions that they do agricultural tasks for the dead person: irrigating the fields, cultivating crops, and clearing away sand that blew in from the nearby desert. As substitutes for the deceased, these figurines were sometimes given their own sarcophagi (see no. 6). To emphasize the agricultural function of the figurines, hoes and grain baskets were added to them (no. 8). Wood (nos. 9–11), stone (nos. 12–14, 16), faience (no. 17), metal, and other materials were used beginning in Dynasty 18. By the end of the New Kingdom, statuettes for a single person were often mold-made by the hundreds and even thousands. Faience became the medium of choice, first in blue and later in light green or light blue (nos. 17, 20, 21). Caption: Shabty of Iuy, ca. 1539–1400 B.C.E.. Limestone, pigment, 12 1/16 x 3 3/4 x 2 3/16 in. (30.6 x 9.6 x 5.5 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 37.129E. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)
The same text in other collections
Linked by shared inventory number
(BKM-Object 116843).
Each record below describes this same artifact or text from a different angle.
- Brooklyn 37.128E + 37.129E PNM text
AI image analysis GPT-5.4-nano
Machine-generated from the object's image on Jul 2026. Not curatorial; treat deities, names, and signs below as the model's best reading, not authority.
A limestone shabti (mummiform funerary figure) shown front-facing, with arms crossed holding tools and a vertical inscribed column on the chest area.
The image shows two views of a single funerary object: a front view and a rear/inside cavity view. The figure is mummiform with a smooth, rounded head, stylized facial features, and a wig/head covering suggested by the head shape and hairline. The hands are held at the chest in a crossed pose. Across the upper body and abdomen there is a carved vertical text column with hieroglyphs; the lines of the inscription are visible but some characters are worn/eroded. The lower portion includes the impression of the legs and feet in a seated/mummiform stance. Small dark holes/fixtures are visible along the sides of the rear view. Faint remnants of color/pigment appear in places (notably reddish traces near the bottom edge in the rear view), consistent with painted decoration. No Greek/Coptic/Arabic text is visible. No clear royal cartouche is identifiable from the visible portion of the hieroglyphs.
Inscriptions (1)
Visible text (machine reading)
Cross-references (3)
- BKM-Accession 37.129E tier-2
- BKM-Object 116843 tier-2
- PNM-Object pnm:83913790 tier-2 (inventory-match)
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.