Shabty of Heqareshu
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 Heqareshu, ca. 1539–1400 B.C.E.. Limestone, 6 1/2 × 2 1/4 × 1 9/16 in. (16.5 × 5.7 × 3.9 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 55.174. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)
The same text in other collections
Linked by shared inventory number
(BKM-Object 3614).
Each record below describes this same artifact or text from a different angle.
- Brooklyn 55.174 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 small standing Egyptian shabti (mummiform/standing figure) carved in light stone, with hands crossed at the chest and a vertical column of incised hieroglyphs on the torso.
The image shows a single funerary figure (shabti) carved in pale material with a human head and a tripartite wig or wig-like headdress. The figure faces forward with a simplified, smooth facial treatment and a straight pose. Both arms are held forward across the upper chest, each hand grasping an implement/tool (details are worn but appear carved in relief). On the front of the torso there is a vertical text column consisting of multiple incised hieroglyphs; the upper portion includes a small rectangular or framed sign area, and lower signs appear stacked in several rows. No clearly legible royal cartouche is visible in the current photo. The lower end is cut off/abraded, but the figure’s body silhouette remains clear. No Greek, Coptic, or Arabic text is visible.
Connections
Cross-references (3)
- BKM-Accession 55.174 tier-2
- BKM-Object 3614 tier-2
- PNM-Object pnm:83913774 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.