Qenimen’s funerary servants

These statuettes are called funerary servants or shabtis (an Egyptian term probably used originally to refer to wooden figurines). They come from the tomb of Qenimen, steward of the royal army’s arsenal and chief of the troops of Amun during the reign of Amenhotep II (1425-1400 BC). These figures would have formed part of the funerary equipment of this eminent figure. Despite differences in treatment, size and material, all three of these statuettes are mummiform: they are wrapped in a shroud from which only the head and sometimes the hands emerge. They are carrying agricultural implements. The hieroglyphic inscription on the vertical strip is an excerpt from chapter six of the Book of the Dead, indicating that they are funerary servants, which enables them to be brought to life: ‘Oh shabti […], if I am called upon to do any of the work that is usually done in the underworld, then the checkmarks [on the work list] will be struck for you there. Be appointed in my place at all times to cultivate the fields, to irrigate the riverbanks, and to carry the sebbakh [silt used to fertilise the land] from the east to the west. “Here I am,” will you say.’