Description:
A blue-turquoise faience shabti for the sameref priest Horankh, born to Imypet, wearing a braided beard and tripartite wig, and holding the usual agricultural implements, the pick and hoe; a seedbag is slung over his proper left shoulder. With a T-form inscription.
His title informs us that Horankh was a priest of the ram-headed god Heryshef (or Harsaphes), whose cult was centered in Herakleopolis Magna.
See Hans D. Schneider, Shabtis - An Introduction to the History of Ancient Egyptian Funerary Statuettes. With a Catalogue of the Collection of Shabtis in the National Museum of Leiden (3 volumes, Leiden, 1977), no. 5.3.1 for a similar type.
See also this entry at www.shabticollections.com.
Dating:
Late Period, 30th dynasty or slightly earlier.
Size:
Height 13.6 cm.
Provenance:
US private collection, acquired in the 1990s from another US collector, 1970s.
Condition:
Intact, with a small amount of surface wear, encrustation and pitting, causing a very small amount of loss of glaze, as shown; lower lip with a tiny air hole, caused during firing of the shabti; integral base not completely rectangular, caused when the shabti was pressed in its mould before firing; the same goes for a small dent in the proper right hand, which is ancient and not modern damage, caused by the mould. A lovely warm blue-turquoise colour..
SOLD
Stock number:
E0815