Stick shabtis (or stick ushabtis) are ancient Egyptian

ushabti The ushabti (also called shabti or shawabti, with a number of variant spellings) was a funerary figurine used in ancient Egyptian funerary practices. The Egyptological term is derived from , which replaced earlier , perhaps the nisba of "' ...

s made of wood.

Description

They have a rough,

anthropoid Anthropoid means 'ape/human feature' and may refer to: * Simian, monkeys and apes (anthropoids, or suborder Anthropoidea, in earlier classifications) *Anthropoid apes - apes that are closely related to humans (e.g., former family Pongidae and some ...

shape, are not well-carved and bear just one inscription on the front. Unlike the normal Egyptian

s which are sometimes small artworks in the own right, they are not painted or further decorated.

Date

Stick shabtis date to the end of the

17th Dynasty The Seventeenth Dynasty of Egypt (notated Dynasty XVII, alternatively 17th Dynasty or Dynasty 17) was a dynasty of pharaohs that ruled in Upper Egypt during the late Second Intermediate Period, approximately from 1580 to 1550 BC. Its mainly Theba ...

and the beginning of the 18th Dynasty (around 1550 BC).

Function

Stick shabtis had a different purpose to most of the normal ushabtis. While ushabtis were most often placed into the burial chamber and had the function to work for the deceased, stick shabtis were always found in the overground cult chapel of Egyptian tombs, only at Thebes. They are often placed into roughly carved model coffins. In the inscriptions on these shabtis, the names of officials appear. It seems that stick shabtis represented family members and friends of a deceased. The stick shabtis were placed close to the burial of a beloved family member, so that the represented people could be symbolically close to their beloved one.

Literature

* Paul Whelan: ''Mere Scraps of Rough Wood?: 17th–18th Dynasty Stick Shabtis in the Petrie Museum and Other Collections'', London 2007 {{ISBN, 978-1-906137-00-7 Egyptian artefact types Figurines