Egyptian funerary religion
Ushabti
Ushabti are answerers buried with the dead and expected to undertake agricultural labor in the future world. Tirard describes figures carrying tools and baskets suited to those duties. An inscription addresses the statuette and concludes with its reply, promising readiness wherever it is called. Later examples may carry only the person’s name rather than the complete chapter.
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In the sources
Principal account
TraditionalUshabti are answerers buried with the dead and expected to undertake agricultural labor in the future world. Tirard describes figures carrying tools and baskets suited to those duties.
Further detail
TraditionalAn inscription addresses the statuette and concludes with its reply, promising readiness wherever it is called. Later examples may carry only the person’s name rather than the complete chapter.
Context & interpretation
Tirard’s 1910 account interprets selected funerary texts and rituals through the scholarship of her period. Local cults and surviving manuscripts vary; her comparisons and proposed origins are not a modern Egyptological consensus.
Original passages
Source 1
The Book of the Dead
his servants always at his beck and callOpen this page in the book
Passage & edition details
Location recorded at citation review: Egyptian funerary religion; active reader leaf 69
Exact passage checked against active scan text and original-leaf mapping; scan line breaks normalised.
- Edition
- IMJ-0039-E001
- Reader page
- IMJ-0039-E001-P0069
- Original scan leaf
- 79
- Recorded leaf number
- 69
- Current Reader position
- 63
- Reader verification
- Matches the reviewed Reader
- Location review
- Original scan location confirmed against the reviewed Reader mapping; the earlier recorded number is retained above.
Source 2
The Book of the Dead
The statuette is addressed at the beginning of the chapterOpen this page in the book
Passage & edition details
Location recorded at citation review: Egyptian funerary religion; active reader leaf 70
Exact passage checked against active scan text and original-leaf mapping; scan line breaks normalised.
- Edition
- IMJ-0039-E001
- Reader page
- IMJ-0039-E001-P0070
- Original scan leaf
- 80
- Recorded leaf number
- 70
- Current Reader position
- 64
- Reader verification
- Matches the reviewed Reader
- Location review
- Original scan location confirmed against the reviewed Reader mapping; the earlier recorded number is retained above.