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Ushabti

by Eugenia Salza Prina Ricotti

After the Egyptians had lived a long and happy life, arrived the moment to die and enter the life-to-come, which, as we know, will last forever. Thus they worried a lot about it, and to be sure that, once there, they would pass their time well and comfortably, Egyptians built splendid tombs. So today what we know better about them concern death, and we easily end to think that Egypt was a land of dead. This is absolutely untrue, but it is sure that they were so preoccupied of what would happen to them and to their bodies after their demise that the most important remains of their civilization and their most glittering treasures are found in their graves
With an idea absolutely different from our saying “You can’t bring them with you” meaning riches, Egyptians, sure as they were that, well mummified, they would continue to lead the same kind of life that they lived in this world, brought with them what better they had: Objects and precious goods that they thought were absolutely necessary to be happy in this parallel universe, a place in which they put all their faith and in which they hoped to settle just as they had settled in their worldly life.
Obviously, from what we know, Egyptians as the other people of the antiquity imagined the world of life-to-come very similar to the one they knew, and therefore they supposed that also there it would be necessary to work. The heavenly earth would have to be dug, sowed and enriched and the gods would call by turns the souls of the dead men and assign to each one the task that he would have to accomplish. Now not one of the rich and powerful men buried in the mastabas would accept to go and personally hoe the field and nobody wished to get corns on their refined heavenly hands. Thus all of them took measures to be served in this other world exactly as they were served in the earthly one. It was not impossible: It was only necessary to provide oneself of many wooden or ceramic figurines. Magic figurines special and enchanted, which when they heard the “words of power” (so were called the secret magic formulae that allowed men to produce spells) came to life and put themselves at their master disposition so that he could send them to work in his place and do all the tasks that would be required. These figurines were called Ushabti and they allowed their masters to enjoy eternity without being obliged to lift a finger.
The formulae that gave life to the submissive shabti are found in the fifth chapter of the “Book of the Dead”, a perfect handbook to be successful in the life-to-come. However first of all on his way toward the final happiness the deceased had to say a line that was supposed to free him from any form of heavenly work and he had to pronounce it with the right intonation (right intonation was very important to make the spell succeed):
“I lift the hand of the inactive man. I arrive from the city of Unnu (Hermopolis). I am the divine soul that is alive and with me I bring the apes’ hearts”
With this spell one was saved to work in the life-to-come, but the work had to be done and it was just for that that everybody kept in his tomb many Ushabti, the magic figurines representing the deceased, that had to be sent in his place and obey the gods orders. In the oldest times the ones, who pronounced over the Uhabti the “words of power” that, when need came, would animate them and made them capable to execute the needed works, were the priests. Later on the words were directly written on the figurines and each time that need arose, the soul of the deceased had only to read them with the right intonation and, from what I understand, this right intonation was not so easy to learn.
With the passing of time the instrument (plough, hoe, or other thing) that the shabti had to employ were simply drawn on it and still later on the formulae with the “words of power”, long and complicated as they were in ancient times, were more and more simplified.. It was enough to read the following words.
“O you shabti image of me, Nebseni, the scribe, if I was called or if a task had been assigned to me, as, for instance, one of the works that in turns men have to do in the life- to- come, find a system to abolish any impediment or opposition. Do everything in such a way that the choice to sow the field, fill the irrigation canals with water, or transport soil from east to west, fall always over you and not over me.”
After those “words of power” there was the figurine’s answer:
“Certainly. I am here and I’ll do whatever you will ask me to do .”


BIBLIOGRAPHY

E.A. WALLIS BUDGE, Egyptian Magi, Bury St.Edmunds, Suffolk, 1975, first published in 1899, pp. 70 -72
LIBRO DEI MORTI, cap. V. Formulae for giving life to the ushabtii