Property from the Barratt-Brown Collection
A White Faience Ushabti of Ay, "Father of the God ", 18th Dynasty, Amarna Period, circa 1350-1330 B.C., standing with his arms crossed over his chest, the hands without implements, and wearing a striped tripartite wig, the eight lines of inscription including Ay's name, title, and the standard text from Chapter VI of the Book of the Dead, the inscription and stripes of the wig inlaid in blue glaze, the face and hands glazed or inset in red.
Height 8 15/16 in. (22.7 cm.).
Provenance:
Antiquites egyptiennes, grecques et romaines, appartenant a P. Philip et a divers amateurs, Hotel Drouot, Paris, April
10th-12th, 1905, no. 412, illus.
Omar Pacha Sultan Collection {Collection defeu Omar
Pacha Sultan Le Caire, Paris, 1929, no. 361, illus.)
probably Michel Abemayor, New York.
Published:
Geoffrey T. Martin, "Shabtis of private persons in the Amarna Period ", Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts Abteilung Kairo, 42, 1986, p. 118, no. 15, illus. pl. 16
For ushabtis closely related in technique compare those of Lady Sati in The Brooklyn Museum (Ancient Egyptian Art in The Brooklyn Museum, no. 47) and of the vizier Ptahmose in Cairo (Egypt's Dazzling Sun, p. 310, fig. X.7).
In regard to ushabtis of the Amarna Period Geoffrey Martin (op. cit., p. 110) writes: "The shabtis datable to the Amarna era are particularly important since they form a source for the little-known or barely-understood mortuary ritual and equipment of that short period of Egyptian history and attest to the retention of standard items of the ancient funerary equipment during the so-called Heresy period. This retention of the shabti figure by Akhenaten and his family and adherents is indicative of the innate conservatism of the ancient Egyptians, particularly in religious matters. The use of shabtis as such in the Amarna era is perhaps not altogether surprising, but their employment in mummiform Osirid guise, in both royal and private examples, rather than for instance in the dress of daily life, is somewhat remarkable. The use of Osirid figurines thus throws an interesting sidelight on the religious climate of the period, suggesting that Osiris was not one of the deities especially singled out for vilification. Some of the Amarna figurines are works of art in their own right, and are among the finest creations of the shabti workshops of any period."
The Barratt-Brown ushabti was almost certainly made for the Ay who played a major role, both as soldier and advisor, during the reigns of Amenhotep III, Akhenaten and especially the young Tutankhamun, upon whose death Ay himself, already advanced in age, became King of Egypt. Martin suggests that this ushabti was destined for Ay's tomb at Amarna (the source for the most complete version of Akhenaten's great Hymn to the Aten), a tomb in which, because of future historical events, he was never buried. Ay was probably the brother of Amenhotep III's Great Wife Tiye, thus the uncle of Akhenaten and great-uncle of Tutankhamun, and probably the father of Nefertiti, from whence his title "Father of the God" could originate; see Aldred, Akhenaten, p. 90.
Under Tutankhamun Ay served as Governor of Thebes. How he became ruler of Egypt in the dynastic confusion which followed Tutankhamun's death is described by Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt in Tutankhamun, New York, 1963, pp. 275-282.
$40,000-60,000 " |
Autor/in
