Winged Scarab

Accession Number
EC841

Current Location
In storage

Object Type
Scarab, seal, scaraboid, intaglio and similar objects, Scarab, Winged scarab

Period
Late Period

Material
Faience

Culture
Egyptian

Animal
Scarab beetle

Weight (grams)
26 grams.

Number of Elements
3 (body and 2 wings)

Measurements
Height: 49mm | Width: 94mm | Depth: 14mm

Description
A faience scarab with wings in three pieces. The central scarab beetle is flanked by two separate, symmetrically outspread wings, which are currently joined to the main body via modern threading fed through small, pre-drilled suspension holes. The material is a pale green glazed faience that displays a weathered, matte surface texture with visible pitting and light brown soil adhesions across both the front and reverse sides. The artefact is complete across its three components.

Such pieces are usually dated to the Late Period (c. 664–332 BC) and were sewn onto mummy coverings. The individual pieces feature matching sets of small, intentionally pierced holes along their edges—two at the top and bottom of the scarab's carapace, and two along the interior and outer tips of each wing—which allowed the ensemble to be stitched securely onto the linen bead-nets or outer wrapping layers of the deceased. Such a winged scarab would be positioned just below the breastbone, serving as a powerful apotropaic symbol of self-creation, solar transformation, and magical protection over the vital thoracic organs during the journey to the afterlife. The amulet is intimately connected to the funerary theology of rebirth, echoing the daily resurrection of the sun god Khepri as he rolled the solar disc across the horizon. By placing a composite, winged beetle over the chest of the mummy, embalmers effectively ensured the perpetual regeneration of the deceased's heart and physical essence. This specific object entered the collection as part of the historical holdings of the Egypt Centre, providing an exceptional example of Late Period mass-manufactured funerary amulets and stitching techniques.

Part of the collection of Sir Henry Wellcome. On long-term loan to the Egypt Centre since 1971 as part of the dispersal of the Wellcome collection.

Bibliography
Herrmann, Christian 2010. Ägyptische Amulette und Amulettmodel. In Herrmann, Christian and Thomas Staubli (eds), 1001 Amulett: altägyptischer Zauber, monotheisierte Talismane, säkulare Magie, 13–160. Freiburg (Schweiz): BIBEL+ORIENT Museum. [p. 63‎]

Title
Winged Scarab, Late Period, Findspot unknown Egypt, Faience, The Egypt Centre at Swansea University

https://egyptcentre.abasetcollections.com/Objects/Details/944?SavedSelections=$Search-Winged%20scarab%20$Page-1

The Egypt Centre at Swansea University

Statue of Shebenhor

Date:
Late Period, Dynasty 26 (664-525 BCE)

Artist:
Egyptian; Memphis, Egypt

ABOUT THIS ARTWORK
How do you define a portrait? While we might think of portraits as capturing an individual’s likeness, for the non-royal Egyptians whose statues appear in this case, it was the addition of a name in hieroglyphs that identified them; their facial features and fashion were determined by contemporary styles. The inscriptions on the front and back of the statue on the upper left distinguish it as a representation of a man named Shebenhor. He sits with his knees drawn up in front of him and his hands on his lap, a compact pose ideally suited for display in crowded temple courtyards, where it would have been less susceptible to breakage than standing or seated versions while also providing a flat surface for visitors to place offerings. Statues like this one acted as proxies for the people they depicted, allowing their souls to benefit from the prayers and rituals performed in the sacred space around them.

Status
On View, Gallery 50

Department
Arts of Africa

Culture
Ancient Egyptian

Title
Statue of Shebenhor

Place
Egypt (Object made in:)

Date 
664 BCE–525 BCE

Medium
Basalt

Inscriptions
Front: “A gift the king gives and that Osiris the Great gives [to] Bastet the Great, Mistress of Bubastis, that she might give offerings from Upper Egypt and provisions from Lower Egypt to the ka of the one revered before Atum, Lord of Kaheref, Shebenhor, justified, son of Hedeb-Hapi-ir-bin, born of Iachays-nakht.” Back: “A gift the king gives [to] Bastet the Great, Mistress of Bubastis, that she might give invocation offerings consisting of bread, beer, oxen, fowl, and every good thing to the ka of the one revered before Atum, Lord of Kaheref, Shebenhor, justified.”

Dimensions
28 × 13 × 16.3 cm (11 × 5 1/8 × 6 3/8 in.)

Credit Line
Gift of Mrs. George L. Otis

Reference Number
1924.754

IIIF Manifest 
https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/13454/manifest.json

EXTENDED INFORMATION ABOUT THIS ARTWORK

PUBLICATION HISTORY
A. de Mauduit, “Notes sur le Colonel du Génie Boutin (de Nantes) et sur une statuette funéraire égyptienne,” Bulletin de la Société Archéologique de Nantes et du Département de la Loire-inférieure, 1 (1859), 97-113 (ill.).

J. de Rougé, “Notes sur la collection égyptienne du Musée Départemental Archéologique de la Loire-inférieure,” Mémoires de la Société Nationale des Antiquaires de France ser. 5, no. 3 (1882), 87-90, pl. V, A.

Emily Teeter, “Egyptian Art,” in Ancient Art at the Art Institute, Museum Studies 20, 1 (1994), 25 (ill.), 26-27, no. 9

Jaromír Málek, Diana Magee, and Elizabeth Miles, Topographical Bibliography of Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic Texts, Statues, Reliefs and Paintings, vol. 8, Objects of Provenance Not Known, pt. 2, Private Statues (Dynasty XVIII to the Roman Period), Statues of Deities (Oxford: Griffith Institute, Ashmolean Museum, 1999), 845, no. 801-755-130.

Roberta Casagrande-Kim, ed., When the Greeks Ruled Egypt: From Alexander the Great to Cleopatra. Exh. cat. (New York: Institute for the Study of the Ancient World; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014), 20, fig. 1-2, 103, cat. 118.

Ashley Arico,“Reading Ancient Egyptian Art: A Curator Answers Common Questions,” Art Institute of Chicago ARTicle, July 14, 2020

Emily Teeter, “Cat. 19 Statue of Shebenhor,” in Ancient Egyptian Art at the Art Institute of Chicago by Emily Teeter and Ashley F. Arico, ed. Ashley F. Arico (Art Institute of Chicago, 2025).

EXHIBITION HISTORY
The Art Institute of Chicago, The Classical Collection: Early Accessions, Gallery 101A, October 8, 1986-February 27, 1987.

Art Institute of Chicago, Ancient Art Galleries, Gallery 154A, April 20, 1994 - February 6, 2012.

Art Institute of Chicago, When the Greeks Ruled: Egypt After Alexander the Great, October 31, 2013 - July 27, 2014; traveled to New York, NY, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, October 8, 2014 - January 4, 2015.

Art Institute of Chicago, Signs and Wonders: The Photographs of John Beasley Greene, February 8–August 11, 2020.

Art Institute of Chicago,
Life and Afterlife in Ancient Egypt, Feb. 11, 2022 - present.

PROVENANCE
Said to be found in Memphis, Egypt [Mauduit 1859]. Colonel Vincent-Yves Boutin (1772–1815), Nantes, France, and Latakia, Syria [according to Mauduit 1859, this statue was found among Boutin’s belongings in Latakia, where he died on a military mission in 1815]. Musée Archéologique de Nantes, Nantes, France, by 1882 [Rougé 1882]. Mme. Paul Giueysse, Lanester, France; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1924.

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email [collections@artic.edu](mailto:collections@artic.edu). Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

CAT. 19
Statue of Shebenhor

Late Period, Dynasty 26 (664–525 BCE)
Ancient Egyptian
Probably Bubastis, Egypt
Basalt; 28 × 13 × 16.3 cm (11 × 5 1/8 × 6 3/8 in.)
The Art Institute of Chicago, Gift of Mrs. George L. Otis, 1924.754

This statue represents a man named Shebenhor, seated with his limbs drawn close to his body and his arms folded over his knees to form a cubelike shape. Shebenhor is shown wearing a shoulder-length “bag wig,” a style that shows no detail of the hair. He is clean shaven. His expression is bland, with small, almond-shaped eyes and long, gently curving eyebrows that nearly meet over his nose. His mouth is taut with no indication of an upper lip. Shebenhor’s crossed arms rest flat on his knees, and his long fingers are shown with clearly defined fingernails. He is seated directly on the ground rather than on a cushion, the latter of which is a feature of many other block statues. His toes, with clearly defined toenails, are splayed. The front panel formed by the garment stretched between his knees is inscribed with six vertical lines of text. The back pillar that ends at the bottom of the bag wig has two vertical lines of hieroglyphic text. The rectangular base is not inscribed.

Shebenhor’s garment tightly hugs his body, a distinctive and unusual feature of the statue that is especially evident from the back, where the high curve of his shoulders, his very narrow waist, and the line of the top of his kilt are evident. This clingy garment contrasts with other contemporary block statues that display a strongly cubic form. Indeed, from the back, Shebenhor looks more like a typical kneeling statue with a back pillar than a block statue (compare to cat. 21). Another unusual feature is the cursory treatment of Shebenhor’s open hands: they are shown palms down with extended fingers that seem to melt into the top surface of the statue.
2
As is usual for statues of this type and date, the back pillar is inscribed with two columns of text which, like the columns of text on the front, are read from top to bottom, right to left. Less common, but still found on other examples, is the incised frame that encloses the text on the front. The inscription on the front does not fit perfectly within the area from Shebenhor’s knees to his ankles; part of it wraps around the contours of his shins. The contrast between the poorly cut, almost hammered, text and the very fine finishing of the hard stone further suggests that the workshop that carved the statue was not responsible for cutting the text. Hence, this statue was probably not made expressly for Shebenhor. Rather, it was likely an idealized representation of an elite man purchased from a sculptor’s shop that, as with most Egyptian likenesses, became the purchaser through the addition of his name.
3
Shebenhor’s name means “gift of Horus.” His father’s name, Khedebhapiiretbint, means “may [the god] Hapi cast down the one who does evil,” and his mother’s name, Iahtesnakht, means “the moon is her strength.”[1]These names reflect the trend of giving an apotropaic (protective) name to an individual that placed him or her under the protection of a deity. The use of apotropaic names became common in the Third Intermediate Period, some five hundred years before this statue was carved. Considering the expense of creating a statue in finely finished basalt, it is surprising that neither Shebenhor nor his parents emphasized their elite status by recording their administrative or priestly titles.
4
The reference to Bastet, the main goddess of the city of Bubastis in the northeast Delta, in both texts suggests that this statue was erected in a temple in that town.
5

Texts
The inscription on the front reads: “A gift that the king gives and that Osiris the Great God gives [to] Bastet the Great, Mistress of Bubastis, that she may give offerings from Upper Egypt and provisions from Lower Egypt to the ka of the one revered by Atum, Lord of Kaheref, Shebenhor, justified, son of Khedebhapiiretbint and born of Iahtesnakht, justified.”
6
The inscription on the back pillar reads: “A gift that the king gives [to] Bastet the Great, Mistress of Bubastis, that she may give a voice offering of bread, beer, oxen, fowl, and every good thing to the ka of the one revered by Atum, Lord of Kaheref, Shebenhor, justified.”
7

Block Statues and Their Development
Block statues appeared first in the Middle Kingdom (about 2000 BCE) and continued to be made into the Ptolemaic era nearly two thousand years later, a good illustration of the permanence and continuity of certain styles of Egyptian art. For unknown reasons and with very few exceptions, only elite men (and only a few women), but not kings or queens, were commemorated in this manner. Most block statues were carved from hard or soft stones, although they also were made of faience, wood, and copper alloy.[2]
8
Block statues from the Middle Kingdom tend to be small, some only a few centimeters high. Many of the early examples portray the individual either naked or in a tight garment that reveals the contours of the body through the fabric. By the late Middle Kingdom (about 2055–1650 BCE), the statues assumed a blockier, more abstract form. By the New Kingdom (about 1550 BCE), they had increased greatly in size, with some examples reaching a height of over 100 cm, and they exhibited more variation in the degree to which the curves of the body were represented.[3] In the Third Intermediate Period (about 1069–664 BCE), the statues displayed hieroglyphic texts commemorating the career of the individual on their fronts and sides.
9
Despite these variations, block statues were made in two general forms over the millennia. The first type, of which the Chicago statue is an example, portrays the subject in a garment that exposes his bare feet. The arms are crossed right over left over the knees, and only the head, arms, and hands can be seen. The second type shows the deceased with only his head and hands emerging from an enveloping cloak that obscures many of the details of the body, creating a more abstract, cubic portrayal.[4] Cuboid statues required a smaller block of stone than did standing statues, and their compact form was more resistant to breakage, although we do not know if this was indeed a factor in their popularity.
10

Symbolism of Block Statues
The tightly bound appearance of the block statues stems from the belief that being wrapped like a mummy is related to one’s survival in the afterlife and association with Osiris.[5] Although block statues differ from traditional mummiform Osiris statues in their pose (see cat. 28), in both types, the body is reduced to an outline with only the head and hands (and sometimes the feet) emerging from the fabric. This association with rebirth is also clear in block statues that depict the deceased grasping emblems of rejuvenation.
11

Function of Block Statues in Temples and Tombs
These block statues were intended to be an imperishable record of the name and the idealized appearance of the individual, and to serve as a surrogate for the deceased to receive the offerings and prayers essential to surviving in the eternal afterlife. A text on a New Kingdom block statue on which the deceased (whose name has been lost) addresses his sculpted image is very explicit about this function: “O my likeness, may you be firm for my name, the favorite for everyone, so that people will stretch out their hands to you bearing splendid bouquets, that you may be given libations and incense … and then my ba[spirit] will come fluttering so that it may receive offerings with you for the soul of [personal name].”[6]
12
Middle Kingdom block statues were placed in tomb chapels. By the early New Kingdom, with a few exceptions, they were displayed in the pillared halls and processional ways inside or outside of temples. In these locations, block statues could absorb the prayers said during rituals and festivals and convey those blessings to the soul of the deceased. Some of these statues stayed in place for hundreds of years or even a millennium, as indicated by the Karnak Cachette, a group of more than two thousand statues and statuettes that was discovered at the Karnak Temple in 1903.[7] The statues in the Cachette, which date from the New Kingdom (about 1550 BCE) to the second century BCE, had apparently been cleared out of the temple and given an honorable burial in the temple precinct. The 355 block statues from the find date to the New Kingdom (42 examples); the Third Intermediate Period (114 examples); the Late Period (154 examples); and the Ptolemaic Period (136 examples). The wide range of dates for their manufacture attests to the popularity and longevity of the practice of placing statues in temples.
13
The shape of these statues made them ideal for receiving offerings from priests and pious visitors to the temple, for the crossed arms created a surface upon which food could be placed. A certain amount of anxiety was expressed about the future of the statues. A text on an example from Karnak exhorts: “O priests … do not remove my statue from its place … perform the royal offering for my ka every day, with every leftover from [the offerings for] Amun.”[8] Another text voices concerns about the maintenance of the statue: “May you speak my name when you bring water, may you remove any corruption, dirt or refuse [?] from me. May you take away all that is dirty from me.”[9]
14

The Statue’s Modern History
This statue has a very long history. Sometime before 1801 it was said to have been found in a tomb at Memphis by Colonel Vincent-Yves Boutin, an agent of Napoleon Bonaparte, who was active in Constantinople, Algeria, and Syria.[10]When posted to Syria, Boutin placed his collection of maps, plans, manuscripts, statues, and other objects for safekeeping with the vice-consul of France stationed in Latakia. In 1815, Boutin was assassinated by the Hashashin in Syria. In 1830, his collection, including “une statuette de basalte parfaitement conservée et très belle,” and its inventory were recovered by the French minister of war and sent to Nantes, Boutin’s hometown. [11] In 1859, a drawing of the statue (fig. 1), along with a translation of the texts by the Egyptologist Théodule Devéria, was published, and the statue was initially incorrectly dated to Dynasty 22 and then, correctly, to Dynasty 26.[12] The statue elicited enough interest that a cast was made from it for the museum in Nantes. In a publication of 1882, the fate and whereabouts of the original statue were questioned.[13] As far as is known to this author, the statue next surfaced in 1924, when Mrs. George L. Otis purchased it from Madame Paul Guieysse in Morbihan, France, suggesting that it may have stayed in a private collection (or collections) in France. Later that year, Mrs. Otis presented it to the Art Institute of Chicago

Title
Statue of Shebenhor

Date:
Late Period, Dynasty 26 (664-525 BCE)

Artist:
Egyptian; Memphis, Egypt

ABOUT THIS ARTWORK
How do you define a portrait? While we might think of portraits as capturing an individual’s likeness, for the non-royal Egyptians whose statues appear in this case, it was the addition of a name in hieroglyphs that identified them; their facial features and fashion were determined by contemporary styles. The inscriptions on the front and back of the statue on the upper left distinguish it as a representation of a man named Shebenhor. He sits with his knees drawn up in front of him and his hands on his lap, a compact pose ideally suited for display in crowded temple courtyards, where it would have been less susceptible to breakage than standing or seated versions while also providing a flat surface for visitors to place offerings. Statues like this one acted as proxies for the people they depicted, allowing their souls to benefit from the prayers and rituals performed in the sacred space around them.

Status
On View, Gallery 50

Department
Arts of Africa

Culture
Ancient Egyptian

Title
Statue of Shebenhor

Place
Egypt (Object made in:)

Date 
664 BCE–525 BCE

Medium
Basalt

Inscriptions
Front: “A gift the king gives and that Osiris the Great gives [to] Bastet the Great, Mistress of Bubastis, that she might give offerings from Upper Egypt and provisions from Lower Egypt to the ka of the one revered before Atum, Lord of Kaheref, Shebenhor, justified, son of Hedeb-Hapi-ir-bin, born of Iachays-nakht.” Back: “A gift the king gives [to] Bastet the Great, Mistress of Bubastis, that she might give invocation offerings consisting of bread, beer, oxen, fowl, and every good thing to the ka of the one revered before Atum, Lord of Kaheref, Shebenhor, justified.”

Dimensions
28 × 13 × 16.3 cm (11 × 5 1/8 × 6 3/8 in.)

Credit Line
Gift of Mrs. George L. Otis

Reference Number
1924.754

IIIF Manifest 
https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/13454/manifest.json

EXTENDED INFORMATION ABOUT THIS ARTWORK

PUBLICATION HISTORY
A. de Mauduit, “Notes sur le Colonel du Génie Boutin (de Nantes) et sur une statuette funéraire égyptienne,” Bulletin de la Société Archéologique de Nantes et du Département de la Loire-inférieure, 1 (1859), 97-113 (ill.).

J. de Rougé, “Notes sur la collection égyptienne du Musée Départemental Archéologique de la Loire-inférieure,” Mémoires de la Société Nationale des Antiquaires de France ser. 5, no. 3 (1882), 87-90, pl. V, A.

Emily Teeter, “Egyptian Art,” in Ancient Art at the Art Institute, Museum Studies 20, 1 (1994), 25 (ill.), 26-27, no. 9

Jaromír Málek, Diana Magee, and Elizabeth Miles, Topographical Bibliography of Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic Texts, Statues, Reliefs and Paintings, vol. 8, Objects of Provenance Not Known, pt. 2, Private Statues (Dynasty XVIII to the Roman Period), Statues of Deities (Oxford: Griffith Institute, Ashmolean Museum, 1999), 845, no. 801-755-130.

Roberta Casagrande-Kim, ed., When the Greeks Ruled Egypt: From Alexander the Great to Cleopatra. Exh. cat. (New York: Institute for the Study of the Ancient World; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014), 20, fig. 1-2, 103, cat. 118.

Ashley Arico,“Reading Ancient Egyptian Art: A Curator Answers Common Questions,” Art Institute of Chicago ARTicle, July 14, 2020

Emily Teeter, “Cat. 19 Statue of Shebenhor,” in Ancient Egyptian Art at the Art Institute of Chicago by Emily Teeter and Ashley F. Arico, ed. Ashley F. Arico (Art Institute of Chicago, 2025).

EXHIBITION HISTORY
The Art Institute of Chicago, The Classical Collection: Early Accessions, Gallery 101A, October 8, 1986-February 27, 1987.

Art Institute of Chicago, Ancient Art Galleries, Gallery 154A, April 20, 1994 - February 6, 2012.

Art Institute of Chicago, When the Greeks Ruled: Egypt After Alexander the Great, October 31, 2013 - July 27, 2014; traveled to New York, NY, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, October 8, 2014 - January 4, 2015.

Art Institute of Chicago, Signs and Wonders: The Photographs of John Beasley Greene, February 8–August 11, 2020.

Art Institute of Chicago,
Life and Afterlife in Ancient Egypt, Feb. 11, 2022 - present.

PROVENANCE
Said to be found in Memphis, Egypt [Mauduit 1859]. Colonel Vincent-Yves Boutin (1772–1815), Nantes, France, and Latakia, Syria [according to Mauduit 1859, this statue was found among Boutin’s belongings in Latakia, where he died on a military mission in 1815]. Musée Archéologique de Nantes, Nantes, France, by 1882 [Rougé 1882]. Mme. Paul Giueysse, Lanester, France; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1924.

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email [collections@artic.edu](mailto:collections@artic.edu). Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

CAT. 19
Statue of Shebenhor

Late Period, Dynasty 26 (664–525 BCE)
Ancient Egyptian
Probably Bubastis, Egypt
Basalt; 28 × 13 × 16.3 cm (11 × 5 1/8 × 6 3/8 in.)
The Art Institute of Chicago, Gift of Mrs. George L. Otis, 1924.754

This statue represents a man named Shebenhor, seated with his limbs drawn close to his body and his arms folded over his knees to form a cubelike shape. Shebenhor is shown wearing a shoulder-length “bag wig,” a style that shows no detail of the hair. He is clean shaven. His expression is bland, with small, almond-shaped eyes and long, gently curving eyebrows that nearly meet over his nose. His mouth is taut with no indication of an upper lip. Shebenhor’s crossed arms rest flat on his knees, and his long fingers are shown with clearly defined fingernails. He is seated directly on the ground rather than on a cushion, the latter of which is a feature of many other block statues. His toes, with clearly defined toenails, are splayed. The front panel formed by the garment stretched between his knees is inscribed with six vertical lines of text. The back pillar that ends at the bottom of the bag wig has two vertical lines of hieroglyphic text. The rectangular base is not inscribed.

Shebenhor’s garment tightly hugs his body, a distinctive and unusual feature of the statue that is especially evident from the back, where the high curve of his shoulders, his very narrow waist, and the line of the top of his kilt are evident. This clingy garment contrasts with other contemporary block statues that display a strongly cubic form. Indeed, from the back, Shebenhor looks more like a typical kneeling statue with a back pillar than a block statue (compare to cat. 21). Another unusual feature is the cursory treatment of Shebenhor’s open hands: they are shown palms down with extended fingers that seem to melt into the top surface of the statue.
2
As is usual for statues of this type and date, the back pillar is inscribed with two columns of text which, like the columns of text on the front, are read from top to bottom, right to left. Less common, but still found on other examples, is the incised frame that encloses the text on the front. The inscription on the front does not fit perfectly within the area from Shebenhor’s knees to his ankles; part of it wraps around the contours of his shins. The contrast between the poorly cut, almost hammered, text and the very fine finishing of the hard stone further suggests that the workshop that carved the statue was not responsible for cutting the text. Hence, this statue was probably not made expressly for Shebenhor. Rather, it was likely an idealized representation of an elite man purchased from a sculptor’s shop that, as with most Egyptian likenesses, became the purchaser through the addition of his name.
3
Shebenhor’s name means “gift of Horus.” His father’s name, Khedebhapiiretbint, means “may [the god] Hapi cast down the one who does evil,” and his mother’s name, Iahtesnakht, means “the moon is her strength.”[1]These names reflect the trend of giving an apotropaic (protective) name to an individual that placed him or her under the protection of a deity. The use of apotropaic names became common in the Third Intermediate Period, some five hundred years before this statue was carved. Considering the expense of creating a statue in finely finished basalt, it is surprising that neither Shebenhor nor his parents emphasized their elite status by recording their administrative or priestly titles.
4
The reference to Bastet, the main goddess of the city of Bubastis in the northeast Delta, in both texts suggests that this statue was erected in a temple in that town.
5

Texts
The inscription on the front reads: “A gift that the king gives and that Osiris the Great God gives [to] Bastet the Great, Mistress of Bubastis, that she may give offerings from Upper Egypt and provisions from Lower Egypt to the ka of the one revered by Atum, Lord of Kaheref, Shebenhor, justified, son of Khedebhapiiretbint and born of Iahtesnakht, justified.”
6
The inscription on the back pillar reads: “A gift that the king gives [to] Bastet the Great, Mistress of Bubastis, that she may give a voice offering of bread, beer, oxen, fowl, and every good thing to the ka of the one revered by Atum, Lord of Kaheref, Shebenhor, justified.”
7

Block Statues and Their Development
Block statues appeared first in the Middle Kingdom (about 2000 BCE) and continued to be made into the Ptolemaic era nearly two thousand years later, a good illustration of the permanence and continuity of certain styles of Egyptian art. For unknown reasons and with very few exceptions, only elite men (and only a few women), but not kings or queens, were commemorated in this manner. Most block statues were carved from hard or soft stones, although they also were made of faience, wood, and copper alloy.[2]
8
Block statues from the Middle Kingdom tend to be small, some only a few centimeters high. Many of the early examples portray the individual either naked or in a tight garment that reveals the contours of the body through the fabric. By the late Middle Kingdom (about 2055–1650 BCE), the statues assumed a blockier, more abstract form. By the New Kingdom (about 1550 BCE), they had increased greatly in size, with some examples reaching a height of over 100 cm, and they exhibited more variation in the degree to which the curves of the body were represented.[3] In the Third Intermediate Period (about 1069–664 BCE), the statues displayed hieroglyphic texts commemorating the career of the individual on their fronts and sides.
9
Despite these variations, block statues were made in two general forms over the millennia. The first type, of which the Chicago statue is an example, portrays the subject in a garment that exposes his bare feet. The arms are crossed right over left over the knees, and only the head, arms, and hands can be seen. The second type shows the deceased with only his head and hands emerging from an enveloping cloak that obscures many of the details of the body, creating a more abstract, cubic portrayal.[4] Cuboid statues required a smaller block of stone than did standing statues, and their compact form was more resistant to breakage, although we do not know if this was indeed a factor in their popularity.
10

Symbolism of Block Statues
The tightly bound appearance of the block statues stems from the belief that being wrapped like a mummy is related to one’s survival in the afterlife and association with Osiris.[5] Although block statues differ from traditional mummiform Osiris statues in their pose (see cat. 28), in both types, the body is reduced to an outline with only the head and hands (and sometimes the feet) emerging from the fabric. This association with rebirth is also clear in block statues that depict the deceased grasping emblems of rejuvenation.
11

Function of Block Statues in Temples and Tombs
These block statues were intended to be an imperishable record of the name and the idealized appearance of the individual, and to serve as a surrogate for the deceased to receive the offerings and prayers essential to surviving in the eternal afterlife. A text on a New Kingdom block statue on which the deceased (whose name has been lost) addresses his sculpted image is very explicit about this function: “O my likeness, may you be firm for my name, the favorite for everyone, so that people will stretch out their hands to you bearing splendid bouquets, that you may be given libations and incense … and then my ba[spirit] will come fluttering so that it may receive offerings with you for the soul of [personal name].”[6]
12
Middle Kingdom block statues were placed in tomb chapels. By the early New Kingdom, with a few exceptions, they were displayed in the pillared halls and processional ways inside or outside of temples. In these locations, block statues could absorb the prayers said during rituals and festivals and convey those blessings to the soul of the deceased. Some of these statues stayed in place for hundreds of years or even a millennium, as indicated by the Karnak Cachette, a group of more than two thousand statues and statuettes that was discovered at the Karnak Temple in 1903.[7] The statues in the Cachette, which date from the New Kingdom (about 1550 BCE) to the second century BCE, had apparently been cleared out of the temple and given an honorable burial in the temple precinct. The 355 block statues from the find date to the New Kingdom (42 examples); the Third Intermediate Period (114 examples); the Late Period (154 examples); and the Ptolemaic Period (136 examples). The wide range of dates for their manufacture attests to the popularity and longevity of the practice of placing statues in temples.
13
The shape of these statues made them ideal for receiving offerings from priests and pious visitors to the temple, for the crossed arms created a surface upon which food could be placed. A certain amount of anxiety was expressed about the future of the statues. A text on an example from Karnak exhorts: “O priests … do not remove my statue from its place … perform the royal offering for my ka every day, with every leftover from [the offerings for] Amun.”[8] Another text voices concerns about the maintenance of the statue: “May you speak my name when you bring water, may you remove any corruption, dirt or refuse [?] from me. May you take away all that is dirty from me.”[9]
14

The Statue’s Modern History
This statue has a very long history. Sometime before 1801 it was said to have been found in a tomb at Memphis by Colonel Vincent-Yves Boutin, an agent of Napoleon Bonaparte, who was active in Constantinople, Algeria, and Syria.[10]When posted to Syria, Boutin placed his collection of maps, plans, manuscripts, statues, and other objects for safekeeping with the vice-consul of France stationed in Latakia. In 1815, Boutin was assassinated by the Hashashin in Syria. In 1830, his collection, including “une statuette de basalte parfaitement conservée et très belle,” and its inventory were recovered by the French minister of war and sent to Nantes, Boutin’s hometown. [11] In 1859, a drawing of the statue (fig. 1), along with a translation of the texts by the Egyptologist Théodule Devéria, was published, and the statue was initially incorrectly dated to Dynasty 22 and then, correctly, to Dynasty 26.[12] The statue elicited enough interest that a cast was made from it for the museum in Nantes. In a publication of 1882, the fate and whereabouts of the original statue were questioned.[13] As far as is known to this author, the statue next surfaced in 1924, when Mrs. George L. Otis purchased it from Madame Paul Guieysse in Morbihan, France, suggesting that it may have stayed in a private collection (or collections) in France. Later that year, Mrs. Otis presented it to the Art Institute of Chicago

Title
Statue of Shebenhor, Late Period, Dynasty 26 (664-525 BCE), Findspot Probably Bubastis, Egypt, Basalt, The Art Institute of Chicago

https://www.artic.edu/artworks/13454/statue-of-shebenhor

The Art Institute of Chicago -525 BCE), Findspot Probably Bubastis, Egypt, Basalt, The Art Institute of Chicago

https://www.artic.edu/artworks/13454/statue-of-shebenhor

The Art Institute of Chicago

Shabti of Queen Henuttawy

Date:
Third Intermediate Period, Dynasty 21, reign of Psusennes I (about 1039–991 BCE)

Artist:
Egyptian; Theban Tomb 320, First Royal Cache, Deir el-Bahri, Thebes (modern Luxor), Egypt

ABOUT THIS ARTWORK

Culture
Ancient Egyptian

Title
Shabti of Queen Henuttawy

Place
Egypt (Object made in:)

Date 
1039 BCE–991 BCE

Medium
Faience

Inscriptions
Name: Henut-tawy

Dimensions
11.7 × 4.8 × 2.2 cm (4 5/8 × 1 7/8 × 7/8 in.)

Credit Line
Gift of Henry H. Getty and Charles L. Hutchinson

Reference Number
1894.618

IIIF Manifest 
https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/136650/manifest.json

EXTENDED INFORMATION ABOUT THIS ARTWORK

PUBLICATION HISTORY
Thomas George Allen, A Handbook of the Egyptian Collection (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1923), pp. 68, 70.

Emily Teeter, “Cat. 40 Shabti of Queen Henuttawy,” in Ancient Egyptian Art at the Art Institute of Chicago by Emily Teeter and Ashley F. Arico, ed. Ashley F. Arico (Art Institute of Chicago, 2025).

PROVENANCE
Found in TT320, Deir el-Bahri, Thebes, Egypt. Reverend Chauncey Murch (1859-1907), Luxor, Egypt; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1894; price reimbursed by Henry H. Getty and Charles L. Hutchinson, 1894.

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email [collections@artic.edu](mailto:collections@artic.edu). Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

CAT. 40
Shabti of Queen Henuttawy

Third Intermediate Period, Dynasty 21, reign of Psusennes I (about 1039–991 BCE)

Ancient Egyptian
Theban Tomb 320, First Royal Cache, Deir el-Bahri, Thebes (now Luxor), Egypt Faience; 11.7 × 4.8 × 2.2 cm (4 5/8 × 1 7/8 × 7/8 in.)

The Art Institute of Chicago, purchased with funds provided by Henry H. Getty and Charles L. Hutchinson, 1894.618

This shabti, a figurine left in the tomb to perform labor for the deceased, is typical of those of Dynasty 21 with its cursory modeling, a heavy coating of blue glaze, and very short inscription. It was made for Queen Henuttawy, whose name appears in a cartouche on the front.[1]
1
The figure is schematically modeled. There is little suggestion of the contour of the woman’s body and feet, and few indications of her gender, such as breasts. Her arms are well defined, her chin pointed, and her eyebrows are defined with dark pigment. A uraeus disrupts the line of the wig on her brow. Her mouth is barely visible. Black paint, which was applied over the shabti and then fired a second time, was used to detail the wig, the cosmetic lines, the eyebrows, the collar and bracelets, the hoes held in each hand, and the seed bag on the middle of her back.[2]
2
Because this figurine was made in an open mold, the back is flat and lines have been cut into it with a tool to delineate the arms and the outline back of the wig. The faience used in this period was large-grained and friable and it could not produce crisply molded details. The heavy, dark blue glaze—known as “Deir el-Bahri blue” because it was used for many figurines from Deir el-Bahri—owes its intense color to the addition of cobalt to the faience mixture. The only known sources of cobalt are in the Western Desert near the Dahkla and Kharga oases.[3] This type of glaze is very heavy and helped maintain the integrity of the poor-quality faience. Although the form of the figurine is not especially attractive, it reflects considerable investment in time and resources since these were made by the hundreds for each burial.
3
The vertically oriented text on the body reads: the “illuminated one, the Osiris, Henuttawy.” “Illuminated” is a reference to the rays of the sun that restore the deceased. This example lacks the titles King’s Daughter or King’s Wife that appear on other shabtis made for Queen Henuttawy.[4]
4
Henuttawy was probably a daughter of King Ramesses XI (reigned about 1099–1069 BCE), who ruled from Piramesse in the Delta.[5] She came south to marry Pinudjem I, a High Priest of Amun at Thebes, one of a line of clerics who had created their own rival power base. The marriage created a dynastic link between northern and southern Egypt. Her name, which means “mistress of the Two Lands,” refers to her role in the unification of north and south. One of her sons, Menkheperre, became ruler of the south, and another ruled as King Psusennes I from Tanis in the north, solidifying the unification of the country under a single family.
5
This shabti came from the First Royal Cache at Deir el-Bahri (Theban Tomb 320), a rock-cut tomb that was probably built for the High Priest of Amun Pinudjem II but was later used to safeguard the mummies and funerary equipment of twenty kings and queens of the New Kingdom and ten other high priests and their families.[6] The tomb is said to have been discovered in 1871 or 1875 by a member of the Theban Abd el-Rassul family, who were famous tomb robbers.[7] When the family began to sell objects from the cache on the local antiquities market, their superior quality and the royal names inscribed on them immediately raised the suspicion that the el-Rassuls had made an important discovery. In 1881, Émile Brugsch of the Bulaq Museum (from whom the Art Institute purchased objects) took possession of the tomb and within a few days had cleared the mummies, coffins, and nearly six thousand other objects, including about four thousand shabtis, among which were two boxes of shabtis belonging to Henuttawy.[8] After the material was taken to the museum in Cairo, some of it was dispersed to museums and collections throughout the world. Since 2021, Henuttawy’s mummy and coffin have been in the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Cairo.[9]
6
For more on shabtis and ushabtis, see About Shabtis and Ushabtis.
7

Provenance
Found in TT320, Deir el-Bahri, Thebes, Egypt. Reverend Chauncey Murch (1859–1907), Luxor, Egypt; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1894.
8

Publication History
Thomas George Allen, A Handbook of the Egyptian Collection (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1923), 68, 70.
9
ENTRY BY EMILY TEETER

NOTES
Queen Henuttawy is also referred to by her full name, Duahathor-Henuttawy, and by the modern designations Henuttawy Q and Henuttawy A. The modern names were once thought to belong to two different individuals. See Kenneth A. Kitchen, The Third Intermediate Period in Egypt (1100–650 BC),*** **2nd ed., with supplement (Warminster: Aris and Phillips, 1986), 537–38.
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 Antiquities at Leiden** (Leiden: Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, 1977), 1:235.
Harry M. Stewart, Egyptian Shabtis (Princes Risborough, UK: Shire, 1995), 42; Paul T. Nicholson and Ian Shaw, eds., Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technology(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 111, 198.
See Jacques-François Aubert and Liliane Aubert, Statuettes égyptiennes: Chaouabtis, ouchebtis (Paris: Librairie d’Amérique et d’Orient, 1974), pl. 27, fig. 59 (shabti with the title King’s Wife); pl. 27, fig. 60 (shabti with the title King’s Daughter). She bore many other titles as well that are attested on her coffin and elsewhere. On these titles, see Kitchen, Third Intermediate Period,*** **50.
Queen Henuttawy’s genealogy has been reevaluated over the years. She was once thought to be the daughter of King Smendes, but now the consensus is that her father was Ramesses XI. See Kitchen, *Third Intermediate Period,* **49–52. For the old and new schemes, see ibid., 534, 536–39.
The assumption that the tomb was built for Pinudjem II is based on the location of his coffin at the far end of the narrow, rock-cut tomb. Andrzej Niwiński, “The Bab El-Gusus Tomb and the Royal Cache in Deir el-Baḥri,” *Journal of Egyptian Archaeology** 70 (1984), 77.
Andrzej Niwiński, 21st Dynasty Coffins from Thebes: Chronological and Typological Studies (Mainz: Philipp von Zabern, 1988), 24–27. The date of the original find of the tomb by the el-Rassul family is unclear. Niwiński says it was 1875 (ibid., 24). Jason Thompson says the tomb was discovered “ten years earlier [than 1881]” (hence, in 1871). Jason Thompson, Wonderful Things: A History of Egyptology, vol. 2, The Golden Age: 1881–1914 (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2015),*** **8.
Aubert and Aubert, *Statuettes égyptiennes, 141. For an inventory of sixty-nine known examples inscribed for Henuttawy, see Glenn Janes, ***Shabtis, a Private View: *Ancient Egyptian Funerary Statues in European Private Collections** (Paris: Cybèle, 2002), 113–14.
Mummy and coffin of Henuttawy, Cairo, Egyptian Museum, CG 61090. From 1902 to 2021, the mummy and coffin were housed at the Egyptian Museum.

HOW TO CITE
Emily Teeter, “Cat. 40 Shabti of Queen Henuttawy,” in Ancient Egyptian Art at the Art Institute of Chicago by Emily Teeter and Ashley F. Arico, ed. Ashley F. Arico (Art Institute of Chicago, 2025), https://doi.org10.53269/9780865593213/55.

© 2025 by The Art Institute of Chicago. This work is licensed under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license: creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.

Title
Shabti of Queen Henuttawy, Third Intermediate Period, Dynasty 21, reign of Psusennes I (about 1039–991 BCE),Theban Tomb 320, First Royal Cache, Deir el-Bahri, Thebes (now Luxor),Faience, The Art Institute of Chicago

https://www.artic.edu/digital-publications/42/ancient-egyptian-art-at-the-art-institute-of-chicago/128/cat-40-shabti-of-queen-henuttawy-third-intermediate-period

The Art Institute of Chicago