shabti Pinedjem II

Egyptian Shabti for King Pinedjem II, 21st Dynasty, ca. 964 BC

Bright blue shabti with black details, depicted mummiform with the arms crossed over the chest. Each hand holding a hoe; a basket on the back. On front the striated lappets of a tripartite wig.

 Inscribed with seven lines of hieroglyphs reading: The illuminated one, the Osiris, the High Priest of Amun, Pinedjem, true of voice, he speaks: "O, these shabtis!" and continues with excerpts from Chapter 6 of The Book of the Dead.

 Interestingly enough the shabti of Pinedjem II bears the first mention of the term shabti, which would become customary thereafter.

 During the Third Intermediate Period the pharaohs from Tanis in the Nile delta coexisted with the Theban priesthood that ruler over Upper Egypt. Pinedjem II was the eight High Priest of Amun in succession and reigned for twenty-one years.

 Pinedjem II was the son of the earlier High
 
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 Priest Menkheperre, and grandson of Pinedjem I. He married Nesykhonsu and Isetemkhebi, his second wife.

 Pinedjem II’s tomb was used as a cache to secure the remains of about forty kings and chief priest of the 17th to 21st Dynasties whose burials had been desecrated. Their removal had been necessary because the Theban rulers could no longer guard the Valley of the Kings.

 The cache was discovered by the Rassoul brothers in 1871 and seized by Egyptian authorities ten years later.

 Headless as shown, broken at the shoulder level. The body reconstituted from two pieces. Superb preservation of the glaze and the hieroglyphs.

 H. 14.8 cm (5.8)

 Provenance:
 Deir El Bahri, Cache 1 (Royal cache), TT320
 English private collection. Acquired by a relative working in Egypt for a telegraph company in the early 20th century.
 Thence art market England

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