A Group of Shabtis at the Archaeological Museum of Leiden (RMO F 1957/3.2, F 1973/6.2, BA 270-271)

Keywords:Shabtis, Leiden, Netherlands, mummification, Offering(IJTHS), O6UVol., No., 2025,pp. Received: //2025Accepted: //2025Published: //2025 Shabtis were to become one of the most important categories of the tomb`s furnishings. Shabtis emerged as significant funerary figures during the Middle Kingdom, gradually supplanting the earlier servant statuettes used in tomb rituals. The shabtis were mummification in shape, acting as a personal substitute for its master. The shabti had many uses, placed in tombs to provide an additional home for the ka, and to receive nourishment in the afterlife. The current study tackles four unpublished shabtis statuettes preserved in the storage of the Leiden Museum in the Netherlands. The paper also discusses, investigates and analyses the techniques of the four shabtis manufacture. Moreover, the paper conducts a comparison with other known-dated examples from other museums collections in order to determine their provenance and approximate date.Objectives:• To publish and document four previously unknown shabti figurines from the Leiden Museum.• To analyze their material, iconography, inscriptions, and manufacturing techniques.• To compare these examples with dated parallels in other collections.• To interpret their religious and symbolic meanings within the Osirian tradition.• To establish a more accurate date and cultural context for each figurine.This unpublished group has never appeared in any previous catalogue or Egyptological corpus, making its publication a necessary step in completing the documentation of Leiden’s shabti collections.