JO LOH: Hi, I’m Jo. I’m here with our Egyptologist, and our Egyptian Gallery Explorers. They’re going to help us figure out what’s in these boxes on the floor. Look at the open box. What do you see inside?

EXPLORER ONE: I see blue dolls that kind of look like pharaohs?

ISABEL STUENKEL: These small figures are called shabtis...

EXPLORER TWO: …and they represent the person who is dead, the mummy.

ISABEL STUENKEL: And they are actually substitute figurines. … And they hold in their hands little hoes for agricultural work.

EXPLORER TWO: … agriculture means the growing of crops …

ISABEL STUENKEL: So, they were meant to actually work in the afterlife. The Egyptians believed that they would be called upon to do agricultural work, so the figures could do this work for them. But it was not that they did not want to do this work, they wanted to make sure that this work is done.

JO LOH: How many do you think there are?

EVERYONE SHOUTS: 365!

JO LOH: Why do you think there are 365 in the boxes? What do you think it signifies?

EXPLORER THREE: That's how many days are in a year, and they thought one would go for each day.

JO LOH: Exactly. Ideally, there were 365 shabtis, one for each day of the year. There were so many shabtis altogether that they couldn’t fit in one box—the closed box here also has shabtis. The shabtis would magically come alive and work in place of the dead person. And, to be extra sure, there were even additional supervisor shabtis to make that everything was done right! But how did the shabtis work?

ISABEL STUENKEL: Often the shabtis had a magical spell written on them, parts of which sounded like this “O, this shabti! If I am called to grow food in the fields, to water to the crops, to carry sand from east to west—Here I am! you shall say.”

JO LOH: Even the color of the shabtis is important. To hear why, press PLAY, now.