Shabti of Tenetshedkhonsu

This mummiform funerary figure (shabti) represents a woman named Tenetshedkhonsu. Tenetshedkhonsu probably would have had about 400 such figures buried with her, comprising one mummiform worker for each day of the year and one overseer for each 10-day week. Mummiform shabtis were meant to carry out manual labor on behalf of the deceased in the afterlife, using the hoe held in each hand and the basket on the back. This figure bears an inscription that reads: "the illuminated one, the Osiris, Tenetshedkhonsu." This refers to the owner’s wish to become one of the transfigured dead who are brought back to life by the rays of the sun as it passed through the netherworld.

This shabti likely comes from the Bab el-Gusus, a large undecorated tomb that contained the burials of 153 different individuals. It appears to come from a box that held some shabtis like this one, bearing the name Tenetshedkhonsu, with a blue wig and black fillet (headband). Other shabtis from the same box had black wigs instead, and some bore a variation on her name, spelled Tashedkhonsu rather than Tenetshedkhonsu (see e.g. Louvre E 22094. There is no consistency, with the two different wig styles used with either version of the name on variously sized examples.

Two sets of coffins inscribed for women with the name Tashedkhonsu were found in the Bab el-Gasus. One had only the title of Chantress of Amun, while the other bore higher status titles, including Noblewoman and Singer in the Choir of Mut. However, there was apparently only one shabti box, so there is no way to tell for which of these woman The Met’s shabti was made.