Shabti of Nesikhonsu

This small figurine is a shabti from the burial of a woman named Nesikhonsu who lived during the 21st Dynasty at Thebes. During this era, control of Egypt was divided between kings in the north, who ruled from Tanis in the Nile Delta, and the High Priests of the great state god Amun, ruling from Thebes in the south. Nesikhonsu was one of the principal wives of the High Priest of Amun Painedjem II and may also have been his niece. Among her many titles were First Great Chief of the Principal Musical Troupe of Amun, indicating that she was the highest-ranking member of the female clergy at Thebes, and “King’s Daughter” of Kush, a designation given in the New Kingdom (about 1500–1100 BCE) to the official who oversaw the Nubian territory under Egyptian control. Nesikhonsu is the only woman known to have held this latter title, and Egypt no longer controlled Nubia during her lifetime. Thus, it is unclear what, if any, responsibilities or benefices were attached to this title.

The funerary figures known as shabtis can be seen as avatars of the deceased who could be called upon to perform manual labor in the afterlife. By the 21st Dynasty, as many as 401 shabtis (a worker for each day of the year plus an overseer for each 10-day week) could be included with burials. Worker shabtis like this one can be identified by the farming tools they hold, whereas overseer shabtis typically wear a kilt and carry a whip.

This shabti was presumably discovered in the “First Royal Cache” in Western Thebes near the bay of cliffs at Deir el-Bahri. This hidden tomb contained the re-burials of a number of kings and queens of the New Kingdom, along with the burials of 21st Dynasty dignitaries like Nesikhonsu, her husband Painedjem II, and several generations of their family, including their daughter Nestanebetisheru. A graffito on one wall of the tomb records that Nesikhonsu was buried here on the 21st day of the 4th month of Shemu in Year 5, most likely of the Tanite king Siamun.

Nesikhonsu’s burial included two identical wooden tablets inscribed with “shabti decrees.” The only surviving examples of such decrees, these tablets contain written proclamations from the god Amun confirming Nesikhonsu’s ownership of her shabtis and charging them to exempt her from labor in the afterlife. She was also buried with a decree of Amun stating that she should do no harm to her husband from the afterlife. Nesikhonsu appears to have been a young woman when she died and was buried in a coffin set originally made for another of Painedjem II’s principal wives, Isetemkheb ("D"). Isetemkheb was also buried in the First Royal Cache in coffins that are stylistically later than Nesikhonsu's, so is assumed to have outlived her.

For more of Nesikhonsu’s shabtis at The Met, see O.C.850 and O.C.846. Nesikhonsu’s burial also included 70 faience cups, several of which are now in The Met’s collection.