Shabti of Isetemkheb (D), wife of Painedjem II

This small figurine is a shabti from the burial of a woman named Isetemkheb who lived during the 21st Dynasty. 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. Isetemkheb was one of two known principal wives of the High Priest of Amun Painedjem II. She was also his full or half-sister as both she and her husband were probably children of the previous High Priest of Amun, Menkheperre. Isetemkheb held many titles, including First Great Chief of the Principal Musical Troupe of Amun, indicating that she was the highest-ranking woman in the female clergy during her lifetime.

The funerary figures known as shabtis can be seen as avatars of the deceased. Some, like Isetemkheb's shabti here, are inscribed with part of Chapter 6 from the Book of the Dead, promising to act on behalf of her owner should she 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. They were often placed in wooden boxes near their owner’s coffins. Worker shabtis can be identified by the farming tools they hold, whereas overseer shabtis typically wear a skirt and carry a whip.

This shabti was presumably discovered in the “First Royal Cache” in Western Thebes, in a valley just south of the Temple of Hatshepsut. This hidden tomb contained the re-burials of a number of kings and queens of the New Kingdom (about 1550 to 1100 B.C.E.), along with the burials of 21st Dynasty dignitaries like Isetemkheb, Painedjem II, and several generations of their family.

A set of coffins initially created for Isetemkheb appears to have been used to bury another wife of Painedjem II named Nesikhonsu. Isetemkheb was eventually buried in the First Royal Cache in coffins that are stylistically later than Nesikhonsu's. Thus, Isetemkheb is assumed to have outlived Nesikhonsu.