Grave Goods with Shabtis and Funerary Chest

This display gathers the kind of equipment placed in a well-furnished Egyptian burial: rows of shabti figurines, the boxes that held them, and a painted wooden chest. Shabtis were servant figures inscribed with a spell (Book of the Dead chapter 6) so that they would do any agricultural labor the deceased was called upon to perform in the afterlife.

Wealthy burials could include hundreds of shabtis, sometimes one for every day of the year along with overseer figures to keep the workers in line.