Late Period, 664-332 BC. A pale blue shabti with finely modelled facial features, wig and beard; hands crossed, holding agricultural implements and seed bag to the left shoulder; plain dorsal pillar and square base, eight bands of hieroglyphic text of Chapter 6 (the 'shabti chapter') of the Book of the Dead to the lower body; mounted on a display stand. See The Metropolitan Museum, accession number 66.99.189, for a similar shabti; see The British Museum, museum number EA56580, for a similar shabti. 173 grams total, 19cm including stand (7 1/2"). From an important English collection; previously in an old UK collection, since the 1970s. Placed in the tombs of the deceased, shabtis were funerary figurines which awaited the instruction of the deceased in the afterlife; the inscription born by the figure often related to the type of task it might be called upon to undertake.