Egyptian faience ushabti for Hor-Kheby

Third Intermediate Period, 21st Dynasty, 1069-945 BC
Height: 13 cm
 
From the second cache at Deir el-Bahri; Private collection France, acquired prior to 1980. 
 
A faience worker ushabti of deep cobalt blue with details painted in black. He stands with arms crossed left over right on the chest, each hand holding a hoe, a large seed bag on the back. Wearing a striated tripartite wig with diadem. The eyes and brows painted in but other facial features blank. A hieroglyphic inscription runs in a single column down the lower body reading 'Temple scribe of the Estate of Amun'.
 
This ushabti is from the second cache at Deir el Bahri, (sometimes called Bab el Gusus), The Priests of Amun Cache. This Cache was discovered in January 1891 by Mohammed Abd el-Rassul just outside the north-eastern corner of Hatshepsut's temple precinct. It contained 153 coffins, 110 Ushabti boxes, containing as many as 20,000 ushabtis, 77 Osiris statues, 8 wooden stelae, 8 statutes of Isis and Nephthys, and 16 canopic jars, all belonging to Priests of Amun and their families living in Thebes, and dating to the 21st Dynasty. Examples of this ushabti are now found in many museums, including Alexandria, the British Museum and University College in London, The Metropolitan Museum in New York and the Louvre in Paris. 15629