Funerary servants/shabtis from the XXI Dynasty (1069-945 BC) from the USP Museum of Archeology and Ethnology collection: update and analysis.

• Grant number: 23/02061-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: April 01, 2024
• End date: June 30, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Archeology - Historical Archaeology
• Principal Investigator: Vagner Carvalheiro Porto
• Grantee: Thaisy Nogueira Palmuti
• Host Institution: Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia (MAE). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 24/09613-0 - Collecting data: bibliographical research and study of shabtis in the collection of the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden., BE.EP.IC

Abstract

This research aims to deepen the study of the funeral statuettes, also called shabtis or ushabtis, of the 21st Dynasty (1069-945 BC) present in the Egyptian collection of the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology of the University of São Paulo (MAE-USP). It is intended to review and update the information that exists in the catalogue produced by Prof. Dr. Antonio Brancaglion Junior (in memorian) in 2017 and complete with new data. The study will be based on the data provided by the Base Internationale des Shaouabtis (BIS), which has established a specific catalogographic model for the study of these artifacts. These statuettes are funeral servers, so they perform work in the afterlife. However, during the long period in which they were produced, this function and, consequently, their physical characteristics (support, image and text) presented transformations. The 21st Dynasty was a period of great importance in this process. Therefore, the project intends to associate the information already collected about the shabtis of the MAE acquis with the new ones, in order to understand how the physical characteristics of this artifact relates to its function in that period. Finally, the data collected will be inserted in the Digital Library of Intellectual Production of the University of São Paulo (BDPI), the repository of productions of USP, and will be made available to the Museum in order to update the catalogs of the pieces.