Ushebti for the singer Maia. Ancient Egypt, New Empire, 1550 - 1070 BC.

Ushebti for the singer Maia. Ancient Egypt, New Empire, 1550 - 1070 BC.
Terracotta and pigments.
Provenance: parNcular Collection, New Jersey, USA.
Attached is a study on the antiquity of the piece by Egyptologist and architect Fernando Estrada Laza. Author of "The Workers of Death" and "Understanding and Loving Egyptian Art". Advisor to the architectural team Lamela, for the project of the future Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo (GEM). Advisor to the architectural team of Arata Isozaki (Tokyo), for the organization and selection of pieces for the new National Museum of Egyptian Civilization (NMEC) and the Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo (GEM).
Good state of preservation, maintains all the original polychromy, has a longitudinal break line, professionally restored at the level of the thighs.
Measurements: 19 cm (height).

The ushebtis are small statuettes that were deposited in the tombs as part of the funerary trousseau of the deceased. The oldest preserved specimens come from the Middle Empire, although we already find references to them in texts from the end of the Ancient Empire. Throughout time they always maintained the same function in the religious sphere but, while during the Middle Empire they were conceived as the representation of their owner before Osiris in the tasks of tillage in the kingdom of the shadows, replicas of the deceased, from the New Empire onwards they came to be seen as servants or slaves of the deceased, being made in large quantities.