Today I finally fulfilled a goal I’ve had for a couple of decades: I’ve got my very own Egyptian ushabti. (Nickel for scale.)
An “ushabti” (or “shawabti”) was a funerary figure placed in tombs to serve the deceased in the afterlife. It’s long been thought that the original custom was to kill the servants of a noble to keep servanting in the next world, until somebody (probably a servant) said, “I bet these little ceramic figurines would do just as well!”
Derivation of the name is uncertain, but it may be from “answerer” (or more loosely translated, “someone who listens to me”), as illustrated in this passage from the Book of the Dead:
Hail, Shabti Figure! If [name of the owner] be decreed to do any of the work which is to be done in Khert-Neter, let everything which standeth in the way be removed from him- whether it be to plough the fields, or to fill the channels with water, or to carry sand from the East to the West. The Shabti Figure replieth: “I will do it, verily I am here when thou callest.”
At last, somebody in the house whose job is to listen to me.
Hey, Ushabti! Make me a tuna fish sandwich!
…Hey, Ushabti! Plow the fields!
…Um… Hey, Ushabti! Pick up that nickel!
Hmm… Battery must be low after a few thousand years…