Sale: CNG 81, Lot: 1425. Estimate $300.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 20 May 2009.  Sold For $700. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Faience ushabti for Djedbastiufankh. Egyptian, XXVI Dynasty, 664-525 BC. Mummiform figure, holding a hoe and pick. Vertical band of hieroglyphs on lower body, inscribed to Djedbastiufankh and Irty-ru(?), probably the mother of Djedbastiufankh. Height (without base): 10.4 cm. Light deposits and surfaces roughness, broken and repaired at mid-height, lower portion missing. Glued to base.

Ushabti were placed in tombs to act as “servants” to the dead. The inscription reads:

The sehedj, the Osiris, Djedbastiufankh speaks: Oh these ushabtis, if one counts off Djedbastiufankh to do all the works which are done there, in God’s land, as a man at his duties, ‘here he is’ you shall say. One can count you off at any time which one has to serve there, in order to make arable the fields, to irrigate the lands...”

On the last line there appears to be the name Irty-ru, possibly the mother of Djedbastiufankh. The name “Djedbastiufankh” means “Bastet has said that he shall live”. There are other similarly formed names such as Djedhoriufankh and Djedptahiufankh. It is thought that such names originally derived from the practice of consulting an oracle of a particular deity in order to find out if the child would survive the pregnancy and birth.