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Book
of the Dead Chapter 6
Source for the composition:
the most widely copied composition in Egyptian funerary literature, this occurs
first among the sets written on the walls of coffins dated to the mid Twelfth
Dynasty, about 1900-1850 BC ('Coffin Texts', number 472), with the specification
that it be recited over a figure of the deceased as in life. Around a century
later, mummiform figures inscribed with the figure are found in model ‘substitute’
burials, at Lisht and Abydos. From the end of the Second Intermediate Period,
about 1550 BC, it becomes a regular part of royal and elite burials, growing
in number from one or two per burial in the Eighteenth Dynasty to Third Intermediate
Period sets comprising one for every day of the year, and one to direct every
group of ten. The figures are addressed in the composition by the term ‘shabti’,
later reinterpreted as ushabti ‘respondent’; the figures are requested to
carry out any tasks involving heavy manual labour required of the deceased
in the life after death. The composition is found regularly on larger Book
of the Dead manuscripts from the New Kingdom (about 1550-1069 BC) to the Ptolemaic Period, either
separately (‘chapter 6’) or as the caption to or inscription for the shabti
figure in the embalming hall illustration (‘chapter 151’).
The following is the version
found in the Papyrus of Nu, mid Eighteenth Dynasty.
i.Swbty ipn
ir ip.tw N r irt kAt nbt irrt
im m Xrt-ntr
ist Hw n.f sdbw im
r s r Xrt.f
ip.tw r.k r nw nb ir.tw im.f
r srwd sxt r smHt wdbw
r Xnt sa r imnt iAbt
iry.i mk wi kA.k
O shabti figure(s)
If N is called up to do any
work that is done there in the underworld
Then the checkmarks (on the
work list) are struck for him there
As for a man for his (work
service) duty
Be counted yourself at any
time that might be done
To cultivate the marsh, to
irrigate the riverbank fields
To ferry sand to west or east
‘I am doing it – see, I am
here’, you are to say
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