#ushabti

Uhabti box of Djehutyhotep, steward and leader of the festival of Amun

New Kingdom, 19th Dynasty, ca. 1290-1210 BC.

Shabti (faience with green glaze, details in black; 14.5 cm [5.7 in] high x 4.8 cm [1.9 in] wide x 2.4 cm [0.9 in] thick) of the 23rd Dynasty pharaoh Hedjkheperre Setepenre Takelot II (regnal years debated; either 845-820 or 834-809 BCE). Like other shabtis, this small figure was intended to do labor on the pharaoh's behalf in the afterlife.

Takelot II is a hazy figure, but the present consensus among Egyptologists is that he is identical with the Takelot who served as High Priest of Amun at Thebes and whose grandfather was the 22nd Dynasty pharaoh Osorkon II. If this theory is correct, Takelot ruled Middle and Upper Egypt from his power base at Thebes, while the 22nd Dynasty pharaoh Shoshenq III ruled Lower Egypt from Tanis in the northeastern Nile Delta. Like the other rulers of the 22nd and 23rd Dynasties, Takelot II was ethnically an ancient Libyan, coming from the area west of the Nile Delta; the founder of the 22nd Dynasty, Shoshenq I, was a chieftain of the Berber tribe known as the Meshwesh.

Ushabti and their box from the singer Anch-Amun-iri-dies

Thebes, 25th - 26th Dynasty

It's oft forgotten that amongst the Pegasus-pattern, the Ushabti Omnigun is no mere paracausal existence; the nature of its containment and rumoured-intelligence points to it being a yet-to-be categorised NHP.

No attempts of breaching the containment has yielded intelligence, yet accounts from surviving pilots of cascading SISYPHUS NHPs have noted the NHP conversing with an unknown figure manifesting from the containment field.