Ushabti were funerary statuettes in the form of a mummy, interred with the dead in ancient Egypt. The word is usually said to denote an 'answerer' who responds on behalf of the deceased to the call for service in the realm of Osiris. At first made of stone or wood, by the end of the 18th dynasty they were almost always of glazed falence. The many-coloured type was afterwards replaced exclusively by plain blue, with the name of the deceased, and usually also the 6th chapter of the Book of the Dead, inscribed in black. In the tomb of Seti I there were found 700 ushabtis, and in the Saite age 400 were regularly enclosed in partitioned boxes in each tomb. Research Ushabti
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