Servant Statuette

This small wooden figure, depicting a sitting or crouching man, conjures up ancient Egyptian servant statuettes, a type of funerary equipment characteristic of elite burials from the late Old Kingdom to the early Middle Kingdom. Be they stand-alone or group figures, quite often placed inside small wooden models of granaries and workshops of various kinds, the servant statuettes depicted a range of activities and supplemented the repertoire of scenes of daily life on the walls of funerary chapels, and served to ensure magically a continued supply for the tomb owner in the afterlife.
The statuette is complete, even though minor damages can be attested here and there on its heavily worn surface. It was formerly defined as a man kneading bread dough that had been placed inside a model bakery or brewery. Nevertheless, this type is characterised by arms that extend beyond the body and end freely, and the bread dough on a plate or inside a container was produced and placed in front of the figure as a separate item. On the contrary, this particular statuette stretches his arms parallel and diagonally, with both hands connected directly and without joints to the front part of his block-shaped lower body (to the knees or the upper thigh). It may thus be suggested that the male figure, based on its stylistic features, could have rather been a member of the rowing crew in a model boat. Wooden model boats equipped with a crew became widespread grave goods already from the second half of the Old Kingdom onwards, and allowed the deceased to travel freely, without restrictions in the afterlife. Sometimes the oarsmen’s figures, either seated on benches or pegged directly to the deck on both sides of the boat, have been extremely schematized and abstracted: in certain cases, even the arms were omitted, so they look like triangular-shaped or cuboid bodies crowned with a head. A few examples are also known when the hands were not drilled to insert the handles of the oars, neither were those of the Budapest statuette; in such cases, the oars were leant against the figures or affixed to the sides of the boat. On the other hand, the whole of the Budapest statuette was carved from a single piece of wood, including his arms, a method that contrasts with the ancient practice when carpenters, as a rule, attached the arms to the torso by doweling. Furthermore, the bottom of the statue’s base also lacks evidence of ancient tapping. Given that servant statuettes are, by their very nature, among the most frequently forged artefacts, these technical details at least cast doubt on the object’s authenticity.