Servant Statuette

The wooden figurine represents a crouching man, painted in ochre, wearing a headband and a white skirt coming below the knees, may be considered a fine, well-crafted example of ancient Egyptian servant statuettes, despite the severe damages and its incomplete state of preservation. The servant statuettes were grave goods characteristic of elite burials from the late Old Kingdom to the early Middle Kingdom; the wide range of activities they performed served to satisfy the needs of the deceased in the afterlife through the power of magical representation. These needs included, among others, the ability to move freely, the primary means of which in ancient Egypt was river navigation. In some of the early Middle Kingdom elite burials, fine flotillas of model boats were found, including pleasure boats, cargo ships, or even boats for sporting activities such as fishing. Based on its stylistic features, dimensions, and the degree of elaboration, this statuette could well have been the helmsman of a funerary bark, a type that emerged and became widespread during the Twelfth Dynasty. These model boats recall two significant episodes of the funerary ritual, the transportation of the mummy from the east bank of the Nile to the cemetery on the west bank, and the subsequent spiritual pilgrimage of the deceased to Abydos, the sacred city of the god Osiris, ruler of the Netherworld.