Shawabty of Ramesses IV
New Kingdom, Dynasty 20, reign of Ramesses IV, 1153-1147 BC
Painted wood
Musée du Louvre N 438
cat. no. 20

Shawabtys or funerary figurines were placed in tombs to act as substitutes for the deceased if called upon to labor in the fields in the afterlife. Even kings and queens, who never did such work, felt it necessary to equip their burials with these small mummiform statuettes. Nothing distinguishes a royal shawabty from a private one except the king's names enclosed in cartouches and occasionally a royal headdress, as here.

This shawabty represents Ramesses IV. An ambitious ruler, he prayed for twice the lifetime of Ramesses II, but died after only seven years on the throne.

Like any laborer, the king carries in his crossed hands two hoes for digging the ground, and on the front is the traditional shawabty spell from The Book of the Dead, inscribed in the king's name:

O shawabty, allotted to me, if I [Ramesses] be summoned ... to do any work which has to be done in the realm of the dead ... you shall detail yourself for me on every occasion of making arable the fields, of flooding the banks or of conveying sand from east to west "Here I am," you shall say.