Examining the History of Ancient Egyptian Funerary Artifacts

While they were not the first, the Ancient Egyptian civilizations conducted perhaps some of the most well-known funerary rituals in history. Building upon the Mesopotamian practices of burial for ease of access to the afterlife, Ancient Egyptians also mummified the bodies to prevent rot and disease, placed the mummies in sarcophagi, and built immense pyramids as tombs in which their royalty were buried. In every grave were placed provisions for the symbolic protection of the corpse’s Ba, or soul, on its way to the afterlife, or The Field of Reeds (Aaru). The graves also contained everyday necessities for the deceased to use, as it was believed that all of one’s earthly possessions, even those that had been lost, were waiting in perfect condition in the afterlife. These included offerings to gods, prized possessions that the deceased might require in the afterlife, and amulets, which served both to protect from danger and renew strength (Mark and Wilkinson). Two examples of such funerary artifacts are shabtis and death masks, both of which are examined in the following.

To begin with, shabtis were small statues, made usually of wood for the layperson or of precious stone or metal for a pharaoh, that accompanied the deceased in their graves. In particular, one shabti doll of the many found in the tomb of Ramesses VI is made of faience, a bright blue man-made ceramic material composed of common materials like quartz, alkaline salts, and lime, yet had high demand and important status. Faience was likely developed to simulate prized semi-precious stones like turquoise, and was considered magical, as its bright blue coloring was linked with fertility, life, and rebirth, and was thought to be imbued with the shimmer of the sun (Riccardelli). This shabti stands at about eleven inches and was made to represent King Ramesses VI. He wears a striped nemes headdress with two emblems: a uraeus, or cobra, to represent his supreme power, and a vulture—whose head has since been lost—which is characteristic of the New Kingdom (“Shabti of Ramesses VI”). Ramesses VI presided over Egypt from the years of 1144-1137 B.C. as the fifth ruler of the Twentieth Dynasty. The king’s rule, though short-lived, was tumultuous. Internal unrest, stemming from a family struggle for power and from attacks by foreigners and bandits, affected his early years. He also experienced a decline of royal power over Upper Egypt as the family of the high priest of Amun gained increasing loyalty, and eventually lost control over Egypt’s remaining territories in Syria-Palestine. Despite these hardships, Ramesses VI left his mark across Egypt and Nubia, including on statues of his predecessors, removing their names. In fact, the aforementioned shabti appears to have been altered from Ramesses III (“Ramses VI”). The statue is currently on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

Shabti statues were purely funerary objects, and their significance laid in their service as replacements for those with whom they were buried. The Ancient Egyptians’ concept of the afterlife was a perfect, idealized replication of their life on Earth. This meant that the labor done as civic duty in one’s life was expected to continue in their afterlife. In life, if a person was unable to work due to illness, for example, they would send a friend or family member substitute to carry out their labor responsibilities. In death, shabti dolls acted as the deceased’s replacement workers when required for service. Into each doll was etched a spell, or formula, specifying its function. This spell was sourced from the sixth chapter of the Book of the Dead, and is known as the “Spell for causing a shabti to do work for a man in the realm of the dead.” Each shabti could be used as a replacement only once, so the figurines were in high demand. While, as such, the amount of statues in a tomb correlated with the wealth of the deceased, shabtis were found in the tombs of people from all social classes. In death, the Ancient Egyptians believed, everyone was equal, which explains why Ramesses VI was buried with shabti statues: he was equally as answerable to Osiris’s requirements as a peasant. However, the intricacies in carving and the use of faience in the shabti for Ramesses VI shows his status relative to that of a farmer, whose shabti would be much simpler and made of wood (Mark and Shukir).

Another example of an Ancient Egyptian funerary object is the death mask, the most famous of which is, incontestably, that of King Tutankhamun. Death masks covered the faces of mummies in their sarcophagi and were used to keep the body recognizable to the deceased’s Ba. Tutankhamun’s mask was made in the king’s image out of two sheets of gold, then decorated with accents of lapis lazuli, carnelian, obsidian, and turquoise. The same emblems of the uraeus and the vulture as appeared on the shabti for Ramesses VI are present on his brow, marking Tutankhamun as the supreme ruler of both Upper and Lower Egypt and dating the mask to the New Kingdom (“Mask of Tutankhamun”). Tutankhamun ruled from approximately 1334-1324 B.C. during Ancient Egypt’s Eighteenth Dynasty. He is known for being Egypt’s youngest pharaoh, having risen to power at just nine years old, and for having reversed the drastic religious reforms enacted by his father, Akhenaten, who turned Ancient Egypt into a monotheistic state for a brief stint. Born with the name Tutankhaten after Aten, Akhenaten’s sun god, the king changed his name to Tutankhamun, meaning “living image of Amun” to convey his devotion to the traditional Ancient Egyptian polytheism. Through these reforms, he was seen to have reestablished ma’at, or universal harmony, after the Ancient Egyptians were forced to abandon their gods (Mark). It is for these reasons that Tutankhamun is a very well-regarded king in Ancient Egyptian history. This regard is reflected in the intricacy of the design of his death mask, as well as the abundance of rare, precious metals and stones on the mask. The mask of Tutankhamun is on display in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

Death masks were made first out of wood, then out of cartonnage, which was papyrus or linen that was soaked in plaster then left to dry on a wooden mold. Royal death masks, like that of King Tutankhamun, were more often made from precious metals. The death mask served multiple purposes. It was thought to be instrumental in protecting and preserving the head from physical damage and rot, but it also served a spiritual purpose. Ancient Egyptians believed that when a person died, the soul embarked on a journey to the afterlife, where its heart was weighed against the feather of truth. If their heart was heavier, it was fed to Ammut, after which that soul no longer existed. If one’s heart was lighter, they were allowed to continue on to the Field of Reeds, a paradisiacal afterlife. This soul, or the Ba, was believed to have the ability to travel with ease between the living world and the afterlife (Mark). Every death mask was made in the image of the deceased in an idealized form, with enlarged eyes and a faint smile, in order for the body to be recognized by the Ba when it returned to the realm of the living and to guide the Ba to its final resting place in the body. The masks’ identifying features were associated with individual divinities, as outlined in Spell 151b of the Book of the Dead, which allowed the deceased to arrive safely to the afterlife, gain acceptance among the divine immortals in the council of Osiris, the god of the dead (Dunn and Monet).

In sum, the aforementioned shabti and death mask were only two examples of an abundant and wide-ranging variety of funerary artifacts that contributed to the legacy of Ancient Egyptian culture. As one of the first major civilizations, this legacy had an integral role in developing the world’s cultures today, and, as such, can be seen in the shrouds placed over the faces of the deceased today and in the burial rituals of modern funerals, in which the dead are buried with their most beloved belongings. The hand that funeral rituals like those implemented by the Ancient Egyptians has had in creating those used today proves the impossibly lasting impact and importance of a people who lived more than 2000 years ago.

Works Cited

Dunn, Jimmy, and Jefferson Monet. “Funerary and Other Masks of Ancient Egypt.” Tour Egypt, http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/masks.htm. Accessed 29 November 2023.

Mark, Joshua J. “Egyptian Afterlife - The Field of Reeds.” World History Encyclopedia, 28 March 2016, https://www.worldhistory.org/article/877/egyptian-afterlife---the-field-of-reeds/. Accessed 29 November 2023.

Mark, Joshua J. “Tutankhamun.” World History Encyclopedia, 1 April 2014, https://www.worldhistory.org/Tutankhamun/. Accessed 29 November 2023.

Mark, Joshua J., and Osama Shukir. “Shabti Dolls: The Workforce in the Afterlife.” World History Encyclopedia, 2012, https://www.worldhistory.org/article/119/shabti-dolls-the-workforce-in-the-afterlife/. Accessed 29 November 2023.

Mark, Joshua J., and Richard H. Wilkinson. “Ancient Egyptian Burial.” World History Encyclopedia, 2013, https://www.worldhistory.org/Egyptian_Burial/. Accessed 29 November 2023.

“Mask of Tutankhamun.” Egypt Museum, https://egypt-museum.com/mask-of-tutankhamun/. Accessed 29 November 2023.

“Ramses VI.” National Museum of Egyptian Civilization, 2021, https://nmec.gov.eg/mummies-hall/ramses-vi/. Accessed 29 November 2023.

Riccardelli, Carolyn. “Egyptian Faience: Technology and Production | Essay.” The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2017, https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/egfc/hd_egfc.htm. Accessed 29 November 2023.

“Shabti of Ramesses VI | New Kingdom, Ramesside.” The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2023, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/545924. Accessed 29 November 2023.