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Shabti (fuerary figurines) from the Louvre.

Shabti or Ushabti (Egyptian language); a funerary figurine, was placed in the tomb of a pharoah among other things and were intended to act as substitute workers for the deceased should he be called upon to do manual labor. They were used from the Middle Kingdom, around 1900 BC, until the end of the Ptolemaic Period nearly 2000 years later. This term applies to these figures prior to the Twenty-first dynasty of Egypt but after the end of the First Intermediate Period, and really only to figurines inscribed with Chapter Six of the Book of the Dead. Otherwise, they might better be defined by the generic term, funerary figurines.

The shabti counterparts after the 21st Dynasty were called Ushabti; (Shawabti were a distinct class of funerary figurines within the area of Thebes during the New Kingdom).

Shabti inscriptions often contain the 6th chapter of the Book of the Dead, translated as:–

"Illumine the Osiris NN, whose word is truth. Hail, Shabti. If the Osiris NN be decreed to do any of the work which is to be done in the Khert-Neter (i.e. the cemetery), let everything which standeth in the way be removed from him – whether it be to plough the fields, or to fill the channels with water, or to carry sand from (the East to the West). 'Here am I', you shall say, 'I shall do it.'" (Example, for NN, Akhenaten, "Osiris Akhenaten"). In rare cases different chapters of the Book of the Dead are written. Furthermore, shabtis often mention the name and the titles of the owner, without the spells of the Book of the Dead.

The spell is already known from the Coffin Texts spell 472, which is found on some mid-Twelfth Dynasty coffins from Bersheh (about 1850 BC).

For more about shabtis see www.shabticollections.com