Shabti of Paser, the Vizier of Seti I and Ramesses II

This highly glazed faience shabti portrays its owner, Paser, as a mummy, wearing a long striped wig and a large broad collar. Shabti figures were essential items of funerary equipment from the New Kingdom (ca. 1550 – 1070 B.C.) on, often inscribed with spells that invoke them to substitute for the deceased whenever he or she was called upon to perform manual labor in the afterlife. Here, this figurine portrays its owner, Paser, holding two hoes and carrying a basket on its back, the equipment of a farmer.
Its owner, Paser was one of the most prominent men of his time, serving as the mayor of Thebes and as the southern vizier under Seti I and his son Ramesses II. Paser enjoyed a long tenure in the this position of more than two decades and left numerous monuments as a testimony to his importance, including a tomb in the Theban necropolis (TT 106), as well as other objects in the collection (see 05.3.274, 10.130.322, 14.421, 14.1.426 a,b). A graffito preserved in our collection may have included his name, where his father’s name, the High Priest of Amun, Nebnetjeru is mentioned (23.2.26).

One vertical line of text runs on the back:
Dd mdw jn jmAx.y xr Wsjr TA.tj pA-sr mAa-xrw
Words spoken by the revered before Osiris, the Vizier Paser, true of voice.
Six lines of horizontal text write a version of the Shabti spell
sHD wsjr TA.tj pA-sr mAa-xrw
Dd=f j Swb.tj jpn jp(.tw) Hsb(.tw)
r jr.t kA.t nb.t jrr.t m Xr.t-nTr
r srwD sx.t r smHi wDb.w
jsT Hwi n=f sDb
jm=f Xn.t Sa(.t) {n} n jmn.t
The illuminated Osiris, the Vizier, Paser, true of voice
as he says: O, these Shabtis, one counts off, reckons
to do all the works which are done in god's land
to make arable the fields, to irrigate the riparian lands—now, indeed, obstacles are implanted for you
in it—(and to) transport sand of the West

Purchased in Luxor from Yusef Hassan, 1922.

Hayes, William C. 1959. Scepter of Egypt II: A Background for the Study of the Egyptian Antiquities in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: The Hyksos Period and the New Kingdom (1675-1080 B.C.). Cambridge, Mass.: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, p. 333.

Donahue, V.A. 1988. "The Vizier Paser." In The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, 74, p. 110, no. VIII.29.

Mekawy Ouda, Ahmed 2016. "Three Shabtis of the Vizier Paser (UC39724-39726)." In Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt, 52, p. 306–307, 310, fig. 6.