Ushebti of General Padj-Horem-Hab, Ancient Egypt, Late Period, Dynasties XXVI-XXVII, 664-525 BC.
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Ushebti of General Padjhoremhab in light blue glazed earthenware with blue hieroglyphics. Mummy-shaped figure with a smooth three-part wig, hands crossed over the chest, holding a basket of seeds and a hand plough. Simple pillar on the back. Beautiful Saite smile. Vertical hieroglyphic inscription on the body: “Padj-horem-hab (General) born of Bastet-herti”. The ushabti is characterised by the great delicacy of its facial features and hieroglyphics.
Excavated by Gaston Maspero and his restorer, Alejandro Barsanti, near the pyramid of Unas in Saqqara around 1890. Maspero (Paris, 1846-1916) was a French Egyptologist of Italian origin, one of the most important of his generation. At the age of fourteen, he came into contact with the world of hieroglyphics, in which he soon revealed great skills. It is said that at the age of twenty-one he received two newly discovered inscriptions from Mariette and successfully translated them in less than two weeks.
He received his doctorate in literature in 1873 and taught Egyptian archaeology and philology at the Collège de France. In 1880, he led an archaeological mission to Egypt, which would lay the foundations for the subsequent creation of the French Institute of Oriental Archaeology, based in Cairo, in 1898. In Egypt, he soon succeeded Mariette and headed the Antiquities Service, of which he was one of the main promoters.
