Servant statuette

The funerary equipment of a typical elite burial between the twenty-fourth and nineteenth centuries BC contained small, wooden models and statuettes. The servant statuettes, placed in the tombs, supplemented the repertoire of scenes of daily life on the walls of funerary chapels. We can see ploughing, baking, brewing or even weaving among the great variety of activities carried out by them. Another reason to include statuettes of workers among the grave goods may have been the wish of the Egyptians to be exempted from compulsory work in the afterlife. Among the servant statues of the Egyptian Collection one can find a female offering bearer, a man figure carrying a heavy sack and an official instructing his workers.