A shabti-box of Djehutyhotep (Turin Cat. 2443)

The collection of the Museo Egizio in Turin includes a shabti-box inscribed for an official named Djehutyhotep, listed as no. 2443 in the catalogue Regio Museo di Torino. Antichità egizie. In the collection there are presently 46 shabti-containers (Table 1: 22 wooden boxes, 3 pottery boxes and 21 shabti-jars). Most of them belong to the collection sold by the Consul General of France, Bernardino Drovetti, to King Carlo Felice of Savoy in 1823. This collection is the result of many years of activity by the Consul, beginning in 1806 with purchases on the Egyptian antiquarian market and followed by the gradual addition of antiquities from archeological excavations. Therefore it is often impossible to determine from which site the pieces originate. Shabti-box Turin Cat. 2443 is no exception to this rule. Furthermore, its typological classification and the identity of its owner are problematic, and this severely affects the possibility of exact dating. This paper focuses on an interesting and never before studied shabti-box (Cat. 2443) currently kept at the Museo Egizio, Turin. By consulting archival documents, the author has ascertained that the container comes from the collection sold by Bernardino Drovetti to King Carlo Felice in 1824. The box is inscribed for the imy-rA pr and sSm(w)-Hb n Jmn Djehutyhotep. It has a pr-nw-chapel shape and is decorated with some very common funerary scenes. Its unusual combination of iconography from the Ramesside period and morphological characteristics from the Eighteenth Dynasty makes it a unicum, eluding habitual typological classifications. However, stylistic analysis and comparisons with other shabti-boxes indicate that the owner must have flourished during the reign of Ramesses II.


Paolo Marini
The collection of the Museo Egizio in Turin includes a shabti-box inscribed for an official named Djehutyhotep, listed as no. 2443 in the catalogue Regio Museo di Torino. Antichità egizie. 1 In the collection there are presently 46 shabti-containers (Table 1: 22 wooden boxes, 3 pottery boxes and 21 shabti-jars).
Most of them belong to the collection sold by the Consul General of France, Bernardino Drovetti, to King Carlo Felice of Savoy in 1823. 2 This collection is the result of many years of activity by the Consul, beginning in 1806 with purchases on the Egyptian antiquarian market and followed by the gradual addition of antiquities from archeological excavations. 3 Therefore it is often impossible to determine from which site the pieces originate. Shabti-box Turin Cat. 2443 is no exception to this rule. Furthermore, its typological classification and the identity of its owner are problematic, and this severely affects the possibility of exact dating. 4 This paper focuses on an interesting and never before studied shabti-box (Cat. 2443) currently kept at the Museo Egizio, Turin. By consulting archival documents, the author has ascertained that the container comes from the collection sold by Bernardino Drovetti to King Carlo Felice in 1824. The box is inscribed for the imy-rA pr and sSm(w)-Hb n Jmn Djehutyhotep. It has a pr-nw-chapel shape and is decorated with some very common funerary scenes. Its unusual combination of iconography from the Ramesside period and morphological characteristics from the Eighteenth Dynasty makes it a unicum, eluding habitual typological classifications. However, stylistic analysis and comparisons with other shabti-boxes indicate that the owner must have flourished during the reign of Ramesses II.
One of the oldest documents referring to Drovetti's objects is a list sent by Carlo Vidua to Count Prospero Balbo during the negotiations for the purchase of the collection. 5 The document consists of a catalogue divided into nine categories: within each category, each entry describes only features that were of interest to antiquarians. 6 Of course, shabti-boxes and shabtis were not recognized as such at the time and are accordingly not distinguishable in Vidua's list. Most probably, all shabti-boxes arrived as part of the Drovetti collection are included, along with other boxes with different functions, in the category "objets en bois". 7 However, it is often impossible to identify them. Descriptions *310, *311 and *312 are an exception, as they correspond to some pr-nw chapel-shaped shabti-boxes. 8 The three entries are described as follows: cm -which do not match those given by Vidua.
The entry for box *312 gives only a very short description, specifying the object's morphology -"à une seule division" -and that it has a polychrome decoration. Among the boxes conserved in Turin, two may correspond to this description: the shabti-box of Nebhepet (Cat. 2435) 13   from a cup held in the right hand. The left hand is raised in a gesture of devotion. The cup is filled by a stream of water coming from a hes vase, held by a female figure whose body rises from the branches of a tree in front of the male figure. A second stream of water, coming from the same hes vase, fills a second cup placed under the chair. From this cup a human-headed bird drinks. The scene represents the dead person and his ba drinking the purifying water poured by the sycamore tree goddess (Fig. 4).
On the right side (Fig. 5) respectively on the right and left (Fig. 7).
The four scenes are clearly inspired by wall paintings in Theban tombs of the New Kingdom. 16 The scenes are graced by polychrome borders with geometrical and floral motifs; the one below reproduces a stylized false-door motif, the one above a row of blue lotus petals.

Inscriptions
The walls of shabti-box Cat. 2443 are inscribed with columns and rows of very well-preserved hieroglyphs, 17 written confidently and steadily in black ink. When the text is not limited to a mere caption, but also mentions names and titles of the figures represented in the scenes, it eulogizes the dead or evokes some typical funerary rituals of the Theban area.

Wsjr sSm(w) Hb n Jmn 9Hwty-Htp mAa-xrw
The when it also enters the iconography of shabti-boxes. 36 The representation of the ba is also first attested on the walls of Theban tombs of the Eighteenth Dynasty , but is more widespread in the Ramesside age. 37 In particular, the theme of the ba drinking the water poured by the sycamore tree goddess is seen only from the Nineteenth Dynasty onward, both in wall paintings 38 and on coffers. 39

The shabti-box of the royal scribe, chief steward of the Southern City and leader of the feast of Amun-Re Djehutyhotep
Djehutyhotep, the owner of shabti-box Turin Cat.  hutyhotep [BM EA 30801]). 52 The shape, the dimensions (9.3 × 8.6 cm) and the knob on the lunette suggest that it is a lid for a single pr-nw chapel-shaped shabti-box, datable to the Eighteenth Dynasty. 53 The closest parallel is indeed the lid of a shabti-box of an