CHAPTER VI.
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Renouf, P. Le Page (Peter Le Page) and Naville, Edouard
Chapter whereby the funereal Statuettes may be made to do work for a person in the Netherworld.
O Statuette(1) there! Should I be called and appointed to do any of the labours that are done in the Netherworld by a person according to his abilities, lo! all obstacles have been beaten down for thee; be thou counted for me at every moment, for planting the fields, for watering the soil, for conveying the sands of east and west.
Here am I, whithersoever thou callest me.
Note.
1. This chapter is inscribed on the funereal statuettes, of which enormous quantities are found; sometimes by hundreds in the neighbourhood of a single mummy. Much information on the subject, both archæological and philological, will be found in Mariette’s Catalogue Général des Monuments d’Abydos, p. 25 and following, and in M. Loret’s articles “Les Statuettes funéraires du Musée de Boulaq,” published in the Recueil de Travaux, tomes IV and V.
In the earlier texts , , ; in the later . The latter word being read ušebti, has very naturally been considered as derived from , in Coptic ⲟⲩⲱϣⲃ, ‘to answer.’ For the statuette is addressed at the beginning of the chapter, and it replies at the end. But there is no reason for supposing that the earlier form had the same meaning.