Shabti of Panefernefer From the Collection of Poltava Local History Museum

Abstract

The author publishes an ancient Egyptian funeral shabti-statuette from the collection of the Vasyl Krychevskyi Poltava Local History Museum with inv. no. A.149/1 (blue faience, 9 × 3 × 2 cm). The shabti can be dated by the 21st Dynasty. The figurine was purchased in 1894 by P. Bobrovskyi in the Sales Hall of the Cairo Museum of Antiquities for the collection of the Natural Science Museum of the Poltava Regional Community. The hieroglyphic inscription is preserved on the front side of the shabti: «Enlightened, Osiris, the Chief of the archivists of the Treasury of the Temple of the Amun, Panefernefer, true-voiced». O. Berlev incorrectly read the name of the shabti owner no. A.149/1 as «Paneferher», but the reading as Panefernefer (PA-nfr-nfr) is correct. The owner of the shabti has a rare title «the Chief of the archivists of the Treasury of the Temple of the Amun». Besides Panefernefer, five more priests who wore this title are known. All of them lived during the 20th and 21st Dynasties and that fact indicates the functioning of this archive precisely at the time of these two dynasties. There is no data on the genealogy of Panefernefer. There is a number of analogies to the shabti no. A.149/1: Copenhagen A.A.b.98, A.A.11 (?), Florence 6594—6596, Ipswich R. 1932—26.20; London BM EA 8906, EA 22790, Birmingham inv. no. ECM 376, Amasis Collection, inv. no. S—2058. In addition to shabtis, other objects of Panefernefer funeral assemblage are also preserved: a roll of the Book of the Dead (Vienna AS 3860), a shabti-box (Avignon A.82), a sarcophagus model (Berlin AM 6747), and two planks of the box (Berlin AM 777 and 779). Moreover, the name Paneferenfer is found on sources not related to his funeral inventory. This is the letter of Panefernefer to the scribe Chari (pTurin 1979) and two references on the coffins of kings Amenhotep I and Thutmose II from the mummy cache at Deir el-Bahri (TT 320), which confirm that Panefernefer took part in the mission of reburying the royal remains. Monuments of Panefernefer kept a number of titles that provide additional prosopographic information, including his professional duties: «the divine father of the Amun», «the scribe of the double treasury of the temple of the Amun-Re, the king of the gods», «the head of the jewelry workshops of the temple of the Amun», «the head [///] Amun in Ipet-sut (Karnak temple)», «the scribe of the jewelry workshops of the temple of the Amun», «head of the works». Most of the artifacts of Panefernefer were acquired by European collectors in the 19th century. Some of them went to museum collections in the UK, Germany, Denmark and Ukraine, and some are in private collections. Poltava shabti no. A.149/1 is the only Panofernefer’s object in Eastern Europe.