Shabti of Queen Henuttawy

Queen Henuttawy was of pivotal importance in Egyptian history and helped engineer a smooth transition from the New Kingdom to the Third Intermediate Period. She was the daughter of Ramesses XI, the last pharaoh of the Ramesside Period, and became Great Royal Wife of Pinedjem I, the High Priest of Amun who assumed royal titles and ruled Upper Egypt from Thebes, while another dynasty ruled in the Delta at Tanis. It was her son who became Pharaoh as Psusennes I at Tanis and re-unified Egypt.|

She is depicted on the beautiful blue shabti wearing a black tripartite wig with a uraeus, and her arms are crossed, right over left, on her chest. In each hand she holds a hoe at the shoulder with a large seed bag at the back should she be required to work in the fields of the afterlife. A column of black painted hieroglyphic inscription with a cartouche runs down the lower body, reading: The illuminated one, the Osiris, the King's Wife Henut-tawy. She was buried in the famous first cache of royal mummies discovered at Deir el-Bahri in 1881.