Talk:Ushabti

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WikiProject Ancient Egypt to-do list:

Needed articles.

We should have an article on every pyramid and every nome in Ancient Egypt. I'm sure the rest of us can think of other articles we should have.

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To start with, most of the general history articles badly need attention. And I'm told that at least some of the dynasty articles need work. Any other candidates?

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Stub sorting

Anyone? I consider this probably the most unimportant of tasks on Wikipedia, but if you believe it needs to be done . . .

Data sorting.

This is a project I'd like to take on some day, & could be applied to more of Wikipedia than just Ancient Egypt. Take one of the standard authorities of history or culture -- Herotodus, the Elder Pliny, the writings of Breasted or Kenneth Kitchen, & see if you can't smoothly merge quotations or information into relevant articles. Probably a good exercise for someone who owns one of those impressive texts, yet can't get access to a research library.

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Merge with Shabti article[edit]

This page really should be merged with the article Shabti. We don't need them both, and Shabti seems to be a bit more authoritative. As a newby (how long can I go on calling myself that?) I'm not sure how to do this. I tried looking at the instructions for deletions and redirects, but they're pretty Byzantine and I ran out of time before I managed to figure it all out (I'm doing this on my lunch break). -- CKA3KA (Skazka) 20:24, 30 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

When I first started adding info to Shabti/Ushabti, I didn't know the other page existed. I now know from the data on the pages, and some other various, lighter sources, that these two item "categories" of the "shawabti", covers two different time periods. Not being an expert in Egyptology, I can offer no further information. I created "Category:Egyptian artefact types", when I was barely learning Wikipedia. Only recently did a new page get added: Rods of ancient Egypt, by someone else.

I did recently look at the Adze page (to be added to Category). It doesn't even mention the time frame of the Pyramids, when the adze was used, nor later its many representations in "Egyptian art" settings (or as an "artefact type"). Nor does it mention that the adze is a hieroglyph. At any rate, the Shabti page begins to explain the history, (of Ushabti).

Until someone who knows the "artefact type" better, I think it should stay as is. Enuff said.Michael McAnnisMmcannis 02:19, 2 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The Shabti and Ushabti are different figurines in Ancient Egypt. The two articles should be kept separate. Leoboudv 06:24, 6 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I'm aware, Ushabti and Shabti are merely different ways of saying the same thing in two seperate languages - Ushabti is generally considered more authentic, Shabti more Anglicised. For that reason I think one should divert to the other. The taxonomy of both is the same - mummiform funerary artefacts - and any definitive page to which either word diverts should contain the information from both current sections.

Merge: I had thought that they were simply different spelling variations for the same thing, but according to this they are different (though I'd like to track down a print reference to confirm that). Despite this, I would prefer merging the contents into a single article, since the difference in name seems to relate to when and where they were made, rather than being functionally different. The fine distinction is likely to be lost to more casual readers and contributors, and merging them into a single article would at least explain that.

For what it is worth, I would merge the content from the Shabti article with Ushabti, since that seems to be the more common form of the word in English. Google get 33,600 hits for the word "Shabti", and "48,000" for "Ushabti" (and for the record, only 9,520 for "Shawabti"). Captmondo 23:55, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Checking Feature story ushabti which I tend to take seriously, says that "while all three are often indiscriminately and incorrectly used, each designation has historical limits to its usage, and in particular, shawabti was restricted geographically to Deir el-Medina and other areas of Thebes." but that "in many cases, only the title and name of the deceased was inscribed upon these figures and therefore referring to all such figures as ushabti, shabti or shawbti is wrong. Hence, the designation of "funerary figurines" is at least accurate for all types in all periods.

"Both the spellings of shabti and shawabti appear in early versions of these figures, but the latter term was restricted to the strange stick figures from the Theban area. However, it is probably a dialectical variant and is the least preferable of the three spellings for the general references to these figures."

But I agree, merge into Ushabti and we can point out the difference in spelling. I think giving the hieroglyph variants will satisfy any critics. No reason to have separate articles, even if they are technically not the same. Jeff Dahl 01:31, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Singular/plural[edit]

Ushabti was singular in Ancient Egyptian, the plural being ushabtiu. As it reads at the moment the article uses ushabti as a plural. See Wiktionary "Ushabtiu" entry: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ushabtiu Urselius (talk) 20:33, 25 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Missing citation?[edit]

"Produced in huge numbers, ushabtis, along with scarabs, are the most numerous of all ancient Egyptian antiquities to survive."

Do we have a source for this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.186.169.95 (talk) 12:58, 10 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Illegal?[edit]

Is it really considered to be illegal in Egypt to sell real ushabtis? Are Ushabti's from Europe fake? or do a lot of real Ushabti's exist on the open market? marc s., dania fl 206.192.35.125 (talk) 13:45, 8 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Merge with Egyptian shabtis[edit]

Found Egyptian shabtis while patrolling new articles. There seems to be a good amount of information in it that, if properly sourced and cited, could contribute to this article, and therefore I feel merits an actual merge review instead of a simple redirect, to ensure that information isn't buried. RegistryKey^(RegEdit) 22:56, 15 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Two articles; same subject. I'm of the opinion that it should be redirected, but let's wait and see if someone from WP:Ancient Egypt responds to a notice that I've left on the project's talk page. Fitzcarmalan (talk) 21:36, 16 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately, the author of the newer article used very few inline citations, so it seems unwise to import its text without checking it. And I don't have the print sources that he or she used, so I can't check them myself. Merging might be the ideal course, but I don't have the sources or time to work on it. I can't say whether other project editors do. A. Parrot (talk) 23:52, 16 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I went ahead and redirected the new article to this one. Anyone should feel free to revert, with good reason(s). Fitzcarmalan (talk) 15:40, 17 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

New photos from Harrogate Museum[edit]

Harrogate Museums have just become a GLAMwiki partner and donated some great images of the Egyptology collections including four ushabti. I'm not sure I have the expertise to use them properly on here, so I hope you find them useful!

The rest of the images can be found in this category: Images from Harrogate Museums and Arts and I hope you might find these useful too! Also, if you have questions I can pass them on to the curators. Cheers, PatHadley (talk) 14:38, 12 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]