Ancient Egyptian Faience Shabti prince Generalissimo Ramesses, son of pharaoh Ramses II - 15 cm H. Very fine. Intact.

Ushabti for the Ramses - Ramesses, royal eldest son of Ramses II's and Queen Isetnofret - best quality of a royal son of the pharaoh - - very special color faience - “Illuminated the Osiris, Generalissimo, King’s Son, Ramses / Ramesses, justified”. Ancient Egypt, New Kingdom, Dynasty XIX, Reign of Ramesses II, 1279 - 1213 BC MATERIAL: Faience DIMENSIONS: Height 15 cm Conditon: Intact. Provenance: Private collection, France, acquired in the 1980s in the london art market. Thence by descent in 1998. DESCRIPTION: The body is inscribed with a vertical column of hieroglyphs. This reads: “Illuminated the Osiris King’s Son, Generalissimo, Ramses, justified”. Ramses or Ramesses was the eldest son of Ramses II's and Queen Isetnofret, and the second son overall after Amunherkhepeshef, the eldest son of the Great Royal Wife Nefertari. Born during the reign of his grandfather Sethi I, he had at least one sister and two brothers. His sister Bintanath was elevated to the position of Great Royal Wife later in the reign of Ramesses II and played an important role at court. A possible sister named Isetnofret may have married her brother Merneptah and been his queen, however, it is possible that Merneptah's queen was his niece, not his sister. His known younger brothers are Khaemwaset and Merneptah. Ramesses is listed on several monuments with his younger brothers Khaemwaset and Merenptah. He appears as the second prince in the list of procession of Ramesses' sons in Luxor and Abu Simbel. He is attested in numerous inscriptions including the Egyptian 'triumph' scenes after the Battle of Kadesh. Ramesses bears the titles of Royal scribe, Generalissimo and "bodily King's Son beloved of him", and is shown presenting the "Maryannu-warriors of the despicable Naharina" to the gods as spoils of war. In scenes from the battle of Qode in year 10 at Luxor, the princes Amunherkhepeshef, Ramesses, Pareherwenemef and Khaemwaset are shown leading prisoners before their father the king. Ushabti were made from one original bi-valve mold. Once the two pieces were joined and the rough edges removed, and while the material was still moist, the details of the image were retouched and the columns were marked on which the hieroglyphs would be incised. This meant that each ushabti was unique, even though they had come from the same mold. The material used for the creation of this ushabti is faience, composed of fine sand cemented with sodium carbonate and sodium bicarbonate extracted from natron. Fired at 950 degrees C, the mixture gives an enamel-like finish with the carbonates forming a vitreous surface. It was a simple procedure and therefore not costly. The green and blue tones were achieved by the addition of a few grams of copper oxide extracted from malachite or azurite. The red tones were achieved with iron oxide, the intense blues with cobalt, the black by mixing iron oxide and magnesium oxide with water. All that was needed was to paint the chosen details in the selected colour with a brush before the firing. One of the most important Egyptian kings, Ramesses II, governed for 66 years and lived to be 87 years old, quite a record for those times. Tens of queens, wives and concubines made up his harem, so that his offspring numbered more than one hundred. Despite the fact that his great love was Nefertari, on her death in the 26th year of his reign, his second Great Royal Wife, Isetnofret (isis the Beautiful) to whom he had been married since adolescence, ascended the throne. She remained very much in the shadows, but it is believed that she was very intelligent and managed to place all her children in the most important positions in the state. It is possible that a rivalry existed between the family of Nefertari and that of Isetnofret, and that the death of the first and her first child were due to the intrigues of the second wife. The fourth son of Ramesses II and the second of the queen Isetnofret was Khaemweset. From his youth he stood out in the court for his contributions to Egyptian society through the work of diplomacy. Ramesses held him in high regard and protected him, putting him in the hands of the priests of Ptah in Memphis. The cult of this god, the patron of artisans, was very strong from the beginnings of the Egyptian kingdom. It came to have a great religious complex at Mit Rahina. The “High Priest” or “Sem Priest”, Huy, prepared him to take over in his place, and Khaemweset took this title, as well as that of “governor of Memphis” and Crown Prince until his death at the age of 56. He has been described as “the first Egyptologist”, with the title of “The Greatest of the Masters of the Craftsmen” due to his passion for the past which led him to restore pyramids, such as the steps of the pyramid of Djoser, tombs of nobles of the Old Kingdom and some temples. As a priest he took part in the ritual burial of the sacred Apis bulls in the Serapeum at Saqqara. Later, Khamewaset restored this, and created an underground gallery where a series of burial chambers allowed for the burial of several Apis bulls. His own tomb has never been found, although it is thought that it must be in the cemeteries of Saqqara. Deposits of votive ushabtis were found in the Serapeum, made from stone and faience, belonging to Khaemweset and other members of his family. These are today conserved in the Louvre Museum. Flinders Petrie discovered another deposit with a small set of ushabtis in Giza, which today are to be found in the Giza Museum. There are others in the Museum of Ancient History in Brussels and in various private collections in Europe and North America. Their particular characteristics and unusual features are due to their owners: all are related to Prince Khaemweset, either by family or through religion. In this way, some allow a family tree of the family of Isetnofret to be established, as ushabtis of the queen herself were found, of her son and the elder brother of Khaemweset, Ramesses, of his sisters, Bintanat and Isetnofert II, of his brother Maatemptah and even of Merneptah, successor as pharaoh on the death of his father Ramesses II, and son of Isentnofret. Others give information about the clerical orders of the Ptah priests; Huy, his master, or Neferrenpet, who occupied the post after Huy, also of Iry-Iry as well as Hori, son of Khaemweset. It is unprecedented to have and to be able to inter-relate figures belonging to the same family and, moreover, belonging to royalty. With the priests it was thus possible to be able to discover the line of succession of the High Priests of Ptah. Finally there are others where the biography of their owners is not known, such as Baka, Neferhotep or the scribe Penrenpu, all of whom must have fulfilled important roles in this maze of personalities. None of these ushabtis is from the tomb of his owner but rather from burials in the form of votive deposits in places of religious importance related to the cult of the god Ptah through his priests. They have been found in Serapeum, in the zone of Abydos; at the entrance to ancient tombs of the Old Kingdom; and at the area of Memphis, near the south cemetery of Giza and Saqqara. This area belonged to the cult of the god Sokar from the Old Kingdom, a god who in the New Kingdom underwent sincretism with the Memphite god par excellence, Ptah. In this manner, the ushabti is an intermediary between the individual who carries out the offering and the sacred territory, Ro-setau, the zone where, as expressed in the Amduat, the Book of That Which is in the Afterworld, the sun assimilated to Ra, visits the dead every night in a place below ground, that is, a place which pointed both to the necropolis as well as to the very tomb of an individual along with those temples having funerary connotations. The Egyptian Afterlife was understood as a mirror of the real world, where both good and evil had their place. Those who were unfair or evil were punished for eternity, while the just enjoyed a comfortable existence travelling with the solar god. Even then, the deceased who were so blessed were still obliged to fulfil human responsibilities and needs, in the same way they had to in life. Their need to have food and drink in the Afterlife was a constant worry for them. If they were obliged to work in the Fields of Aaru, in the Realm of the Dead, and as members of a society which was a hierarchy governed by the gods, everyone – men and women, lords and servants, kings and queens – had to be willing to cultivate, sow and harvest the crops. In the world of the living these basic tasks of production were carried out by the lower classes in society. To avoid this fate, Egyptians looked for a magic solution: they created one or more figures of themselves to be able to hand over to the emissaries of the reigning god, Osiris, when these called on the deceased to fulfil his obligations. These statuettes, placed amongst the grave goods in the tomb, were images which represented both the master and the servant. They are known by the name of ushabtis, the term coming from sabty or shabty, derived from Sawab, the meaning of which corresponds to the Greek word “persea”, a sacred tree from whose wood the ancient Egyptians began to produce these funerary effigies. It was towards the Third Intermediate Period, in Dynasty XXI, around 1080 BC when they began to use the term wsbty, that is, “ushebty”. From then on the name “ushabti” derived from the verb wsb meaning “to answer” was used to name “he who answers”. The use of ushabtis was incorporated into the burials in Ancient Egypt from the First Intermediate Period on. Their use grew during the Middle Kingdom, the time when the Egyptians began to write a spell in the Coffin Texts, number 472, so that the ushabtis would answer to the call: “The justified N. says ‘Oh ushabti, allotted to N, if N is summoned to do any work, or if a disagreeable task was asked of N as for any man for his duty, you are to say ‘I am here’. If N is called to...