• 1  Clère Mss 16; Mss 26, ESTP 141–146, http://www.griffith.ox.ac.uk/archive/holdings/#c. See also ht (...)

1On 21 September 1964, Jacques Jean Clère visited the Egyptian collections held by the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin in East Berlin. While there, he made copy texts and took photographs of a fragment of a red granite statue belonging to Minmose, high priest of Onuris in the reign of Ramesses II. That visit initiated Clère’s detailed study of the statue, the records of which are now held in the Griffith Institute, Oxford. These are the inspiration for, and foundation of, my presentation in this article.1 The fragment shows Minmose leaning forward over a milling emplacement, and is the only example of this type known to me from the Ramessid period (fig. 1).

• 2  A slip in the Griffith Institute archive relates his process of work, together with his wife Irèn (...)
• 3  A slip accompanying the folder of paper and foil squeezes in Mss 26 records “141–146 = Meunier de (...)
• 4  Jaromir Malek observes, in his biographical note for Clère (1995), that he belonged to the genera (...)

2Clère’s visit to Minmose in 1964 was the first of at least two, probably three. An Egyptology conference nearby in Leipzig allowed him to visit again on 18 May 1968. During that trip he finished and collated his copy texts, supplemented his photographs, and took squeezes using aluminium foil.2 At some later point he had the opportunity to make traditional paper squeezes.3 Clère’s meticulous work on the statue was never published, and his records came to the Griffith Institute among his papers donated in 1995.4 These also include a folder with worked up and occasionally annotated copy-texts (including fig. 2), a bibliography, and a plan of the layout of the inscriptions (fig. 3). A number of loose slips include research notes relating to the statue’s form, items of vocabulary, and bibliography. I cite this material below. I collated the statue in 2018, with the assistance of Julia Hamilton, who also took invaluable study photographs. An additional set of study photographs was kindly provided by Pia Lehmann.

• 5  The museum database records that it was registered in January 1969 from previously unnumbered mat (...)
• 6  E.g. Effland, Effland 2004; Dalino 2021a, II, pp. 354–362. Nor is it included in PM VIII or the e (...)
• 7  Griffith Institute: Moss Nb. B.28, p. 46.

3The fragment is now in the collection of the Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussamlung in Berlin (ÄM 24179); it is not on display. The context for its discovery and its arrival in the museum are unknown. A letter to Clère from Steffen Wenig, dated by the envelope’s postmark to 1971 and now among Clère’s papers, describes how the statue had been found without a number in a magazine and inventoried by Wenig a few years before with its current number.5 It has not been included in published lists or collections of objects known for Minmose,6 although it was recorded by Rosalind Moss as belonging to him in her notebook of Berlin objects compiled for the Topographical Bibliography during her visit to the museum in September 1964.7

• 8  I am grateful to Simon Connor and Carl Elkins for helping me to model size.
• 9  E.g. Clère 1968; Clère 1995, pp. 73–80, doc. A; Effland, Effland 2004; Effland, Effland 2013, pp. (...)

5Although only the lower part of the statue survives and is very damaged, it is certain that it originally showed Minmose standing, leaning forward over a quern to grind grain (fig. 4). It therefore belongs to the small group of New Kingdom serving statues that show high-ranking individuals grinding grain. Most of them have been dated to the second half of the 18th Dynasty. Measuring 33 cm in length, and with a maximum surviving height of 24 cm, Minmose’s is the largest known example, perhaps with an original height of about 38 cm; his figure would have been approximately one third life-size.8 The selection of this seemingly unusual form and the decision to commission it on such a scale and in red granite, a valuable hard-stone, is characteristic for Minmose, who is known for his diverse and distinctive monumental self-presentations.9

• 10  Jørgensen 1998, p. 194.
• 11  With Gabolde 2004, p. 233.
• 12  Summaries are also given in Bovot 2007; Gabolde 2004; Schneider 1977, I, pp. 216–218.

6Fourteen New Kingdom statues, including that of Minmose, show their owners as millers. Most of the other thirteen have been dated—by style, prosopography, and/or object type—to the late 18th Dynasty, particularly the reign of Amenhotep III. Mogens Jørgensen suggested an early 19th Dynasty date for the now anonymous statue in Copenhagen,10 but I consider late 18th Dynasty more likely for that piece on the basis of its stylistic similarity to the others in the group.11 Table 1 summarises preliminary information; the bibliographies given in the footnotes are mostly limited to recent discussions and ones that include further photographs and references.12

• 26   Merymery: PM III², pp. 705–706; Staring 2016a, p. 529. Amenhotep: PM III², pp. 702–703; Helck 19 (...)
• 27  Koefoed-Petersen 1950, p. 26; Gabolde 2004, p. 233, n. 40.
• 28  James 1974, pp. 119–120, probably following Breasted 1948, pp. 23–24. Siese’s tomb was at Abydos: (...)

7None of these statues has an archaeological provenance. The Leiden group of Merymery and the Cairo and Vatican statues of Amenhotep (Huy) almost certainly came from their lost Saqqara tombs.26 A similar assumption is made for the two statues of the high priests of Ptah, both called Ptahmose, on the basis of their titles. The Copenhagen statue is also presumed to be a high priest of Ptah because his sidelock and panther skin would signify a Memphite provenance.27 T.G.H. James proposed a Saqqara provenance to the copper statue of Siese, and Thebes for Senenu.28

• 29  With Warmenbol 1999, p. 90, no. 74. Also Schneider 1977, I, p. 293, with Berlandini 1994, p. 401, (...)
• 30  Grenier 1996, pp. 44–45. Also Gabolde 2004, p. 233. Two of the Leiden statues of Merymery, AST 30 (...)

8Most of the statues are small, around 20 cm in length or less, and carved in soft stone: limestone, sandstone, or steatite. Even the hard-stone statues of Neferhor (black granite) and Amenhotep (red quartzite) could be held in one hand. The majority show their owners in an elongated kneeling pose, almost prostrate, with one knee bent and the other extended. Their hands are usually held out in front of them and hold handstones on low emplacements or saddle querns. Variations include one of the Leiden statues which is completely prostrate, with both legs extended; this posture may evoke Nut, who is named in the inscription on the statue’s left side.29 The Vatican statue holds an offering table bearing three bread loaves rather than a quern. Jean-Claude Grenier convincingly suggested that it might have been one of a pair with the Cairo miller statue of Amenhotep; together they show both the process of grinding and the finished products.30 Only the Brooklyn statue of Senenu and the Marseille statue of Tanettepihu show the owner standing in a pose similar to that of Minmose’s fragmentary statue. Senenu’s statue, with its straight legs and relatively upright posture, is the closest surviving parallel (fig. 5), although Minmose’s would have been over a third larger than Senenu’s.

• 31  Gardiner 1906, p. 55.
• 32  For this element, see Schneider 1977, I, pp. 131–133 (reading as “the illuminated one” or “the on (...)

9The inscriptions on the majority of the statues are relatively concise, usually deploying or evoking elements of the shabti spell in the Book of the Dead (BD 6); this is the text visible on the side of the emplacement of the now lost statue of Ptahmose, in the line drawing published by Alan H. Gardiner.31 The sḥḏ element associated with this spell precedes the owner’s name on the statues of Djehutymose, Neferhor, the lost Ptahmose, and the Vatican statue of Amenhotep.32 Neferhor’s statue also includes the invocation “O shabti” on both sides of the base.

• 33  Schneider 1977, III, p. 109, 3.2.9.53.2.9.7 (transcriptions).
• 34  Urk. IV, 1811, 10.

10Two of the three Leiden statues of Merymery assert the statue’s identity and role in relation to the gods in phrasing comparable to elements found on Minmose’s statue: “I am the miller (nḏw) for Osiris, the servant (ḥm) of Nut.”33 The left side of the base of the Cairo statue of Amenhotep bears a similar text: “I am the miller (nḏw) of divine offerings for Wenennefer of Rosetau.”34 The Louvre statue of Djehutymose connects this act of divine service with incense, a theme also present in one of Minmose’s texts (discussed further below).

• 35  James 1974, pl. 70, 271a–g; Schneider 1977, I, p. 295. A damaged inscription in four columns on t (...)
• 36  James 1974, pl. 70, 270d.
• 37  James 1974, pl. 70, 270e; Schneider 1977, I, pp. 91–94 for IIIa.
• 38  James 1974, pl. 69, 270a–c; Schneider 1977, I, p. 294. The theme of supplication resonates with t (...)

11Both Brooklyn statues bear extensive inscriptions, and these offer some parallels for Minmose’s texts. The surface of Siese’s statue is degraded, making the texts inscribed over the body difficult to read, but what is legible has parallels in BD 6, with reference to being “[summoned] on any commission” and “reckoned”.35 Senenu’s statue bears three distinct sets of inscriptions. On the curved upper surface of the emplacement is the standard formulation (reading from the statue’s left to right) requesting that “everything that comes forth from the offering table of Osiris Lord of Rosetau be for the ka of” Senenu.36 The text in three lines on the top of the front of the base and continuing in three lines on its front face is a variant of BD 6 (Schneider’s IIIa): “If one assigns, if one reckons the royal scribe Senenu in the necropolis to undertake all the work that is performed there … ‘I will do it, here I am’, so you will say.”37 The longest text on the statue begins on its right side, in eight columns, then wraps around the rear of the base in a single horizontal line, continuing in a further eight columns on the left side. This text comprises a speech of supplication addressed to “the tribunal of Rosetau”, including oaths and statements of Senenu’s worthiness as one favoured by the king and as one who performed temple duties “ceaselessly”.38

• 39  Schneider 1977, I, p. 293; Roth 2002, pp. 119–120.
• 40  Jean-Luc Bovot (2003a, p. 219) gives a succinct summary of some early interpretations for the New (...)
• 41  Nyord 2017, pp. 338–349.
• 42  Nyord 2017, p. 346.

12As the latest in the group, Minmose’s statue is a revival of a revival. The 18th Dynasty statues have been understood as inspired by Old Kingdom serving statue types,39 and this is probably at least one facet of their meaning. Where the titles of owners of the 18th Dynasty statues are known, they are very high-ranking, from members of the royal family to high stewards, so the selection of this “shabti” form is something like a travesty of the older model for those where the miller is to be identified with the owner. The supposed paradox of this identification with the shabti’s duty to undertake unpleasant work on the owner’s behalf, as his or her substitute, has been much discussed.40 Rune Nyord analyses this for early shabtis in terms of distinctions in image function between “presentification”—a term compatible with conventional ideas of especially monumental self-presentation, in which the referent is made manifest through the image in particular formal contexts—and “substitution”.41 He considers that “the tension between these two experiences of the image is most likely quite fundamental in the nature of the figurine”.42 This tension, which is made explicit through the form of Minmose’s statue and in the content of some of the inscriptions, is discussed further below.

• 43  The museum number is written in red on the side of Minmose’s right foot.

14The legs, positioned side-by-side, are broken away just above the knee on the right and below the knee on the left, surviving as column-like shapes with a maximum height of 11 cm and width of 6 cm. There are no traces of a kilt line that might parallel the long kilt on the Brooklyn statue of Senenu. Minmose’s feet are only schematically rendered, in contrast to, for example, Senenu’s, which include toenails and are freed from the negative space.43 Faint traces of the modelling of the knee on the right leg are visible.

• 44  Lang 2016, p. 281.

15The quern rests on a roughly rectangular emplacement that is angled away from the figure, a composition that is conventional for the activity of grinding grain.44 When complete the figure would have lent forward over this surface in a position very similar to the Brooklyn statue of Senenu (figs. 4–5). The slope of the quern emplacement is sharply angled in comparison to the curved top of the emplacement of Senenu’s. The base of the statue is roughly rectangular, measuring, at maximum, a little over 30 cm in length by 22 cm in width, with a height of 7 cm. The front of the base extends just over 7 cm forward from the quern emplacement.

• 45  The JSesh transcriptions observe reading direction. Columns are indicated by arrows. Full, but co (...)

17Almost every available and appropriate surface of the statue bears inscription. I divide these into six discrete groups (A–F); these differ from Clère’s organisation as indicated in fig. 3. Because of the damage and the lack of parallels for some of the texts, the order of reading, and how one area of text relates to another, is often not clear. My suggestions below are tentative.45 The challenges first Clère and then I faced are compounded by those presumably faced by the statue’s designer(s) and creators who had to organise long and complex texts, some of which seem not to have had established models, onto an unconventional form.

• 46  Dalino 2021a, I, pp. 117–118: Hori’s known titles are: sȝb, ḥm-nṯr tpy n jnḥr, jmy-js n šw tfnt, (...)
• 47  Also: Wb III, 396, 2; TLA 450367. I am grateful to Dilwyn Jones for sharing his preliminary dossi (...)

19a Clère’s restoration of this group (fig. 2) is convincing, even though this title is not otherwise attested for Minmose’s father, Hori, nor for Minmose himself.46 It is often preceded by sẖ-njsw (e.g. al-Ayedi 2006, p. 464; KRI III, 182, 15; 306, 4; VII, 114, 13; Roeder 1924, pp. 80–81), a title Minmose does hold. The traces here are difficult to read, but I agree with much of what Clère transcribed, although the sign he read as tp is now more rounded than the form of that sign elsewhere on the statue. The traces do not fit ẖrj-ḥbt-ḥrj-tp, “chief lector priest”, a title Minmose also bears (e.g. Wolze 2019, pp. 1327–1328, fig. 3b). A horizontal line appears to extend from the baseline of , suggestive of the top of ḥb, but the spacing between the signs and position of sw are incompatible. If ẖrj-tp-njsw is correct, the relative rarity of the title in the later New Kingdom may suggest that it was chosen here because of its associations, perhaps as an ancient ranking title. For example, Briant Bohleke (2002, pp. 159–160) suggests on the basis of rare attestations in the reign of Amenhotep III that it was revived in connection with that king’s sed-festivals.47

• 48  My thanks to Simone Gerhards for discussion.

29h An inscription on the torso of the Brooklyn statue of Siese is similar in formulation: “If [I am summoned?] on any commission, I am sleeping, remaining … (jr [n]js.[tw.j?] m wpwt nbt tw.j ẖr [s]ḏr mn.tj …)” (James 1974, pl. 70, no. 271b). Schneider, following James, renders “sleeping in death” (Schneider 1977, I, p. 295), understanding mn.tj as the euphemism “mooring”, but the book-roll determinative here and in Minmose’s text does not point toward this. For the development of the tw.j subject pronoun in the earlier 18th Dynasty, but relevant to Siese, see Stauder 2016. Schneider closes the passage on Siese’s statue with “(then) you shall be counted off (?), O shabti”, although I have not been able to confirm his reading. These formulations, on both statues, are distinctive, literally something like “being under, bearing, sleep”, hence my durative translation; they are not included in Gerhards 2021, but are in keeping with her analysis of sleep as a controlling external force bearing down on the sleeper (esp. pp. 235, 266–267).48 A directive to the shabti following this statement would be appropriate to more conventional formulations of BD 6 (e.g. Schneider 1977, I, pp. 91–93). On the present statue it seems to be followed by an oath voiced by Minmose and/or the statue itself; see next note.

• 49  LGG I, pp. 8–9. Leitz et al. include neither this precise formulation nor any that refers to Abyd (...)

46f Although the divine epithet “desired one (ȝb) of place-X” is well attested in the Ramessid period,49 I read ȝb as an active participle referring to Minmose. He is the most obvious referent for the second person pronouns which follow in the text, and this reading then accounts for there being no speech marker after Minmose’s name; the whole text is addressed to him, celebrating his place amongst the transfigured dead.

• 50  E.g. Refai 1996, p. 26; but see n. b above. The use of this speech marker, if correct here, can b (...)

47g The only feminine referent in this passage, other than Inty, is jmnt. In this reading the personified West speaks to Minmose, reassuring him of her protection, a capacity well attested for her in vignettes and hymns.50 Alternatively ḫr.s could be prepositional: “It (the West) is with you, (who are) before it, in the neshmet-barque.”

• 51  Compare a request on a Saqqara statue of the overseer of the treasury for the Ramesseum, Khay: “T (...)

52d The loop of the basket is clear, but it is possible that this is a mistake for nb, “so that they may speak to all the gods”. There is no clear referent for the second-person singular possessive. If it is correct to read this passage as a continuation of that on the right, this text may have been addressed to one person (see text F and discussion below). To read as a third-person plural suffix pronoun, with an omitted preposition, fits well with the emphasis on speech elsewhere on the statue. An alternative understanding of the final clause could be: “I being divine in the underworld (nṯr.kw m dwȝt)”, on the parallel with, for example, part of an address to Osiris-Wenennefer on a 19th Dynasty statue of the granary chief Siese: “That you may cause my ba to become divine in the necropolis, I being divine in the land of the justified (dj.k nṯrj bȝ.j m ẖrt-nṯr nṯr.kw m tȝ mȝʿtyw: KRI III, 152, 4–5).”51

• 52  See discussion below; my thanks to Angela McDonald for thoughts on this point.

54a Probably only one group is missing from the beginning at the left edge of the base, before the group of visible but illegible traces. These consist of at least one vertical line, for which Clère restored (fig. 2), probably in parallel with the jr ʿš.tw formulation from BD 6 on the emplacement just above (B). would then be understood as a space filler. It is tempting to suggest that the tiny trace in front of the vertical line could be the tip of , thus ḏd.f, “he (Minmose?) says”, but these readings cannot be confirmed. The corner of what Clère took as r looks plausible, but could also be an eye. The passage that follows has parallels in, for example, Ramesside harpists’ songs, as discussed by Jan Assmann (1979, pp. 59–61, commentary n. e), but these are in verses at the beginning of the song, just after the name of the addressee. An example is the harper’s song in the 19th Dynasty tomb of Neferrenpet called Kenro: “When you call to the sky, may your voice be heard, and may Atum answer you (ʿš.k r pt sḏm.tw ḫrw.k wšb n.k jtm)” (Hofmann 1995, pp. 36–37, colour pl. 5b; Assmann 2005, pp. 307–308). Such parallels indicate that someone else should be speaking to Minmose (cf. Frood, Alvarez 2019, p. 12 for this effect on another of Minmose’s objects). However, this could be his own voice addressing an individual, perhaps his son or someone who will act as a good son. Such an understanding would fit with the emphasis on the human and divine father-son relationship that plays out across the statue.52 For further discussion of ʿš, see Spalinger 2021, p. 145, with n. 83.

• 53  Such assimilations are not unusual (with Assmann 1976). Dalino (2021a, I, p. 228), for example, n (...)

60The dense complexity of Minmose’s statue deserves detailed treatments. Here I can only point in a few directions, noting some of the many identifications that it manifests: father–son, son–Horus, grain–incense, as well as Minmose–shabti, which I treat below. Minmose’s father’s name, Hori, is prominently inscribed on the top of the statue, directly above the criss-crossed representation of grain: thus here jt “grain” is also jt “father”. This association is further extended by nḏ on the front of the statue (text B), characterising Minmose’s action as a miller, but also punning with the paradigmatic duty of a son: “Horus who champions his father (ḥr-nḏ-jt.f).” The placing of the Horus falcon between Minmose’s hands could be understood as protective. The pun must deploy Hori’s name because Minmose takes on the role and duties of Horus—“so that I may join with him (ẖnm.j sw)” (text C)—including the defence and protection of his father. Moreover, like Horus, Minmose steps into his father’s role; sw here could also signify Minmose’s father. The fusion of titles between Minmose’s hands—father and son share the title of high priest of Onuris—enacts these fusions of identity.53 The statue may also address Minmose’s son, real or ideal, extending the father-son metaphor out into the future (text F, and possibly D and E).

• 54  E.g. Baum 1994, p. 23.
• 55  Bovot 2003a, pp. 217–219. In the corresponding space under the right arm is: “sḥḏ, king’s son, se (...)

61While the immediate visual referent for the grid pattern in front of the hands, which is unparalleled in the 18th Dynasty miller corpus, is grain, it could also represent the mastic tears of pistache resin, or the granules into which incense resin was normally moulded.54 Although the damage on the front of Minmose’s statue makes the context for his statement about incense unclear (text B, with n. e), the association of the statue’s milling with incense is certain, as it is also on the Louvre miller statue of the king’s son Djehutymose, where “incense (snṯr) for the Ennead who are in the necropolis” is the only inscription on the front of the base, directly below the grinding emplacement. On the left side, in the negative space under the arm, an inscription reads: “I am the servant of this sublime god, his miller (nḏ.f)”.55 Inscriptions on some of the other 18th Dynasty miller statues state that their work is in service for the gods, but Djehutymose’s and Minmose’s are the only ones that mention incense. Their preparation of this substance is an extension of content and an elaboration of detail.

• 56  TT 89: Davies, Davies 1941, p. 133, pl. 22; Serpico 2004, pp. 112–113, fig. 6.7; colour photograp (...)
• 57  Quaegebeur 1993. See also Serpico 2004, p. 112.
• 58  Helck 1963, pp. 711–713. For example, a list of offerings on an 18th Dynasty writing board includ (...)
• 59  Assmann 2005, p. 97, with n. 114; ẖms (often written šms) is conventionally rendered “incense” (O (...)
• 60  Baum 1994, p. 18.
• 61  Another, subtler example is a scribe statue of an 18th Dynasty overseer of craftsmen of Amun and (...)

62Minmose’s standing pose, like those of the Brooklyn statue of Senenu and the Marseille statue of Tanettepihu, is similar to an image in the 18th Dynasty Theban tomb of Amenmose of a worker shaping what is probably incense.56 The fragmentary detail shows a man standing in front of a table that has an angled emplacement. The resin is heaped on the emplacement and the man stretches out his hands on top of the resin. The man to the right shapes the resin into the form of a trussed bird, while cakes of incense are shown as cones and cattle in the register below. Such forms are well attested for incense resin in New Kingdom texts and images, and the title “modeller of incense (sȝq snṯr)” is first attested in the 19th Dynasty.57 Frequent among the shapes are those which mimic bread loaves. Moreover, incense can be measured in grain measures and designated with vocabulary associated with bread, such as snṯr-t.58 This overlap in meaning operates in various ways. For example, ẖms could refer to both incense and grain in a censing scene (scene 47) in the Opening of the Mouth,59 while snṯr is said to take the form of “seeds (prt)” on a 30th Dynasty stela from Saqqara.60 Djehutymose’s statue shows that Minmose’s statue does not do anything new in drawing on such meanings, but the scale of its development and elaboration goes beyond what is attested from earlier.61

• 62  Gessler-Löhr 2007, p. 77 with n. 103, pl. 12; Pasquali 2011, p. 8, A.15. My thanks to Nico Starin (...)
• 63  Gessler-Löhr 2007, pp. 80–81.

63This association on both statues can be compared with an inscription on a stela of a late 18th Dynasty treasury custodian, Mahu, that was in his lost Saqqara tomb.62 A line running under the lower register, which shows Mahu and his wife seated before members of his family, reads: “miller of incense (nḏ snṯr) for Amun-Re, for the gods, the lords of Memphis, for the Ennead of the pr-njsw, custodian of the treasury, Mahu”. The miller title is unattested on the other surviving fragments from the tomb but, as Beatrix Gessler-Löhr observes, administering the delivery and distribution of incense would have been one of Mahu’s duties;63 the location of the inscription, literally under his sphere of influence, speaks directly to that, as does the range of institutions mentioned. Mahu is presenting a role-play—like Minmose, he probably did not shape incense himself—but one that is arguably closer to lived experience and direct responsibility.

• 64  Roth (2002, p. 117) argues that the Old Kingdom serving statues which bear the names of the tomb (...)

64By preparing incense, Minmose’s statue is creating something that purifies, protects, and delights. His statue may even write its transformations across its surface. In the logographic writing of snṯr ( ) on the rear surface (text E), the incense is burning and releasing its aroma. Thus, his statue may encapsulate a performative and productive cycle, comparable to the paired miller statues of Amenhotep which show the grinding of grain and the offering of bread (see above, n. 30). For Minmose’s statue this is again a detail, rather than a full presentation. It is the role-play as the good servant, the good son, that matters most.64

• 65  My thanks to Kate Spence for this suggestion. For sculptors’ use of grids, see e.g. Galán 2007, p (...)
• 66  In this it can be compared with scenes in two late Middle Kingdom tombs at Hierakonpolis and Elka (...)
• 67  Schneider 1977, I, p. 139; Milde 2012, p. 2; with Wb IV, 436, 12.

65The grid pattern of the grain on Minmose’s statue may also evoke the grid that was used in the creation of stone monuments, including statues.65 If this is plausible, then the statue itself is materialising its own production.66 The statue not only creates itself, it describes itself, in terms of the potential of pose—“prostrate (pd ḥr tȝ)”—and function. On the left side of the upper surface of the emplacement, the statue is designated as a šbty, using a variant orthography attested in the late New Kingdom that probably derives from the verb šbj, “to replace, substitute”;67 the continuation on the front of the emplacement says that the shabti is “in my place (m st.j)”, or, through a pun, “my substitute”.

• 68  For example, Grandet 1994, I, p. 229; II, pp. 28–29; a dedication formula on the base of an early (...)
• 69  A telling later parallel is an appeal on the left side of a standing statue of Montuemhat from th (...)
• 70  twt: Wb V, 255, 8–256, 20; TLA 170470 (with DZA); Hornung 1967, pp. 144–145; ẖnty: Wb III, 385, 8 (...)
• 71  Gardiner 1937, p. 107, ll. 14–15; with Ragazzoli 2019, p. 415.

66These instances of ekphrasis might be further elaborated on the right side of the emplacement in a possible alternative continuation of Minmose’s statement about placing the shabti: “I placed my shabti before the lord of eternity, having made for myself a figure(?) according to my character, as what I myself did while on earth” (text C). Clère’s suggestion to read twt, “figure” or “statue”, for is appropriate; twt is often the direct object of jrj in the context of commissioning and creation.68 Although no parallel for this sign as a logogram for twt is known to me,69 it is a well attested variant determinative, as it is for ẖnty, another word for statue.70 The most immediate association for this sign is as the official sr and/or the great-one wr, suggesting an alternative reading as “having achieved a dignified status for myself, appropriate to my character”. As such it would resonate with statements in scribal literature that express ambitions for a comparable elevation: “Place writing in your heart, that you may protect your body from all labours and become an excellent official (jr.k sr jqr).”71 The dignity and notability of the terms sr and wr also resonate with twt, if that is the right reading. Whatever the interpretation, this single sign is laden with meaning.

• 72  Nyord 2020, p. 12.
• 73  An offering formula on the right side of a 20th Dynasty naophorous block statue of the royal hera (...)
• 74  For the resonance with qj in New Kingdom biographies see Rickal 2005, pp. 111–115, especially pp. (...)
• 75  Nyord 2017, p. 353; Frood 2019.
• 76  I follow Clère’s Mss (16), rather than the arrangement of the inscriptions given in Urk. IV, 1811 (...)

67Nyord argues that the meanings of twt go beyond physical or visual similarity to express “a correspondence with a deeper nature … or the defining features that make one a member of a particular category”.72 Minmose’s statue takes this further, asserting that he made this “statue” or “dignified form according to my character (qjw)”.73 This then refers to Minmose’s innate preeminence, as demonstrated by his achievements “while on earth” and embodied by the statue.74 Thus the statue claims mimesis through and qjw—i.e. “this is who I am and what I do.” This claim is crucial to its performance of (desirable) menial labour, its designation as a šbtj, and the directive to it to ensure action, including the oath in text B—“if one calls at any time … [Minmose,], he should say: ‘As Re endures, as the ka of his disc endures… ’,  (you/I should?) mill.” Minmose’s statue gives material form to active, self-conscious service. This interpretation fits with Nyord’s assessment of images, including shabtis, as distinct nodes of being in the matrix that constitutes a person, as I have argued from a different direction in relation to some nonroyal temple statues.75 Many of these associations are oriented to the next world, thus bound to the body of the deceased, which is “sleeping, remaining in the sacred land” (text B), and its anticipated transfigurations, for example “in the neshmet-barque, for you are joining up with those of the sacred land” (text D). The juxtaposition of this vision with the busy “living” pose is even sharper on the miller statue of Amenhotep in Cairo: a prominent inscription on the base, beginning directly below the head and hands, reads: “corpse of eternity (ẖȝt nḥḥ) for ^right[…] the Osiris of the royal high steward, scribe Amenhotep before the great god”.76

• 77  Schneider 1977, I, pp. 162–164 (his Class VII “unconventional forms”), 211–218, 260–262; Berlandi (...)
• 78  Schlögl 1983; Gessler-Löhr 1997, pp. 41–42, n. 112. Kenamun was the owner of TT 162, dated on the (...)
• 79  As brilliantly analysed by Gessler-Löhr (1997, pp. 38–43), focusing on the sʿḥ-statues of the may (...)

68Minmose’s miller statue and its precursors exemplify a diversification in shabti forms that is characteristic of the New Kingdom, particularly from the late 18th Dynasty onwards, also including shabtis holding ba-birds and figures on biers.77 This elaboration extended to transformations of scale and context. Among the most extreme is a fragment of a sandstone shabti, with a conventional undifferentiated body, belonging to the late 18th Dynasty Theban mayor Kenamun and found in Luxor temple, by the eastern door to the columned hall of Amenhotep III; the fragment measures 51 cm from the bottom of the feet to the break, which is roughly in the middle of the body, so the statue would have originally been life-size.78 Although its form resonates with sʿḥ-statues found in contemporaneous tombs that are over a metre high,79 a variant of BD 6 voiced by Kenamun is inscribed in a single column down the front of the legs: “O this shabti, if (I am) summoned to any work that must be done in the necropolis, ‘here I am!’, so you should say.” The shabti’s findspot was likely secondary, but the piece was almost certainly set up somewhere in the temple. The one-third life-size of Minmose’s miller shows that it was similarly oriented to display.

• 80   Alvarez and I (2019, p. 3, with references) make a similar argument for the small Isis-throne of (...)
• 81  For which see Effland, Effland 2004, pp. 7–9; cf. Angela P. Thomas (2016, pp. 62–64), who argues (...)
• 82  Petrie 1902, p. 31, pl. 65, 9, 10. Now in the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History (YPM ANT 264 (...)
• 83  The text on the back of the statue (text E) may allude to its presence in the temple, in a broken (...)

69An Abydos origin for Minmose’s miller seems probable, especially as the majority of his provenanced objects come from there.80 The statue might have been set up in the memorial chapel he and his colleague and kinsman, the high priest of Osiris, Wenennefer, created there.81 It is, however, just as likely that it was dedicated in the temple of Osiris, perhaps near the extraordinary, fairly large (H. 58 cm), black granite double shabti of Wenennefer and his wife Tiye found by Petrie in the area of the enclosure wall of the Osiris complex, near the temple of Nectanebo I.82 The texts on this statue give only titles and names, but they include a sḥḏ designation just for Wenennefer on the rear surface; the miller Minmose would fit well here.83

• 84  Some implications of this small size in terms of experience, material, and meaning have been beau (...)
• 85  For the latter, Pumpenmeier 1998.
• 86  Emmanuel Jambon (2016, pp. 144–145) convincingly suggests that at least one of the two large gran (...)

70The vast majority of shabtis, including those with unconventional forms, are miniatures, and most were probably never meant to be seen except when they were being made and deposited.84 They were often wrapped, clustered in boxes, and buried in tombs, or included as elements of votive deposits.85 Minmose, Kenamun, and other monumental shabtis stage something quite different, taking up meanings of shabtis—service, multiplication and substitution of self and agency in terms of service—and transforming them into images that were intended to be visible, enduring, and interacted with by the living and divine in this world, as much as or more than with beings in the next world.86 Even among those statues Minmose stands apart, because he is not wrapped, undifferentiated, and so not divinised through form, although his texts anticipate and enact that. He is an animated, preoccupied and productive self.