Walters Art Museum (Egyptian) · statue

Ushabti of Kaha

Source of record: Walters Art Museum (Egyptian) — catalogued by the holding institution. View the original record →

Description

<p>This mummiform figure has long hair painted black with yellow and red cross lines at the ends. He wears painted necklaces and a painted sack behing each shoulders. His flesh is red. The piece has incriptions on the front and sides.Kaha was one of two chief workmen at Deir el-Medina, the city of the craftsmen, who carved and decorated the royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings. He was responsible for the large tomb of Ramesses II, the Great.</p><p>For the latest information about this object, <cite><a href='https://purl.thewalters.org/art/22.188' rel='external'>Ushabti of Kaha</a></cite>, visit the Online Collection of the Walters Art Museum.</p>

AI image analysis GPT-5.4-nano

Machine-generated from the object's image on Jul 2026. Not curatorial; treat deities, names, and signs below as the model's best reading, not authority.

A painted wooden ushabti figure standing upright, with a wig and broad collar, holding tools (likely a hoe and basket or similar implements), and a column of hieroglyphic text on the legs/body.

The image shows a small, full-length human-form ushabti figure in profile-to-front view, standing with arms crossed over the chest and gripping/holding implements. The head has a dark wig/skullcap and a painted face with dark-lined eyes and eyebrows. The figure wears a broad beaded collar and a patterned chest/upper garment area. The body and legs are covered with painted hieroglyphic signs in registers, running vertically down the torso/legs. No royal cartouche is clearly legible in the image. The pigments appear to include black outlines and facial features, with white light ground and accents in yellow and red on clothing/inscription areas, consistent with painted wood. The background is dark, with the artifact centered and photographed in a studio-like setting.

funerary Late Period to Ptolemaic (ashabti/ushebtis; exact date unclear from image) good
Materials painted woodblack pigmentwhite groundyellow paintred paint
Signs Column of vertical hieroglyphs (legible content unclear at this resolution) ×30
Visible text "Vertical hieroglyphs painted on the lower body/legs; exact reading not discernible from the provided image."

Inscriptions (3)

Inscription #1

English description

[Translation] for ""Master of workmen, Ga-hay
Inscription #2

English description

[Kaha], justified""
Inscription #3

English description

[Inscription] Extract from the ushabti formula, Chapter 6, Book of the Dead

Connections

Royals Ramesses II

Cross-references (2)

  • Walters-AccNum 22.188 tier-2
  • Walters-id 29540 tier-2
About this record's data
  • From the source institution — accession, description, dimensions, and dating are as catalogued by Walters Art Museum (Egyptian).
  • AI-inferred — the image-analysis panel (deities, names, signs) is machine-generated and may be wrong.
  • Approximate location — most map points are plotted at the site centroid, not the exact findspot.
  • Inferred links — cross-references marked with a match method other than explicit-source-field were matched by us, not stated by the source.