SPEECH OF THE USHABTI FIGURE [THE CHAPTER OF NOT DOING WORK IN KHERT- NETER].

Illumine the Osiris Ani, whose word is truth.

Hail, Shabti Figure!

If the Osiris Ani be decreed to do any of the work which is to be done in Khert-Neter,
let everything which standeth in the way be removed from him -
whether it be to plough the fields,
or to fill the channels with water,
or to carry sand from [the East to the West].
The Shabti Figure replieth: I will do it, verily I am here [when] thou callest.

(Egyptian Book of the Dead - trans. E..A Wallis-Budge)

*

Note : My friend Emily gave me her Aunt Clara's collection of 32 Ancient Egyptian Shabti dolls in January 1972 after certain disturbances compelled her to part with them. She was quite upfront on the nature of her unease, which, she assured me, had more to do with her recently deceased relative than with the antiquities per se, which, in any case, I was only too happy to take off her hands.

Their provenance was unclear, but a covering letter explained how they were bought from a dealer in Cairo by Aunt Clara's father in 1883 and gifted to her as 'Dolls' on her tenth birthday the following year. It also said that they'd caused in young Clara such '...frights and nightmares..' that they were taken from her and put away until such times as she was of a less impressionable cast of mind.

It also put a date on them - 21st Dynasty, circa 1069-945 B.C.E - which was to me more terrifying than any attendant spookiness, however much it complemented the territory that would have me, over the following weeks, obsessed with all things Ancient Egyptian, sitting up into the wee small hours on dark stormy nights, immersed in such books as E. A. Wallis-Budge's 'The Mummy - A Handbook of Egyptian Funerary Archaeology' (1894) and his translation of 'The Book of the Dead' (1895).

I suppose the thing that impressed me most was the singular personality of these Shabti dolls. Their very humanity made manifest in the perfect optimism of their funerary function as outlined in the above quoted animation charm from The Book of the Dead, in which we glimpse a very different concept of the afterlife from the heavenly notions of unearthly utopia familiar to us today - for in the Egyptian hereafter we might actually be called upon to work! My immediate response to all of this (and more, so much more) was to make these 32 musical miniatures. In these, I pay special attention to the individuality of each figure, and to their function, which are a measure of the very humanity that conceived and created them - a humanity defined, as our own, by the humour, wit and idiosyncratic uniqueness of the individual.

I must confess, such impressions seeped into my dreams and visions during the long dark endless days of January / February 1972, and would lead to my habit of exploring museums and antique shops in search of more Shabtis to add to my collection - either in flesh or photograph - not so much to labour for me in the next life, but to assist me with my work in this one. I think of them as the engineers and the technicians of my 'studio', and so must thank my Shabtis for their assistance and inspiration in a music which represents some of my earliest extant attempts at using synthesisers as a real-time tool of spontaneous composition. Without them, I might never have bothered.

I gave the sequence the sub-heading 'A Synthi-Seance with the Souls of the Ancient Dead' because, whilst electronic music is generally considered futuristic, I nevertheless found it the ideal medium by which to access & commune with the ancient past. By such means I let my antiquarian instincts inform my natural born intuition, an intuition further catalysed by the Shabti dolls themselves. If there are ghosts in the machine, then it is only my Shabtis doing their work.

Enough said, I think, least I betray other depths and sympathies (to both young Clara and dear Emily) best dealt with in the music, which, as ever, goes places that mere words can never follow. For words can only tell of things, whilst music takes its place along side of them, as, I feel, is very much the case here...

Hermione Harvestman - February 2003