Shabti figures were statuettes, usually in the form of a mummy, which the Egyptians believed would magically carry out any work they had to do in the afterlife. This example was made for an important official called Amenhotep who was the governor of Kush, the southernmost outpost of the Egyptian empire in what is now the Sudan. In the text carved around its body the shabti promises to cultivate and irrigate the fields and to do any other work which the deceased Amenhotep might be asked to do in the afterlife.