How an ancient artifact made modern friends through the Alva de Mars Megan Chapel Art Center.
He’s only a little guy, and he hasn’t done much for the last 4,000 years. In fact, he hasn’t moved for almost half a century. But at Saint Anselm College, he’s pretty special. He has sparked connections between several sturdy pillars of the college’s identity: academics, faculty, students, and alumni—simply by existing, largely unnoticed, in the permanent collection of the Alva de Mars Megan Chapel Art Center.
The man of the hour is a turquoise-glazed statuette created by an Egyptian artisan to accompany a deceased citizen into the afterlife. If you lived in Egypt and had the means, you made sure you’d have a cushy afterlife by having several servants, or shabti, join you in your tomb. The richer and more important you were, the more servants you brought along.
“If anyone asked you to do work, you could just have the shabti do it instead,” says Classics professor Matthew Gonzales.
WHEN PAST MEETS PRESENT
The renewed attention on this small figure came about as a result of an exhibit conceived of by Fr. Iain MacLellan, O.S.B. ’78, director of the Chapel Art Center, wherein a student could reflect on one item of interest in the permanent collection. By involving students from various majors, he saw it as a way to highlight the collection’s dimensionality and potential partnerships with other campus resources.
In Students Select (spring semester 2025), 17 students from nine majors each selected a piece of artwork to focus on. Each student summed up his or her reflection in one paragraph, which was displayed beside the wall label for the chosen piece.
Hope Jensen ’25, a classical archaeology major, was one of the 17 students participating in Students Select, and was fascinated by a small funerary piece she came across while digitizing files for the Chapel Art Center. Jensen’s interest in ancient history had led her to apply to Saint Anselm College, where she also minored in English and theology. Her research capstone project concerned the iconographic language of women in funeral monuments in ancient Athens.
The senior was surprised by her discovery: “I thought, is this really ours? What do we know about it? It was incredible to me that we had something that had survived so long, only a door away from where I’d been working,” she says.
Jensen had seen funerary pieces in museums and online, but was moved by the experience of seeing and touching one. “Holding this object so many years after its creation felt like time folding in on itself,” she says. “It has stood the test of time and retained its turquoise color. Someone made it with the purpose of helping someone in the afterlife. It’s material proof that someone cared for the deceased.”
Gonzales also was surprised. “I had no idea we had any ancient artifacts in the collection,” he says. “Working together, we agreed that it was a high-quality shabti, although not as high workmanship as one for someone elite or noble. The inscription doesn’t name who it’s made for. It’s fairly generic: I am the shabti of the beloved deceased and I’m going to do whatever you ask me to.”
The exact date of the shabti’s creation is uncertain. Jensen’s analysis dates the statuette to the Ptolemaic Period, while her professor places the piece in the High New Kingdom. A difference of a few centuries doesn’t bother them.
“We agree to disagree,” says Gonzales. “But that’s one of the things we seek to instill in our students: an awareness of the limits of human certainty. You can know something with as much certainty as possible based on the evidence you have available, but others may look at the same body of evidence and come to a different conclusion. The principles upon which we base our valuations can be highly subjective.”
What happened with the Chapel Art Center’s shabti is kind of magical, he says. “This object that was made more than 4,000 years ago gets interred in a tomb, and by some twists of fate and circumstance ends up here in our hands. It connects us with human beings who lived in a very different time and culture—but who shared the same fears, the same motivations.”
I thought, IS THIS REALLY OURS? What do we know about it?
A COLLABORATIVE EFFORT
Jensen’s project dovetailed perfectly with her career aspiration of working in a museum. It also exceeded Fr. Iain’s expectations. “We hadn’t shown the items before because of a lack of information,” he says. “Hope and Professor Gonzales took the concept to the far limits of what we hope a student will experience.”
While it’s not known where these ancient Egyptian artifacts traveled before arriving at a small college in New Hampshire, we know who brought them. They were donated nearly 20 years ago by alumnus Robert Lout, M.D. ’68. “Dr. Lout called and asked if we wanted to have them,” says Fr. Iain. “He wanted them taken care of, and I thought they would open a new vein for us.”
The exhibit that brought the shabti to light was organized by Fr. Celestine Hettrick, O.S.B., assistant curator for the Chapel Art Center. “When Hope selected the two funerary pieces, I was thrilled,” he says. “I was impressed that we had such ancient artifacts in the collection and was excited to display them, but we had limited information—I didn’t realize that we might have students and faculty with the interest and skills necessary to research them.”
Once the student and her professor started researching the artifacts, Fr. Celestine’s role was primarily one of encouragement and gratitude for the work they were doing. “Hope worked hard to develop her skills and talents during her time at Saint Anselm,” Fr. Celestine says. “This [was] one step on her path as she continues with graduate studies in the classics and archeology at Brandeis University.”
Jensen finds classical studies relevant to today’s world, sometimes in surprising ways. Quoting George Orwell’s 1984, she says, “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” She cites recent discoveries about the durability of ancient Roman concrete. Understanding the manufacturing strategy that allowed the material to self-repair cracks could have modern implications for climate-resilient infrastructure.
Fr. Celestine sees Jensen’s work with the shabti as an example of what the Chapel Art Center is all about. “It was a collaborative effort that brought the college’s art collection, students, and professors together and showcased the great value and benefits of liberal arts education—and we heard from students, professors and staff, friends, family, and the public that they found it insightful and inspiring,” he says.
The unknown creator of this turquoise ceramic (faience) statuette intended it to exist in the afterlife of the deceased. But this shabti also has an afterlife of its own. The Egyptian artisan could never have imagined the path the figure would take. Nor could a generous alumnus envision the role his donation would play in one student’s education and potential career
A CLOSER LOOK AT SHABTI
Shabti or Ushabti (“Answerer”) figurines, first found in the Egyptian Middle Kingdom (2050-1650 B.C.), were anthropomorphic figurines interred with the deceased as part of their funerary goods for provisioning the deceased in the afterlife. The usual form of a shabti figurine is a male or female figurine, often made of ceramic or faience, in an Osiris-like, or mummy-like, arms-crossed pose. The figurines were often decorated with hieroglyphic spells that were believed to animate the figurines so they could serve as helpers to the deceased in the afterlife, “answering” the call for food, beverage, or labor made by the deceased or one of the other underworld powers. —Matthew Gonzales, Ph.D.