diff --git a/gnu/packages/compression.scm b/gnu/packages/compression.scm
index df0acd9cc2..056b117333 100644
--- a/gnu/packages/compression.scm
+++ b/gnu/packages/compression.scm
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 ;;; GNU Guix --- Functional package management for GNU
 ;;; Copyright © 2012, 2013 Ludovic Courtès <ludo@gnu.org>
+;;; Copyright © 2013 Andreas Enge <andreas@enge.fr>
 ;;;
 ;;; This file is part of GNU Guix.
 ;;;
@@ -21,7 +22,8 @@
                 #:renamer (symbol-prefix-proc 'license:))
   #:use-module (guix packages)
   #:use-module (guix download)
-  #:use-module (guix build-system gnu))
+  #:use-module (guix build-system gnu)
+  #:use-module (gnu packages which))
 
 (define-public zlib
   (package
@@ -247,3 +249,38 @@ one of gzip or bzip2.  Lzip decompresses almost as fast as gzip and compresses
 more than bzip2, which makes it well suited for software distribution and data
 archiving.  Lzip is a clean implementation of the LZMA algorithm.")
     (license license:gpl3+)))
+
+(define-public sharutils
+  (package
+    (name "sharutils")
+    (version "4.14")
+    (source
+     (origin
+      (method url-fetch)
+      (uri (string-append "mirror://gnu/sharutils/sharutils-"
+                          version ".tar.xz"))
+      (sha256
+       (base32
+        "033sq1v0cp0bi1mp320xaqwd4fhakqc5747hh6qa1asjrzpqiqza"))))
+    (build-system gnu-build-system)
+    (inputs
+     `(("which" ,which)))
+    (arguments
+     `(#:phases
+        (alist-cons-after
+         'patch-source-shebangs 'unpatch-source-shebang
+         ;; revert the patch-shebang phase on a script which is
+         ;; in fact test data
+         (lambda* (#:key #:allow-other-keys)
+           (substitute* "tests/shar-1.ok"
+             (((which "sh")) "/bin/sh")))
+         %standard-phases)))
+    (home-page "http://www.gnu.org/software/sharutils/")
+    (synopsis "Archives in shell scripts, uuencode/uudecode")
+    (description
+     "GNU sharutils is a package for manipulating shell archives. Shell
+archives are collections of files that can be unpacked using only the shell;
+an archive is a self-extracting shell script. The tools in the Sharutils
+package make working with shell archives more robust, offering compression,
+file-splitting and simple checksums.")
+    (license license:gpl3+)))