Alabaster Statue of Pepy II with his mother

Alabaster Statue of Pepy II with his mother

This fair statue, made of Egyptian alabaster (in reality calcite), is tell-tale of the starting of the long reign of Pepy II. The king, identified by the inscription on the support below his feet, is invested on the lap of his mother, queen Ankhenesmerire I. He is importantly smaller than the queen, as one would expect from a child, but nevertheless, he is heavy the royal head-cloth noted as nemes, with a uraeus on his brow. His right-hand is hard closed, while his left-hand eases on his mother's hand. The queen, herself wears a long, narrow dress. The hole in the forehead of the queen's statue indicates that an object of new material was once inclosed here. Her head is continued by the vulture head-dress, which is typically linked with goddesses and queens who are mothers. The lost object on the queen's forehead may therefore have been the head of a vulture. This statue hence supports that Pepy II came to power as a young boy, settled under the protection of his mother, who worked as queen-regent. There may maybe also have been a divine intension to this statue: it is strongly resonant, although still slightly different, from statues and amulets showing the goddess Isis with the young Horus on her lap. The main remainder, nevertheless, is that in the Isis-statues, the goddess commonly holds one hand to her breast, an reading that she is breast-feeding her kid.