Pyramid of Pepy II

Pyramid of Pepy II

After Pharaoh Menkaure, pyramids were developed often shoddily on a much smaller scale and often of inferior materials. And the focus of pyramid establishing moved from Giza to Saqqara, site of the first Egyptian pyramid, and Abusir. This trend remained under the close of the great ancient Egyptian pyramid constructors. At six years old, Pepi II gone the 2nd rule of the 6th dynasty. By the time of his rising to the throne, the Old Kingdom, pharaonic power, and tax receipts were on the wane. And by the last of his 94- or 64-year reign (scholars disagree on the number), the kingdom was plagued by foreign and interior conflicts as well as by famine and fermentation got by drought. Pepi II's long reign is juxtaposed by his short pyramid, which was belike finished in the 30th year of his reign mayhap 60 years before he died. Within the pyramid, Pepi II's burial chamber protects a black color granite sarcophagus under a cap foaming with painted stars. Pyramid Texts a cold Old Kingdom developmentare inscribed into the walls. As conjurations to check the ascending of a pharaoh's soul, these texts would have been one more attempt to perpetuate the aura of Egypt.

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.

Alabaster statuette of Pepy II

Alabaster statuette of Pepy II

The Alabaster statuette of Pepy II, an alabaster statuette of 16 cm high too represents Pepy II as a child, in a pose that is unusual in both royal and interior statuary. The king is squatting on the ground with his legs folded and slightly apart. His left hand was lying on his knee and, although it is missing, his right hand is taken to have been made to the mouth. He is completely naked, a signed of his young age. This statue was observed in the funerary temple of Pepy II at Saqqara South and is start of the appeal of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo