Egyptologists have made yet another exciting discovery this year as it has been revealed that the Old Kingdom Pharaoh, Pepy II was not a child Pharaoh as was previously believed, but rather a very small man.
“I mean, we just kind of assumed in these depictions of him being this little guy, sitting on his mother’s lap that he was a child and she was his regent or something, but no, he was just really tiny” Egyptologist Bethany O’Rourke was quoted as saying.
The discovery came after Ms. O’Rourke tripped on what she at first believed to be a small mound of dirt in Saqqara, Egypt, but upon further inspection realised it was in fact a royal tomb. “I thought, geez, what’s this Toblerone doing out here, and then I looked at it a little closer and I was like – oh, this is a super small pyramid.” Inside was discovered a handful of papyri clearly depicting the very small Pharaoh struggling with daily tasks, and being terrorised by certain domestic animals and medium-large sized birds. Another depicts him as being given a sort of “ancient swirly” in the Nile by a clearly much larger pygmy which was brought to his court by Harkhuf, a contemporary governor of what is now Aswan.
The revelation sheds some new light on the collapse of the Old Kingdom of ancient Egypt, during what historians term the First Intermediate Period. “Before we thought it was due to Nomarchs, sort of provincial governors, getting too powerful, but we now believe it’s because everyone dunked on the little guy and no one really cared about his lineage after that”.
The Refuge of Refuse 