Ushabtis of the God’s Wife Iset

Within the same Ramesside family, Queen Iset’s granddaughter was also named Aset (Isis). This princess became one of the most politically significant women of the 20th Dynasty. Appointed by her father, Ramesses VI, as the ‘God’s Wife of Amun’ in Thebes to maintain royal control over the wealthy priesthood, she was the very first to hold this powerful title while remaining strictly unmarried and celibate

This initiated a major institutional shift, as all subsequent holders of this powerful office were unmarried royal daughters rather than reigning queens. Reflecting this distinct, pharaonic status, her name was uniquely enclosed inside a royal cartouche on monuments

While she is well-attested on a donation stela from Koptos and a ceremonial relief block from Dra’ Abu el-Naga’, her actual tomb has never been found, meaning none of her definitive funerary equipment has survived in situ

Crucially, this makes any attribution of surviving material purely hypothetical, particularly as all unprovenanced shabtis bearing the name ‘Aset’ (Iset) lack a secure context and are widely believed to have been deposited as cenotaph or sepulchral offerings at Abydos

While current scholarly consensus generally attributes all these Abydos shabtis to the older Queen Iset, largely because both variations feature a princess-like side-lock of youth worn over a short wig, a compelling stylistic counter-argument can be made for dividing them between the two generations based on the presence of pharaonic iconography:

• The Grandmother’s Typology (Queen Iset): Confirmed examples belonging to the Queen feature the side-lock worn over a short wig, notably without a cobra and a vertical register with her Hm.t nsw title and her name Aset in a cartouche
• The Granddaughter’s Typology (Princess Iset): Conversely, the separate group of unprovenanced shabtis introduces a royal uraeus (cobra) on the forehead alongside the side-lock and wig, and is distinguished by horizontal registers containing illegible text

While the shared presence of the wig and side-lock caused previous researchers to lump these figurines together, the presence of the uraeus is the single, critical differentiating factor. If this hypothesis stands, it represents a revolutionary iconographic blend: the wig and side-lock denoting her birth status as a princess, and the uraeus denoting the sovereign, king-like authority uniquely granted to her as the celibate God’s Wife of Amun

Since the vulture crown and cobra were fiercely guarded symbols reserved exclusively for reigning Great Royal Wives or active, supreme priestesses of the 19th and 20th Dynasties, a regular queen consort or princess had no inherent right to them on standard shabtis

This distinction explicitly excludes the grandmother, Queen Iset, from the sovereign iconographic group. While her contemporaries, Tyti and Duatentopet, held active, high-status religious power during the height of the Ramesside era, Queen Iset was merely a king’s wife and did not hold the active office of God’s Wife under Ramesses III

Having only received the title late in life or posthumously from her son, Ramesses VI, she lacked the contemporary political justification to disrupt traditional funerary styles. This chronological reality provides the ultimate support for a dual-generation attribution: Queen Iset is the rightful owner of the traditional, non-cobra shabtis, whereas the revolutionary figurines bearing the royal uraeus must belong to her granddaughter, Princess Iset, whose active, lifelong celibate office demanded this unprecedented pharaonic validation

By placing a cobra on the head of Princess Iset’s shabtis, the artisans completely shattered this dynasty-old rule. It confirms that her role as the celibate God’s Wife of Amun had effectively elevated her rank above that of a standard princess, granting her the pharaonic status normally restricted to the supreme queens of previous generations

This unprecedented privilege was later explicitly mirrored by most of the subsequent ‘God’s Wives of Amun’ from the 21st Dynasty onwards (such as Princess Maatkara), who adopted the royal cobra to denote their pharaonic rank.

Detail of the donation stela of Princess Iset from Koptos (Manchester Museum, Acc. No. 1781). The relief clearly shows her name enclosed in a royal cartouche, and her  headdress featuring a vulture cap combined with a prominent uraeus on the forehead