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How was the life-size copper statue of Pepi I made?
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metalwork
Warrior and attendants plaque, brass relief sculpture by Edo artists in the court of the kingdom of Benin (now Nigeria), 16th–17th century; in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.
The life-size copper statue of the pharaoh Pepi I is an outstanding example of early Egyptian metalwork. Rather than being cast, the statue was constructed using a technique involving hammered copper plates.12
These individual plates were shaped by hammering and then fitted together over a wooden core. Because the technology for soldering had not yet been developed, the separate pieces were joined together using copper rivets. This method of fabrication highlights the skill of early metalworkers, who relied on the hammer as the primary instrument for creating such large-scale figures before the widespread adoption of the lost-wax process for statuary.21