This rare and striking figure is of a kind created in the Delta towns of Tanis and Bubastis during Egypt's Late Kingdom. Her voluptuous form and the two infants she holds in her arms link her to a long tradition of fertility goddesses. Her exact identity is uncertain, for in Egypt there were many regional goddesses who were known elsewhere by other shapes and names. Scholars believe she may be a variant on Bastet, the preventer of disease, normally shown with a cat's head; or a wife of Bes, the comical dwarf god who aided women in childbirth. Her worship may have been brought south by the priest-kings who ruled from their capital at Tanis. Perhaps she was offered long ago by a woman hoping to have children, or a person seeking happiness and good fortune. Her energy--vital and direct--still speaks to us in an age that has forgotten such rituals.