The Art of Ancient Egypt | Publications for Educators | Explore & Learn

thebes.jpg (63092 bytes)

Discovery of fragments of Hatshepsut's sculpture, Thebes
Photograph by the Egyptian Expedition, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1929

See the excavation site: Video clip.

Museum archaeologists made another remarkable discovery at Thebes, this one while they were digging near a temple erected in Dynasty 18 (ca. 1470-1460 B.C.) by Queen Hatshepsut (hat-SHEP-soot). It was her mortuary temple and a sanctuary for Amun (AH-moon), whose cult image visited the site once a year in a portable boat-shaped shrine. The archaeologists unexpectedly came upon hundreds of fragments of stone sculpture that had been buried in ancient times. Hatshepsut's name was inscribed on most of the sculpture--notice the broken statue of a sphinx. These inscriptions proved that the statues had originally been placed in and around her temple (seen in the background at the left).

This photograph shows members of the Egyptian expedition staff sorting fragments according to the types of stone (limestone or granite), parts of the body (hands, faces, arms, etc.), and adornment (crowns, kilts, scepters, etc.) before attempting to reconstruct the statues. This process was not unlike working on a very large and difficult jigsaw puzzle. The work was much more frustrating, however, because over the centuries many of the stone pieces had been lost.

Hatshepsut was one of the most important ruling women in Egyptian history. After the death of her husband, Thutmosis II, she first ruled as regent for her nephew and stepson, Thutmosis III, who was a child at the time. Within a short time, however, Hatshepsut, herself the daughter of Thutmosis I, declared herself co-ruler, adopting a king's titles and regalia. For twenty years she ruled together with Thutmosis III as senior of the two pharaohs. After her death Thutmosis III expanded Egypt's sphere of influence in western Asia by a series of brilliant military campaigns. Hatshepsut's own drive had been directed mainly southward, as testified by the expedition she sent to Punt (Somalia). Some twenty years after Hatshepsut's death, when Thutmosis had been king on his own for a long time, he ordered her name to be erased wherever it appeared and her statues to be smashed. The reasons for this are not entirely clear, but the order may have been politically motivated and not a belated act of personal hatred.

Notice: stone fragments, temple site

Discuss: how the archaeologists knew the statues belonged to Hatshepsut, why the statues might have been broken and buried (the exact reasons are not known)

Compare with: View of Luxor looking west across the Nile