At least eight, and perhaps as many as twelve small kneeling statues of Hatshepsut are thought to have been placed somewhere in the uppermost court of her temple at Deir el-Bahri. In these statues Hatshepsut is represented wearing the khat headcloth, and she offers a nemset vessel with a djed pillar superimposed on the front. It has been suggested that the combined use of the headdress, the vessel, and the djed pillar, which symbolizes endurance, is intended to evoke the setting up of a djed pillar at a king’s rejuvenation festival, or Heb Sed. It has also been suggested that Hatshepsut intended to celebrate a Heb Sed toward the end of her reign.
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Title:Kneeling statue of Hatshepsut
Period:New Kingdom
Dynasty:Dynasty 18
Reign:Joint reign of Hatshepsut and Thutmose III
Date:ca. 1479–1458 B.C.
Geography:From Egypt, Upper Egypt, Thebes, Deir el-Bahri, "Hatshepsut Hole" (depression east of temple of Thutmose III), MMA excavations, 1922–23
Medium:Granite, paint
Dimensions:H. 61.6 cm (24 1/4 in.); W. 32.5 cm (12 13/16 in.); D. 51.5 cm (20 1/4 in.)
Credit Line:Rogers Fund, 1923
Accession Number:23.3.1
Museum excavations, 1922-23. Acquired by the Museum in the division of finds, 1923.
Vandier, Jacques 1958. Manuel d'archéologie égyptienne: Les grandes époques: La statuaire, 3. Paris, pp. 301-2, pl. XCIX.
Hayes, William C. 1959. Scepter of Egypt II: A Background for the Study of the Egyptian Antiquities in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: The Hyksos Period and the New Kingdom (1675-1080 B.C.). Cambridge, Mass.: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, p. 97.
Russmann, Edna R. 1973. "The Statue of Amenemope-em-hat." In Metropolitan Museum Journal, 8, p. 38, n. 16.
Metropolitan Museum of Art 1977. Ancient Egypt in the Metropolitan Museum Journal, 1–11. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, p. 104, n. 16.
Seipel, Wilfried 1992. Gott, Mensch, Pharao: viertausend Jahre Menschenbild in der Skulptur des Alten Ägypten : Künstlerhaus 25. Mai bis 4. Oktober 1992: eine Ausstellung des Kunsthistorischen Museums Wien. Vienna: Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, 228-32.
Fischer, Henry G. 1995. "The Protodynastic Period and Old Kingdom in the Metropolitan Museum of Art." In Kunst des Alten Reiches: Symposium im Deutschen Archäologischen Institut Kairo am 29. und 30. Oktober 1991, p. 85, n. 40.
Thomas, Nancy, Catharine H. Roehrig, Marsha Hill, James P. Allen, and Peter Brand 1995. The American Discovery of Ancient Egypt. Los Angeles, pp. 172–173, no. 75 (CR).
Capel, Anne K., Glenn E. Markoe, and Donald Spanel 1996. Mistress of the House, Mistress of Heaven: Women in Ancient Egypt. New York: Hudson Hills Press, pp. 108–109, no. 42 (AKC).
Dorman, Peter F. 2002. Faces in clay: technique, imagery, and allusion in a corpus of ceramic sculpture from Ancient Egypt, Münchner ägyptologische Studien, 52. Mainz am Rhein: P. von Zabern, 52 (2002), 77, no. 302.
2005. Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, No. 91, p.167.
Arnold, Dorothea 2005. "The Destruction of the Statues of Hatshepsut from Deir el-Bahri." In Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh, edited by Catharine H. Roehrig. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, pp. 270, 273.
Sourouzian, Hourig 2016. "Sur quelques statues encore "cachees" de la Cachette de Karnak (XIXe dynastie)." In La Cachette de Karnak: Nouvelles perspectives sur les decouvertes de Georges Legrain, 116, p. 271 n17.
Thompson, Kristin and Marsha Hill 2024. Statuary from Royal Buildings at Amarna: Its Creation and Contexts. London, p. 84.
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