Hatshepsut

The iconic image of the shattered statues of Queen Hatshepsut has long been interpreted as evidence of political vengeance - an aggressive attempt by her successor, Thutmose III, to erase her memory. But new research, drawing on previously unpublished excavation records and archival materials from the Metropolitan Museum of Art's 1920s fieldwork at Deir el-Bahri, is challenging that story. Instead, it proposes a far more complex, ritualistic, and pragmatic explanation for the damage inflicted on Egypt's most famous female pharaoh's statuary. Hatshepsut: The Queen Who became Pharaoh The Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahri Fragments from an indurated limestone statue of Hatshepsut (approximately life size) (MMA 29.3.2) (photograph by Harry Burton, 1929; © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Department