The standing statue of Hatshepsut

Reigned from 1490 – 1470 B.C

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Hatshepsut was the daughter of Thutmosis I from queen Ahmes. When her father died her brother Thutmosis II from a lesser queen married her to strengthen his claim to the throne of Egypt. She was a woman of a strong character and in the contrary was her husband and brother Thutmosis II. He was of a weak character and also suffering form ill health. Unfortunately, Hatshepsut was not able to give birth to a boy from Thutmosis II. She only gave birth to girls and at the same time her husband had a secondary wife who gave birth to a boy called Thutmosis III. As Thutmosis II was of weak character so Hatshepsut was able to share him in ruling the country, in other words to rule the country from behind the curtains during his life time and after his death since his son was still young so he was under her regency. She respected the conventional form of the regency at the beginning but after a while she began to rule the country by herself. Hatshepsut was supported by a group of able and powerful men which included her favorite Senmut the architect of El Deir El Bahari. His father Senmen and Nehry the leader of punt expedition. Hatshepsut soon felt powerful enough, with this able support, to declare herself supreme ruler of the country and not as a queen regent but as a king. in the relieves of the funerary Temple at Deir El Bahari which she commenced at this time is built up an elaborate fiction to support her rule as king. Not only is she represented in male dress and with the royal beard, but is shown crowned by her father Thutmosis I as in the case of other rulers, the legitimacy of whose was uncertain. Hatshepsut represents herself as the daughter of the state god Amen who came to her mother Ahmes in the guise of her husband Thutmosis I.

The twenty one peaceful years of Hatshepsut’s reign were prosperous ones for Egypt. She concentrated her attention on upon the inner administration of the country and upon great building projects. She undertook the restoration of monuments ravaged by the Hyksos which her predecessors, engaged in foreign wars, had found no time to repair. Her one great foreign project was of a commercial nature. The ambitious trading expedition to punt so magnificently recorded in relieves of the Deir El Bahari Temple. It’s evident that the two achievements of which Hatshepsut was most proud were the punt expedition and the raising of the two great obelisks at Karnak. And finally we can say that Queen Hatshepsut left behind her a well organized and wealthy country which enabled the new king Thutmosis III to devote his attention to foreign conquest.

Hatshepsut assumed the title of the king of Upper and Lower Egypt and represented herself in all her monuments as a king wearing the same headdress of the king, the same false royal beard, the kilt, stepping with her left leg forward refusing to be treated and represented as a queen, but as a man with the same powerful body.

In front of us is one of her statues representing her standing with all signs of royalty. It is made out of pink granite brought from Aswan quarries. It was excavated by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1926-1927 in her mortuary temple at El Deir El Bahari in the upper gate of her vestibule.

As mentioned before that she is not represented as a queen but as a king of Upper and Lower Egypt wearing the royal headdress nms with a uraeus attached to the forehead, she is represented with the royal beard and the royal kilt with a dagger as sign of power and royalty. The kilt is decorated with the representations of rays of the sun coming up wards from both sides of the kilt and gathering in the middle of the belt as if to alight the name of the queen which is written inside the cartouche reading mAat kA ra meaning the justice of the soul of Re.

Inscription on the belt:

nTr nfr nb ir xt mAat kA ra di anx Dt

The good god, lord of action, the justice of the k3 of Re, given life forever

The other name of Hatshepsut is xnmt im hAt Sp sut meaning who is before the nobles

She is represented putting her arms over the starched kilt with a left leg stepped forward and under her feet we can see nine bows representing the traditional enemies of Egypt. These enemies changed from one period to another and there is a recent theory mentioning that they were only three enemies and they multiplied as a king of exaggeration. 

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�ġ��'text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph'>The statue:

This statue belongs to Qeen Hatshepsut. It is made out of pink granite which was quarried form Aswan. It was found in the site of Deir El Bahari. Most of the kings used to represent themselves in the form of sphinxes as a king of power and wisdom. Thus, Queen Hatshepsut represents herself in this form in order to show that she is not less than any king that ruled Egypt. The queen is represented wearing a striped nms head dress protected by a uraeus but unfortunately it is completely damaged. The false royal beard is attached to her chin by two bands which rejoin the head dress. She is also wearing a wide collar and we can see the lock of hair that gathered behind her head known as Lapis Lazoli of god Re. one can easily recognize in this sphinx the remarkable features of the queen which have been preserved for us in numerous portraits such as the feline eyes, the arched nose, the full cheeks and delicate mouth with slightly incurved lower lip. On the sphinx’s chest an inscription in sunken relief gives the coronation name of Queen Hatshepsut nsw bity mAat kA ra king of Upper and Lower Egypt soul of justice of god Re. while the rest of the inscription is completely erased. We don’t know who exactly had done this but most probably king Thutmosis III is responsible for erasing the queen’s name and titles. We can notice that the muscles and veins of the lion are well elaborated as a kind of showing power and strength. Thus, the sculptor was skillful enough to show all the feminine features of the queen.

The second statue:

This statue is made out of limestone which was quarried from Maasara Turah and Mokattam hills. The queen is represented wearing the pleated nms head dress with frontal uraeus which is badly damaged. The false royal beard is attached to the chin by means of straps. Part of the head is damaged “the nose”.

The hybrid alliance between the man and the lion is artistically achieved and the well known elegance of Hatshepsut’s statues transpires even through the lion’s body whose permanent musculature and stylized ribs are represented with great dexterity. On the sphinx’s chest an inscription in sunken relief gives the coronation name of the queen:

Nsw bity mAat kA ra mry imn di anx Dt

King of Upper and Lower Egypt, the soul of justice of god Re, beloved of god Amen who was given life for ever.

This sphinx is having a human’s face with a lion’s mane and body. The features of the face are for Queen Hatshepsut, the famous queen of the New Kingdom, the statue was found in the site of Deir El Bahari