Interpreting the Visual Evidence
Remembering Hatshepsut
The pharaohs of Egypt's
New Kingdom were
obsessed with selfrepresentation
and they
carefully controlled their
public images. The visual language they
used was highly symbolic, an iconography
(vocabulary of images) intended to
make each successive pharaoh look as
much like his royal predecessors as possible:
godlike, steadfast, virile, authoritative
even when the pharaoh was a
woman, Hatshepsut (1479–1458 b.c.e.,
images A and B). So many statues and
portraits of her survive that nearly every
major museum in the world has at least
one (the Metropolitan Museum of Art
has a whole room set aside for them).
But many of these images show signs of
having been defaced during the reign of
her successor, Thutmose III, who was
also her nephew and stepson. Until very
recently, scholars assumed that Hatshepsut
must have usurped his powers, and
that this was his revenge. Yet the evidence
clearly shows that Hatshepsut was
Egypt's legitimate ruler. Why, then,
would Thutmose III or his heirs have
tried efface to her memory?
These two unblemished steles depict
Hatshepsut and Thutmose III. In the
stele on the left (image C), Hatshepsut
is placed in the center of the frame,
wearing a royal helmet; she is offering
wine to the god Amun. Behind her
stands Thutmose III, wearing the crown
of Upper Egypt. In the stele on the right
(image D), Thutmose III wears the warrior's
crown, while Hatshepsut wears
the double crown of Upper and Lower
Egypt and wields a mace.
Images
Questions for Analysis
1. fiogf49gjkf0d fiogf49gjkf0d Bearing in mind that few Egyptians
could read the hieroglyphs accompanying
these images, how might they
have “read” the relationship between
these two royal relatives? Does this
evidence support the hypothesis that
Thutmose was slighted by Hatshepsut? |
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2. fiogf49gjkf0d fiogf49gjkf0d What can these images tell us about
gender roles? What else would we
need to know before making a judgment
about masculine and feminine
characteristics in ancient Egypt? |
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3. fiogf49gjkf0d fiogf49gjkf0d Given that Hatshepsut was Egypt’s
legitimate pharaoh, what might have
motivated either Thutmose III or his
son Amenhotep II to deface her image
many years after her death? |
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