US EditionWe Finally Know Why Queen Hatshepsut's Statues Were Destroyed in Ancient Egypt
- Egyptian pharaoh Hatshepsut, who ruled during the Eighteenth Dynasty until her death in 1458 BC, had numerous statues found damaged at Deir el-Bahri, a condition now believed to be part of a ritual practice rather than an act of deliberate destruction.
- While early scholars believed her nephew Thutmose III ordered the statue destruction out of resentment, recent research finds this interpretation too simplistic and incomplete.
- Archaeological records from the 1920s show statues were broken methodically at structural weak points to 'deactivate' them, a ritual also applied to male pharaohs' statues after death.
- Dr. Jun Yi Wong explained that much of the damage to the statues came from their reuse as construction materials, and stressed that such actions should not be automatically interpreted as deliberate acts of animosity toward the individuals portrayed.
- These findings suggest Hatshepsut's statues met the same fate as other pharaohs', indicating a ritual practice rather than gender-based erasure or deliberate vendetta with broader political implications.
17 Articles
17 Articles
Egypt's forgotten female pharaoh was not erased from history because of her gender, study finds
Fresh research has suggested that the gender of the Egyptian pharaoh Hatshepsut was not the reason she seemingly vanished from history.The pioneering ruler, who crowned herself king and governed Egypt for two decades until 1458 BC, has long been thought to have suffered deliberate erasure by her male successors. A University of Toronto study revealed that damaged statues of Hatshepsut were not destroyed out of gender-based animosity as previousl…
It was long believed that damage to statues of the Egyptian pharaoh Hatshepsut was the result of settling accounts with the queen's inheritance after her death, but a new study suggests that it was likely just part of a ritual.
Archaeologists Finally Uncover Why Pharaoh Hatshepsut’s Statues Were Destroyed
Fragments from a life-size indurated limestone statue of Hatshepsut. Credit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art / CC BY 4.0 For nearly a century, scholars believed that Egypt’s powerful female Pharaoh Hatshepsut’s statues were the target of a posthumous revenge campaign. The widely accepted theory claimed that her nephew and successor, Thutmose III, ordered her statues destroyed to erase her from history. New research now disputes that view. A recen…
Coverage Details
Bias Distribution
- 50% of the sources lean Right
To view factuality data please Upgrade to Premium
