Hatshepsut (ca. 1505–1458 BCE), the most powerful of ancient Egypt’s female rulers, was also one of the most successful, notable for reopening old trade routes, commissioning massive building projects—including her own mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahri—and ushering in an era of political stability, economic growth, and artistic innovation. Her rise to the throne began when, after the death of her husband Thutmose II, she appointed herself regent for her young stepson, Thutmose III; some years into her regency, she claimed the title of pharaoh, fashioning herself as a living god.
Yet as archeologists discovered when excavating Deir el-Barhri in the early 20th century, all physical reminders of Hatshepsut and her 20-year reign seemed to have been subjected to systematic destruction after her death, with her cartouches hacked from walls and obelisks and sculptures of her broken into pieces. Scholars once assumed that the defacement was carried out by a vengeful Thutmose III, who finally succeeded her. More recent theories have proposed less dramatic reasons for her erasure, including the need to legitimize a male heir (or delegitimize a powerful woman).
In an article published in the journal Antiquity last June, however, Jun Yi Wong, a doctoral candidate in Egyptology at the University of Toronto, lays out a more nuanced explanation for the damage. Reassessing excavation records, he writes that although Thutmose III was responsible for the removal of Hatshepsut’s name and image from temple walls, his motivations for doing so remain contentious.
On the other hand, in Wong’s view, the damage to sculptures of Hatshepsut did not have a single cause. While deliberate breakage of her statues at the neck, waist, and knees indicate what he calls a ritualistic “deactivation” of Hatshepsut’s spiritual power by Thutmose III, Wong suggests that much subsequent damage may have derived from the repurposing of deactivated sculptures as raw building material or construction fill.
Wong concludes that while Hatshepsut did suffer a greater degree of persecution after her death than other rulers, Thutmose III’s actions—largely confined to major temples—were likely driven by ritual necessity rather than animosity, with much of the damage to her images incidental rather than deliberate.
“The remainder of the attacks to her figure and name were essentially a scrubbing or re-ascription of her male kingship, and her earlier queenly portrayals were rarely touched,” Peter F. Dorman, an emeritus professor of Egyptology and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago, told the New York Times, which reported on Wong and his research yesterday. “Such niceties are critical in interpreting the political context of ancient history.”
