kingship moved from carefully calculated audacity to full maturity. She had long since masculinized her images, and her co-king was now a partner in rule, leading Egypt’s armies on campaign. The lengthy text places her unusual kingship within the context of religious ideology, making sure to tell her people that everything she had achieved was the will of her father, the god Amen.
© Vanni Archive/Corbis
After her coronation, Hatshepsut’s first moments as king likely took place in a throne room, seated on a raised dais, and she may have looked much like this red granite statue depicting her wearing a traditional, tight-fitting linen sheath dress but also the masculine
nemes
head cloth of an Egyptian king. The sight must have been strange to behold for all those accustomed to the divine system of masculine kingship.
Rogers Fund, 1929, Torso lent by Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Leiden (L.1998.80), © The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Early on in her kingship, Hatshepsut attempted to add a layer of masculinity to her feminine forms, and halfway measures resulted in strange androgyny. On this life-size limestone statue from her Temple of Millions of Years, she shows herself without a shirt, wearing only a king’s kilt, but she retains her gracile shoulders, delicate facial features, and even the generous hint of feminine breasts. The statue is shocking in its blend of masculinity and femininity. It is unknown if she ever dressed this way in public rituals or in festival procession.
Rogers Fund, 1929, © The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Eventually, Hatshepsut opted for a fully masculinized image in her statuary, showing herself with wide and strong shoulders, firm pectoral muscles, and no sign of breasts. Even her face is altered: the fuller cheeks and a stronger aquiline nose replaced the Barbie-doll nose of previous portraits. This change in depiction accompanied her own aging process, and we can only wonder how Hatshepsut herself dressed as she got older.
Rogers Fund, 1928, © The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Some twenty years after Hatshepsut’s death, Thutmose III sent chisel bearers throughout the land to remove her name and images from Egypt’s sacred temple monuments. Here, in the heart of Karnak temple, artisans so carefully chiseled out her human form that the shadow of her former kingship still haunts Amen’s temple walls.
De Agostini Picture Library via Getty Images
This sketch of Hatshepsut’s key lieutenant, Senenmut, looks quite different from the sweet, childlike face shown on his statuary. These portraits betray not only his age, but perhaps also a hint of his shrewd character. His was not the handsome, banal face we see in formal images, but one carved by lines of age. Many such sketches were found in Senenmut’s burial chamber, and on the back of one is the inscription “a lean hairy rat with massively long whiskers,” maybe referring to the reputation of the man himself and betraying the reason so many of his monuments were destroyed after his death.
Anonymous gift, 1931, © The Metropolitan Museum of Art
With the King’s Daughter Nefrure’s tiny head peeking out of Senenmut’s enfolding garments, this statue communicates warmth, love, and protective embrace; by the same token, this publicly displayed stone block constituted an unmistakable and presumptuous communication to all of Senenmut’s peers that his access to Hatshepsut was unrivaled.
© Werner Forman/Corbis
Shown as a queen wearing a king’s crown on this limestone block from the heart of Karnak’s Temple, Hatshepsut audaciously names herself as King of Upper and Lower Egypt and includes her newly granted throne name Maatkare (The Soul of Re Is Truth), all of it, it seems, before the coronation that should grant such divine privileges.
Block discovered by Henri Chevrier at Karnak Temple in 1933, Luxor Museum, drawing by Deborah Shieh
In this relief from a limestone temple once erected at Karnak, Hatshepsut is depicted as the
© Vanni Archive/Corbis
After her coronation, Hatshepsut’s first moments as king likely took place in a throne room, seated on a raised dais, and she may have looked much like this red granite statue depicting her wearing a traditional, tight-fitting linen sheath dress but also the masculine
nemes
head cloth of an Egyptian king. The sight must have been strange to behold for all those accustomed to the divine system of masculine kingship.
Rogers Fund, 1929, Torso lent by Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Leiden (L.1998.80), © The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Early on in her kingship, Hatshepsut attempted to add a layer of masculinity to her feminine forms, and halfway measures resulted in strange androgyny. On this life-size limestone statue from her Temple of Millions of Years, she shows herself without a shirt, wearing only a king’s kilt, but she retains her gracile shoulders, delicate facial features, and even the generous hint of feminine breasts. The statue is shocking in its blend of masculinity and femininity. It is unknown if she ever dressed this way in public rituals or in festival procession.
Rogers Fund, 1929, © The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Eventually, Hatshepsut opted for a fully masculinized image in her statuary, showing herself with wide and strong shoulders, firm pectoral muscles, and no sign of breasts. Even her face is altered: the fuller cheeks and a stronger aquiline nose replaced the Barbie-doll nose of previous portraits. This change in depiction accompanied her own aging process, and we can only wonder how Hatshepsut herself dressed as she got older.
Rogers Fund, 1928, © The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Some twenty years after Hatshepsut’s death, Thutmose III sent chisel bearers throughout the land to remove her name and images from Egypt’s sacred temple monuments. Here, in the heart of Karnak temple, artisans so carefully chiseled out her human form that the shadow of her former kingship still haunts Amen’s temple walls.
De Agostini Picture Library via Getty Images
This sketch of Hatshepsut’s key lieutenant, Senenmut, looks quite different from the sweet, childlike face shown on his statuary. These portraits betray not only his age, but perhaps also a hint of his shrewd character. His was not the handsome, banal face we see in formal images, but one carved by lines of age. Many such sketches were found in Senenmut’s burial chamber, and on the back of one is the inscription “a lean hairy rat with massively long whiskers,” maybe referring to the reputation of the man himself and betraying the reason so many of his monuments were destroyed after his death.
Anonymous gift, 1931, © The Metropolitan Museum of Art
With the King’s Daughter Nefrure’s tiny head peeking out of Senenmut’s enfolding garments, this statue communicates warmth, love, and protective embrace; by the same token, this publicly displayed stone block constituted an unmistakable and presumptuous communication to all of Senenmut’s peers that his access to Hatshepsut was unrivaled.
© Werner Forman/Corbis
Shown as a queen wearing a king’s crown on this limestone block from the heart of Karnak’s Temple, Hatshepsut audaciously names herself as King of Upper and Lower Egypt and includes her newly granted throne name Maatkare (The Soul of Re Is Truth), all of it, it seems, before the coronation that should grant such divine privileges.
Block discovered by Henri Chevrier at Karnak Temple in 1933, Luxor Museum, drawing by Deborah Shieh
In this relief from a limestone temple once erected at Karnak, Hatshepsut is depicted as the
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