Why Were Ancient Statues of This Egyptian Female Pharaoh Destroyed?
Shattered depictions of Hatshepsut have long thought to be products of her successor’s violent hatred towards her, but a new study presents a different narrative
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In the 1920s, archaeologists excavating the necropolis of Deir el-Bahri near Luxor, Egypt, found many broken statues of the ancient Egyptian queen Hatshepsut—one of the civilization’s few female pharaohs. For nearly a century, researchers have believed those statues were maliciously destroyed by Hatshepsut’s stepson and successor Thutmose III, during a smear campaign leveled against the queen after her death.
But now, a new interpretation contradicts this long-held assumption. According to a study recently published in the journal Antiquity by Jun Yi Wong, an Egyptology researcher at the University of Toronto, Hatshepsut’s broken statuary might have been mostly in line with traditions at the time, and not a sign of disrespect or displeasure with her reign.
“While the ‘shattered visage’ of Hatshepsut has come to dominate the popular perception, such an image does not reflect the treatment of her statuary to its full extent,” as Wong says in a statement published by the journal. “Many of her statues survive in relatively good condition, with their faces virtually intact.” Other statues would have been fragmented as part of the practice of “deactivation.”
Hatshepsut came to power around 1479 B.C.E., during Egypt’s 18th Dynasty, in the New Kingdom period. She had been the queen consort of Thutmose II, her husband (and half-brother). When Thutmose II died, the throne went to a son he’d had with another woman, Thutmose III. But as Thutmose III was an infant at the time, Hatshepsut ruled in his stead. Ancient Egyptian custom barred women from the title of pharaoh, but in 1473 B.C.E., Hatshepsut declared herself pharaoh anyways. She led Egypt for 22 years in all. Portraits of Hatshepsut blended masculine and feminine traits; some even depicted her with full regalia and a beard.
Fun fact: How long did ancient Egypt last?
The early dynastic period of ancient Egypt began around 3100 B.C.E., the Great Pyramids were built around 2500 B.C.E., and Cleopatra VII, considered the last independent ruler of Egypt, ruled until her death in 30 B.C.E./https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/filer_public/e8/02/e802e655-800d-4310-bdf1-7a1a76a0665c/a_small_kneeling_statue_of_hatshepsut_mma_2331_with_its_face_fully_intact-_616mm_h__325m.jpeg)
When Hatshepsut died, likely of natural causes, Thutmose III’s reign finally began in earnest, and he ruled for the following 33 years. Near the end of his life, the king ordered an erasure of Hatshepsut’s pharaonic legacy: Her statues were broken and her name was removed from Egypt’s official list of kings.
“Early archaeologists interpreted this as an act motivated by revenge and hatred; there was a stereotypical view that she must have been some form of an 'evil stepmother' to Thutmose III,” Wong tells Newsweek’s Rachael O'Connor. Historians assumed the statues “must have been broken up in some 'violent rage' by Thutmose III.”
But in examining archival material from the 1920s excavations, including unpublished notes, Wong found that the statues’ damage didn’t only date to Thutmose III’s reign. The damage can be split into phases: Some was done by Thutmose III, and some was done later, by people aiming to harvest the statues’ material.
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“Once you take away all this later damage, you find that the destruction caused by Thutmose III was limited and very methodical—the statues were broken across specific weak points, in line with what is often described as the ‘deactivation’ of Egyptian statues,” Wong tells the Art Newspaper. “This is quite surprising, because rather than being driven by hatred and animosity (as was previously assumed), the destruction of Hatshepsut's statues seems to have been motivated by pragmatic and ritualistic reasons.”
Such “deactivation” was a common ancient Egyptian practice, per the study. As Wong tells Live Science’s Owen Jarus, ancient Egyptians thought royal statues were “powerful and perhaps even living entities.” People severed statues at their weaker points, like the neck, waist and knees, intending to “neutralize the inherent power of the statues,” Wong writes.
So, while Thutmose III likely deactivated Hatshepsut’s statues to undermine her posthumous power—while attempting to scrub away the spot her reign left on his desired legacy—he may not have done so out of rage.
“Unlike the other rulers, Hatshepsut did suffer a program of persecution, and its wider political implications cannot be overstated,” Wong says in the statement. “Yet, there is room for a more nuanced understanding of Thutmose III’s actions, which were perhaps driven by ritual necessity rather than outright antipathy.”
