Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh

Roehrig, Catharine H., ed., with Renée Dreyfus and Cathleen A. Keller (2005)

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Cleopatra may be the most famous woman of ancient Egypt, but far more significant was Hatshepsut, a female pharaoh who reigned for nearly twenty years in the fifteenth century B.C., during the early period of the New Kingdom. After acting as regent for her young nephew-stepson Thutmose III, Hatshepsut assumed the title of king and exercised the full powers of the throne as senior co-ruler with Thutmose. In accordance with Egyptian ideology and representational tradition, she was often depicted as a male king. Hatshepsut's reign, fully accepted by a flourishing Egypt, introduced a period of immense artistic creativity. Some twenty years after her death, however, monuments bearing her image were ruthlessly defaced, and her name was erased from historical accounts.

All memory of this fascinating history in pharaonic lore was lost until mid-nineteenth century, when Hatshepsut was rediscovered by Egyptologists and her place in history restored. Excavation began on her most magnificent surviving monument—the temple she built at Deir el-Bahri near the Valley of the Kings, across the Nile from modern Luxor. Thousands of stone fragments found in pits near the temple were reassembled into magnificent statues of Hatshepsut, some of colossal proportions. Discoveries continue even today, and, accordingly, scholars' opinions about the historical role of this controversial female have continued to change. The ongoing debate about her reign has inspired the many authors of this volume, which accompanies a major exhibition at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco/de Young, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth. Recent research on Hatshepsut and the nature of her kingship is presented alongside wide-ranging discussions of the rich artistic production that marked her reign.

Essays by leading Egyptologists investigate the circumstances that allowed or compelled Hatshepsut to become king; the relationship between Hatshepsut and Thutmose III during their joint reign; powerful figures in the royal court, particularly Senenmut, Hatshepsut's architect and steward; Hatshepsut's adoption of the Egyptian conventions of royal representation in order to bolster her legitimacy, as well as her use of architecture to make political statements; and her successors' motivation for obliterating her memory. The glories of the art produced during Hatshepsut's reign are also fully explored, with discussions of the artistic results of Egypt's contact with the neighboring cultures of the Near East, Nubia, and the Aegean, and of the development of the styles displayed in monumental royal sculpture, reliefs, ceremonial objects, exquisite personal items of everyday use, and a dazzling array of jewelry. Works in the exhibition are illustrated in full color and analyzed in the two hundred catalogue entries. Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh is an important investigation into the impact of Hatshepsut's reign on the history, culture, and splendid artistic output of ancient Egypt.

Table of contents

Director's Foreword
Acknowledgments
Lenders to the Exhibition
Contributors to the Catalogue
List of Maps and Plans
Note to the Reader

Introduction
Catharine H. Roehrig, Renée Dreyfus, and Cathleen A. Keller

Chronology: Kingdom, Dynastic, and Regnal Dates

Genealogy of Hatshepsut's Family

I. Setting the Scene

Models of Authority: Hatshepsut's Predecessors in Power
Ann Macy Roth

The Burial of a Royal Woman and Child of the Late Seventeenth Dynasty
Catharine H. Roehrig

Art in Transition: The Rise of the Eighteenth Dynasty and the Emergence of the Thutmoside Style in Sculpture and Relief
Edna R. Russmann

Painting in the Early Eighteenth Dynasty
Catharine H. Roehrig

Egypts Contacts with Neighboring Cultures

Egypt and Nubia: Conflict with the Kingdom of Kush
W. Vivian Davies

Egypt and the Near East: Evidence of Contact in the Material Record
Christine Lilyquist

Glass
Catharine H. Roehrig

The Tomb of Maiherperi in the Valley of the Kings
Catharine H. Roehrig

Egypt and the Aegean: Cultural Convergence in a Thutmoside Palace at Avaris
Manfred Bietak

The Role of Amun
James P. Allen

II. Hatshepsut and her Court

Hatshepsut: Princess to Queen to Co-Ruler
Peter F. Dorman

The Tomb of Ramose and Hatnefer
Peter F. Dorman

The Joint Reign of Hatshepsut and Thutmose III
Cathleen A. Keller

The Royal Court
Cathleen A. Keller

The Royal Steward, Senenmut

The Career of Senenmut
Peter F. Dorman

Senenmut, Royal Tutor to Princess Neferure
Catharine H. Roehrig

The Statuary of Senenmut
Cathleen A. Keller

The Tombs of Senenmut
Peter F. Dorman

III. Hatshepsut's Building Projects

Djeser-Djeseru

The Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahri
Dieter Arnold

Foundation Deposits for the Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahri
Catharine H. Roehrig

Hatshepsut's Mortuary Temple At Deir el-Bahri: Architecture as Political Statement
Ann Macy Roth

The Statuary of Hatshepsut
Cathleen A. Keller

The Shrines to Hathor at Deir el-Bahri
Diana Craig Patch

Faience Bowls
Susan J. Allen

The Temple of Mut: New Evidence on Hatshepsut's Building Activity
Betsy M. Bryan

The Two Tombs of Hatshepsut
Catharine H. Roehrig

IV. Decorative Arts

Jewelry in the Early Eighteenth Dynasty
Diana Craig Patch

Cosmetic Equipment
Diana Craig Patch

Pottery and Stone Vessels in the Reign of Hatshepsut and Thutmore III
Susan J. Allen

Figure Vases
Catharine H. Roehrig

Animal Vases
Renée Dreyfus

Metalwork
Renée Dreyfus

Furniture and Carpentry
Renée Dreyfus

V. The Proscription

After Hatshepsut: The Military Campaigns of Thutmose III
James P. Allen

The Destruction of Hatshepsut's Memory

The Proscription of Hatshepsut
Peter F. Dorman

The Destruction of the Statues of Hatshepsut from Deir el-Bahri
Dorothea Arnold

Erasing a Reign
Ann Macy Roth

VI. The Aftermath

The Temple of Thutmose III at Deir el-Bahri
Jadwiga Lipinska

A Chronology: The Later History and Excavations of the Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahri
Dorothea Arnold

Hatshepsut's Reputation in History
Cathleen A. Keller

Appendix: Inscriptions of Senenmut

Glossary
Bibliography
Index
Photograph Credits

About the authors

Catharine H. Roehrig is Curator in the Department of Egyptian Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Renée Dreyfus is Curator of Ancient Art and Interpretation at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

Cathleen A. Keller is Professor in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.

Press reviews

The New York Times

"... lucid catalog ... enhances this diffuse show as it explains it."

Library Journal

"... handsomely produced and scholarly ... Although of interest to scholars, this catalog is readily accessible to general readers and will enthrall library patrons with an interest in ancient Egypt."

Choice Reviews Online

"A collection of brief, accessible essays that present current scholarship in this period of Egypt's golden age enhances this wide-ranging selection of art and artifacts. Highly recommended."

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Exhibition

Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh

Hatshepsut (Hat-shep-soot), the first important female ruler known to history, lived a thousand years after the pyramids were built and seventeen centuries after the Egyptians had begun writing their language in hieroglyphs. She ruled Egypt for two decades (ca. 1473–1458 B.C.) during Egypt's Dynasty 18. Although less familiar to modern audiences than her much later successor, the notorious Cleopatra (51–30 B.C.), Hatshepsut's achievements were far more significant. Ruling first as regent for, then as co-ruler with, her nephew Thutmose III (who ruled for another thirty-three years after her death), Hatshepsut enjoyed a relatively peaceful reign, at the beginning of the New Kingdom. During this time, she restored monuments destroyed during the disruptive Second Intermediate Period, when northern Egypt was controlled by a dynasty of Asian princes and southern Egypt by a dynasty of Egyptians based in Thebes. She renewed trade with western Asia to the east, the far-off land of Punt to the south, and the Aegean Islands to the north. The resulting economic prosperity was reflected in the art of the time, which is characterized by remarkable innovations in sculpture and decorative arts and produced such architectural marvels as Hatshepsut's mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahri. For reasons that are still unclear, twenty years after Hatshepsut died her nephew had her statues smashed and her name and image erased from all monuments. In spite of this deliberate destruction, the memory of a female ruler persisted for more than a thousand years. In the third century B.C., an Egyptian priest named Manetho, who was writing a history of Egypt, included a twenty-one year reign for a female pharaoh in early Dynasty 18....

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