Queen Hatshepsut as Goddess Mut, Dyn. 18
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Links to other views:⇒ Larger View⇒ Front Left ⇒ Frontal if scripting is off, click the ⇒ instead. Links to others from Dynasty 18Alabaster unguent jar, Dyn. 18Alabaster unguent vase, Dyn. 18 Amenhotep III as Amun-Min, Dyn 18 Amulet of Bes, Dyn. 18 Amulet of god Thoth as a Baboon, Dyn. 18 Anthropomorphic mirror handle, Dyn. 18 Basalt shawabti of a king, early Dyn. 18 Blue faience ring, udjat eye, Dyn. 18 Blue faience shawabti, Dyn.18 Bronze Horus sarcophagus, Dyn.18 Bronze insigna-pendant of Atum, Dyn. 18 Bronze of a king as Osiris, Dyn. 18 Bronze of Sakhmet seated, early Dyn. 18 Bronze statuette of Apis, Dyn. 18 Cartonnage of Princess Baket, Dyn. 18 Cartouche ring of Akhenaten, Dyn. 18 Carved face from a sarcophagus, Dyn. 18 Carved face from a sarcophagus, N.K. Copper inlay for a box, Dyn. 18 Divine scarab, reign of Thutmose IV Enameled feathers of Amun, Dyn. 18 Extensible bronze bracelet, Dyn. 18 Faience ear ornament, Dyn. 18 Foundation marker from Amenhotep III Funerary box (panel), Dyn. 18-33 Gilded ib, heart amulet, Dyn.18 Gilded mkrt, snake amulet, Dyn. 18 Gilded ‘tit’ (girdle of Isis) amulet, Dyn. 18 Granite cartouche of Akhenaten, Dyn. 18 Head, realistic portrait in stone, Dyn 18 Horus-the-Child as a ruling king, Dyn. 18 Ibis-headed Thoth with human body, Dyn.18 King Amenhotep II (?) as Amun-Re, Dyn. 18 King Horemheb as a sphinx, Dyn. 18 King Horemheb as Amun-Re, Dyn. 18 King wearing the royal headdress, Dyn. 18 Limestone shawabti, early Dyn. 18 Lotus necklace terminal, Egypt, Dyn. 18 Monumental bronze feather, Dyn. 18 Mummy mask of a young woman, Dyn. 18 Nekhbet, vulture-goddess of Nekheb New Year’s flask for sacred water, Dyn.18 Osiris, King of the Afterlife, Dyn. 18 Osiris of an unknown king, Dyn. 18 (?) Osiris-Neper, god of agriculture, Dyn. 18 Pair of udjat eyes of Horus, Dyn. 18 Palm leaf amulet, Dyn. 18-19 Palm leaf amulet, Dyn. 18-19 Pillar capital, Hathor, Dyn. 18 Polychrome glass cup, Dyn 18 Queen as Goddess Mut, Dyn.18 Queen Hatshepsut as Hathor, Dyn. 18 Queen Isis as Isis nursing Thutmose III Royal situla, sacred water vessel, Dyn.18 Royal wooden sarcophagus lid, Dyn. 18 Sakhmet amulet pendant, Dyn. 18 Sarcophagus of a king, Dyn. 18 Sarcophagus of a queen, Dyn. 18 Scarab “begets the existence of Amun” Scarab of protection, Dyn. 18 Scarab of Thutmose III, Dyn. 18 Scarab of Thutmose III, Dyn. 18 Scarab of Thutmose III, Dyn. 18 Scarab of Thutmose III, Dyn. 18 Scarab of Thutmose III, Dyn. 18 Scarab of Thutmose III, Dyn. 18 Scarab of Thutmose III, Dyn. 18 Scarab of Thutmose III, Dyn. 18 Scarab of Thutmose III, Dyn. 18 Scarab of Thutmose III, Dyn. 18 Scarab with Amun-Re, solar discs, Dyn. 18 Scarab with ‘Ba’, Dyn. 18 Scarab with “faith in Justice,” Dyn. 18 Scarab with Goddess Hathor Scarab with Horus of the Horizon, Dyn. 18 Scarab with ‘nsw-bity’, Dyn. 18 Scarab with ‘sa’ singing birds, Dyn. 18 Shawabti of Amen, vizier of Amenhotep III Shawabti of Queen Mutemwia. Dyn.18 Signet-ring of Tutankhamun, Dyn. 18 Statuette of a privileged man, Dyn. 18 Stone bust of a scribe, Dyn. 18 Stone shawabti of a Nubian viceroy, Dyn. 18 Stone statue of King Thutmose III, Dyn. 18 Two cobras from the queen’s crown Udjat eye amulet-pendant, Dyn. 18 Uninscribed wooden shawabti, Dyn. 18 Uraeus from a royal crown, Dyn. 18 Wood statue of King Smenkhkare, Dyn. 18 Wooden sarcophagus lid, Dyn. 18 Wooden sarcophagus lid, Dyn.18 Wooden sarcophagus lid, Dyn. 18 Links to others representing MutBronze of Mut, Ptolemaic PeriodQueen as Goddess Mut, Dyn.18 Links to others of type Statuette-womanBronze female dancer, Rome, 200-27 BCBronze goddess Neith, Ptolemaic Period Bronze of a queen nursing, Dyn. 25 Bronze of Ceres, Rome, 200 BC-307 AD Bronze of Goddess Nebethetepet, Dyn. 12 Bronze of Mut, Ptolemaic Period Bronze Venus, Alexandria, 50 BC-50 AD Etruscan young woman, 570-550 BC Gilded statue of a queen, Early Dynastic Hathor as a woman, cow headed, N.K. Protodynastic female statuette, Dyn. 0 Queen Aqaluqa as Isis nursing, Dyn. 25 Queen as Goddess Mut, Dyn.18 Queen as Isis nursing, Dyn. 12 Queen as Isis nursing, Dyn. 25 Queen as Isis-Hathor nursing, Dyn. 21 Queen Hatshepsut as Hathor, Dyn. 18 Queen Isis as Isis nursing Thutmose III Queen Isitnefret as Isis nursing, Dyn. 19 Queen Karama as Goddess Neith, Dyn. 22 Terracotta young woman, Greece, 450 BC Victory and Athena, terracotta, Greece Woman and girl, Tanagra, 340-300 BC Woman with elaborate headdress, Crete |
This bronze statuette portrays Queen Hatshepsut as Goddess Mut, wearing the Double Crown of Upper and Lower Egypt and a uraeus (cobra) on her forehead. She is shown seated, in the established ritual position for a king, holding the folded cloth in her right hand, and her scepter (now missing) in her left hand. Originally gilded, this statuette exhibits a level of detailing and control rarely seen in bronze work. The proportions of the crown are uncommonly perfect. The headdress was incised with absolutely parallel grooves to suggest the hair. The ears are exquisitely modeled. The feet—a body part often neglected by Egyptian bronze sculptors—and hands are scrupulously detailed, down to the finger and toe nails (even for the fingers of the right hand, which you can only see by turning the statuette upside down). The musculature of the arms—another body part that is commonly short-thrifted in bronze statuettes—is graced with unusual realism, made possible by casting the arms separately (a technique rarely used by Egyptian bronze sculptors of the period). The overall result is a tribute not only to the queen, but to the essence of Egyptian art. Her body language emanates tranquil power, while her inlaid eyes of mother of pearl and obsidian depict the intense gaze of one of the most remarkable leaders Egypt has ever known. But it is also the exquisite femininity of this sculpture that makes it so exceptional. “Sometimes, but extremely rarely, Queen Hatshepsut was portrayed not only with the fine facial features of a woman but as a woman. Aldred [New Kingdom Art in Ancient Egypt, 1951, in Vandier, 1958] hypothesizes that such statues were not exhibited, but rather meant to be sheltered in a naos [naos: the most sacred part of a temple where the emblem of the god is kept]... Hatshepsut is rarely shown standing. . . Seated, Hatshepsut was generally shown with her hands flat on her knees, but she occasionally held cloth in her clenched right hand” (Vandier 1958:300-301). Queen Hatshepsut’s throne name (Maat-Ka-Re) is displayed on the statuette’s forehead as a riddle, with the cobra (Maat), its unconventional horns of Hathor (Ka) and solar disk (Re). Egyptians were fond of such riddles. Although Maat is usually written with the feather symbol, Khalil (1976:[4]51) reports that Hatshepsut’s name was written using the cobra instead of the feather at her temple of Deir el-Bahri. This bronze statuette bears striking similarities with several known representations of Hatshepsut, such as the Red granite seated statue of Hatshepsut wearing a nemes at the Metropolitan Museum, the paint on sandstone “statue of Hatshepsut and Senynefer” at the Louvre under # E 27161, and the Sphinx of Hatshepsut # JE 53113 at Deir el-Bahri funerary temple, where her face appears small and delicately female. Hatshepsut Princess Hatshepsut, daughter of King Thotmes I and of Great Royal Spouse Aahmes II, became Great Royal Spouse of Thotmes II around 1518 BC. She gave him three children of her own (Royal Princess Neferw-Ra, Royal Princess Merit-Ra, and Royal Princess Maut-Nofret), and served as de-facto stepmother to his only son, born from a Lady of the Royal Harem named Isis. At the death of King Thotmes II, no one--not even his own son--could legitimately become king without wedding either a royal princess or the queen. But Queen Hatshepsut was apparently not interested in remarrying. So, until it was known who would wed her daughter the Royal Princess, Queen Hatshepsut “temporarily” headed the state. In the second year of her temporary role, Queen Hatshepsut briskly took over unlimited and unrestricted powers. With the approval of Hapwseneb, the Great Priest of Amen, Queen Hatshepsut was crowned King of Egypt in the Maat temple at Karnak and was given a full titulary, starting with the Horus Name Maat-Ka-Ra (“Maat is the Ka of Ra”). This coup d’état was legitimized by a strange disclosure made to Hapwseneb about a secret co-regency having existed between Hatshepsut and her father Thotmes I, prior to her wedding with Thotmes II. Whether this story of a co-regency with her father was a retroactive fabrication or not, it was a very thorough setup. Queen Hatshepsut initiated and maintained all her life an official divine cult of Thotmes I. She closed his royal tomb and transferred her father’s mummy to her sumptuous funerary temple, where she set up an inner funerary temple to the cult and glory of her father. After the death of her elder daughter Royal Princess Neferw-Ra, Queen-King Hatshepsut assured her succession by marrying her step-son to her second daughter, and appointing him as her powerless symbolic co-regent. Princess Merit-Ra became the Great Royal Spouse Merit-Ra Hatshepsut II (Gauthier 1912:[2]270). Hatshepsut ruled alone 22 years, surrounded by wise counselors headed by Senmout, her steward, tutor, spokesman, architect, and vizier. Hatshepsut’s leadership made for a peaceful reign, with little political opposition, and the support of her people. She brought prosperity to the nation, fostered quality and refinement in the arts, innovation in architecture, and presided over the embellishment of Karnak. All the while, she upheld Egypt’s prestige, influence and leadership abroad. Her reign was a harmonious and peaceful pause to a long succession of warrior kings. The Five Names of Pharaoh Like every Egyptian, a future pharaoh was given a name at birth, and that name sufficed for a man—even a man of royal descent. But the coronation of a king of Egypt was viewed as a metamorphosis where a mere mortal was recognized as a pharaoh, a son of Ra, a living god (or, more accurately, the embodiment of the god Horus). And on that day, with that new identity, he needed a new name—a royal name. As Egyptian history unfolded, the royal naming tradition evolved from a single royal name into a “classic titulary” comprising five names in the following sequence: Horus Name It all started in the first dynasties with the Horus name, which clearly remained the only proper way to refer to a king throughout the first three dynasties. This name was displayed in a rectangular frame, called a serekh, depicting the paneled facade of an early royal palace. This serekh was surmounted with the image of a falcon. The name inside the serekh (“Powerful in Heart”, “Pleasing in Powers”, “Cobra”) did not refer to Horus. That the falcon indeed represents Horus, god of order—and not just any falcon—became clear when King Peribsen had the falcon replaced with an image of Seth, god of chaos. As a graphic device, the serekh clearly sets the king's name apart from any other text, which both reinforces the status of the king, and aids in reading a language devoid of punctuation. The title He of the Sedge and the Bee, sometimes abbreviated to He of the Sedge, was the Egyptian way of saying “King of Egypt” (the sedge is a rush-like plant that grows in marshes). Contrary to popular belief, “Sedge” and “Bee” did not initially represent Upper and Lower Egypt, but rather were an expression of the duality so dear to Egyptian thought. The title by itself first appeared during King Den's reign (Dynasty 1, circa 3050 BC) , but it wasn't yet associated with a name. Twenty years later, King Anedjib first used He of the Sedge along with an alternate name for himself, but the use of this new throne name remained limited to special occasions for the next few hundred years. With the end of Dynasty 3 (2613 BC), the Horus name suddenly started losing importance. Egyptians invented a new graphic device to contain and set apart a second name for the king. This new symbol, a carefully plaited and knotted loop of rope elongated as needed to accommodate names of varying length, is the cartouche design so familiar to us as ensign of Egyptian royalty. We do not know whether the cartouche initially contained the king’s throne name or his birth name. But we can tell that this “cartouche name” forever replaced the Horus name as the usual way to refer to the king. With Neferirkare, third king of Dynasty 5 (2744 BC), a second cartouche name appeared. We believe that as long as the king reigned over the country, Egyptians used his throne name (first cartouche), but when he died (and was therefore no longer king), they reverted to his birth name (second cartouche). A little over a hundred years later (Dynasty 6), Egyptians started using the king’s birth name during his reign. Hence, the birth name of the king, which had been of little importance in the first two dynasties (indeed, we have no knowledge of the birth names of these kings), became an intrinsic part of his royal identity. Even though cartouche names were popular, until King Mentuhotep of Dynasty 11 (2060 BC), the Horus name remained the truly unique name of a pharaoh. Kings sometimes changed their throne names to advertise changes in political orientation, but would never have considered changing their Horus name. In a marked departure, Mentuhotep, who ushered in the Middle Kingdom by reunifying Egypt, marked the progression of his 50-year reign with evolving Horus names: first “He who Gives Heart to the Two Lands”, then “Lord of the White Crown”, and finally in year 39 “Uniter of the Two Lands”. From then on, it was the cartouche names and not the Horus name that expressed the unique identity of a king. This switch probably reflects a profound change in the religious character of kingship. The king had become first and foremost King and Son of Ra, and secondarily the Living Horus. The Gold and Nebty names, whose origin can be traced to Dynasty 1, did become an integral part of the “classic titulary,” but remained of marginal use. The gold sign first appeared next to the serekh of King Den of Dynasty 1. Eventually, it became a title introducing an alternate name for the king. King Snefru of Dynasty 4 first combined the gold sign with the falcon, and his successor King Khafre furthered the idea and coined the titled name “Gold, Horus the Powerful”. But it is not until Dynasty 13 that “Horus of Gold” became an immutable title. The title He of the Two Ladies was first used by King Semerkhet of Dynasty 1 as part of a name introduced by He of the Sedge. The “two ladies” in question are Goddess Wadjet and Goddess Nekhbet, later attached to the northernmost and southernmost cities of the kingdom. With King Senusret II of Dynasty 12 (1897 BC), “He of the Two Ladies” clearly became a title introducing a separate name. With Senusret II, the “classic” five-name titulary took its final form. The Horus, throne, and birth names remained the only names set apart from regular text by graphic elements. And although the five names rarely appeared together after the occasion of his installation, the original sequence (Horus, Nebty, gold, throne, and birth) endured throughout the remainder of Egyptian civilization. Bibliography (for this item)Aubert, Jacques-F., and Liliane Aubert1974 Statuettes égyptiennes: chaouabtis, ouchebtis. Librairie d’Amerique et d’ Orient, Paris, France. Budge, E. A. Wallis, Sir 1969 The Gods of the Egyptians or studies in Egyptian Mythology (unabridged republication of the 1904 edition by the Open Court Publishing Company). Dover Publications, New York, NY. Clayton, Peter A. 1994 Chronicle of the Pharaohs: The Reign-by-Reign Record of the Rulers and Dynasties of Ancient Egypt. Thames and Hudson, London, UK. Eydoux, Henri-Paul 1964 Les grandes dames de l’archéologie. Plon, Paris, France. (:19) Gauthier, Henri 1912 Le livre des rois d’Egypte. Tome 2: de la XIIIe à la fin de la XVIIIe dynastie. Institut Français d’Archeologie Orientale, Cairo, Egypt. Gauthier, Henri 1912 Le livre des rois d’Egypte. Tome 3: de la XIXe à la XXIVe dynastie. Institut Français d’Archeologie Orientale, Cairo, Egypt. Grimal, Nicolas 1988 Histoire de l’Egypte ancienne. Fayard, Paris, France. Grimal, Nicolas 1994 A History of Ancient Egypt (Reprint of the 1994 edition, translated by Ian Shaw). Blackwell, Oxford, United Kingdom. (313) Hart, George 1986 A Dictionary of Egyptian Gods and Goddesses. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, United Kingdom. (128-129) Ions, Veronica 1969 Mythologie Egyptienne (Translation of the 1968 edition by the Hamlyn Publishing Group). ODEGE, Paris, France. Khalil, Hassan M. 1976 Preliminary Studies on the Sanusret Collection. Manuscript, Musée l’Egypte et le Monde Antique, Monaco-Ville, Monaco. ([4]39-53) Matouk, Fouad S. 1971 Corpus du scarabé égyptien. Tome 1: Les scarabés royaux. Fouad Matouk, Beyrut, Lebanon. (197 Scarabs # 747,748,749,750) Mysliwiec, Karol 2000 The Twilight of Ancient Egypt, First Millenium B.C.E.. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY. (34) Russmann, Edna R. 2001 Eternal Egypt: Masterworks of Ancient Art from the British Museum. University of California Press, Berkeley. (24-25) Tiradritti, Francesco 1998 Egyptian Treasures from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. White Star Publishers, Vercelli, Italy. (162,290-291) Vandier, J 1958 Manuel d’Archeologie Egyptienne. Tome III: Les grandes époques—la statuaire. A. et J. Picard, Paris, France. (300-301) Ziegler, Christiane 1997 The Louvre: Egyptian Antiquities (Reprint of 1990 edition). Edition Scala, Paris, France. (:59) Bibliography (on Hatshepsut )Gauthier, Henri1912 Le livre des rois d’Egypte. Tome 2: de la XIIIe à la fin de la XVIIIe dynastie. Institut Français d’Archeologie Orientale, Cairo, Egypt. Bibliography (on The Five Names of Pharaoh)Clayton, Peter A.1994 Chronicle of the Pharaohs: The Reign-by-Reign Record of the Rulers and Dynasties of Ancient Egypt. Thames and Hudson, London, UK. Quirke, Stephen 1990 Who Were the Pharaohs? A History of their Names with a List of Cartouches. Dover Publications, New York, NY. Rice, Michael 1991 Egypt’s Making: The Origin’s of Ancient Egypt, 5000-2000 B.C.. Routledge, New York, NY. |
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