Hatshepsut, the First Female King in Egypt Term Paper

Introduction

Hatshepsut statue is located on Metropolitan Museum in New York and is known as one of the remarkable Egyptian Arts. The 8’6″ inches height is made of red granite globular offer jars which are placed on her hands¹. She lived through 1473 to 1458 BCE and her statue was placed on the upper court of her mortuary temple, Deir el Bari in Egypt in the 18th Dynasty. Even though most of her portraits were destroyed after she died, she was interpreted as a famous female pharaoh in that period (Gardner, 121). This article will discuss how she played an important role and how she became so popular in Egyptian Art.

The role played by Hatshepsut

Hatshepsut was very popular because she ruled Egypt for twenty-two years a time when women were not supposed to be heard. Women at that time were not supposed to own anything or to occupy any office². She was the famous female leader of Egypt after she was crowned and declared herself a king. The statue features her in the attire of the Egyptian pharaoh which was known to be a man’s role. Instead of Hatshepsut having feminine attire, the statue had a masculine look. The titles on the throne were also feminized which was not an ordinary thing in Egypt. After Hatshepsut took the throne, she made a mortuary temple next to her predecessor’s temple (Pancella 209). The temple was decorated with several statues showing her as a pharaoh giving offerings to gods and the decorations also portrayed her as a sphinx.

Hatshepsut was a clever person because she used various strategies which made her be seen as a pharaoh in Egypt and thus she would proclaim herself as pharaoh and also make herself look like a god by narrating stories relating to gods. She mislead those who were not educated that gods used to visit and talk to her when she was still in her mother’s womb. As depicted in the statue, Hatshepsut wore men’s clothing and fake beards and was also depicted as a pharaoh which earned her many adornments from the men. He used this strategy of depicting herself as a man to convince the masses after joining the priesthood.

Hatshepsut is remembered for her many achievements like ordering the repairs to be done to the temples that had been destroyed during the battles. She also paid a lot of attention to developing Egyptian commerce and restoring Egypt’s monuments which were ruined after the Hyksos occupation (Kleiner, p. 89). In her domestic policy, she encouraged trade and commerce and thus created employment by sending miners back to digging ores in the desert and increased trade too. Expeditions to Punt were made during her reign to bring back gold, ivory, wood, leopard skins, and other exotic animals. Since she wanted to be remembered just like other pharaohs, she ordered a temple and two obelisks to be built in her honor.

Hatshepsut constructed the sanctuary at Karnak, the Red Chapel, and the shrine of the Artemis and temples in several parts of Egypt. She also constructed four obelisks in Karnak which were made of granite. The Karnak temple hall was renovated and was rendered unusable for religious ceremonies. During her ruling, she commissioned numerous building projects and sculptors produced portraits of the female pharaoh in great numbers to display in those complexes but unfortunately, they were destroyed by Thutmose after Hatshepsut died (Gardner, p. 121).

During her reign, Hatshepsut got so many titles like the god’s wife of Amon which was later passed to her daughter. She was also called the Crown Prince of Egypt because she used to dress like a boy when she was young and even after getting in the thrown she wore the king’s headdress and false ceremonial beards. She achieved her greatest title after crowning herself the king of both upper and Lower Egypt (Wells, p. 114). Having achieved these titles, she was able to influence the support of the temple priests and was also able to build a very nice temple at Thebes which was a symbol that she believed to be of diving birth.

The popularity of Hatshepsut in Egyptian art

The statue of Hatshepsut depicted her wearing the costumes of male pharaohs with royal headdresses and kilts and in some cases with fake ceremonial beards. In most cases, many of her portraits had inscriptions like “His Majesty”. In some statues, she was depicted with delicate features, a slender frame, and breasts which indicated that artists also represented her as a woman. The painted low relief showed her coronation and divine birth where she was said to be the daughter of the god Amen-Re whose sanctuary was located at the temple’s uppermost level (Dell 217). The painted relief of the Hatshepsut mortuary temple constituted the first great tribute to a woman’s achievement in the history of art.

The statue indicated Hatshepsut as a woman king and the false ceremonial beards she wore which are shown in the statue showed how important she was in her kingdom. The art also represented Hatshepsut as a king trying to protect something in the temple where she was found (Gardner, p. 121). The sculpture depicts her to be very huge compared to her real image which showed her important and authoritative she was. The big size also showed her as masculine and as the king of Egypt and not the queen. The artists depicted the statue of Hatshepsut as a free-standing sculpture though there is a supporting material in between her legs and this was meant to show her highness.

Many Hatshepsut statues depicted her in various forms like on the lowest terrace to either side of the processional way, she repeatedly appeared as a sphinx. On the uppermost level, sculptors represented the female pharaoh standing or seated or in the form of a mummy. Also, eight colossal kneeling statues made of red granite lined the way to the entrance of the Amen-Re sanctuary (Dell, p. 217). In another statue, Hatshepsut is shown holding a globular offering jar in each hand as she takes part in a ritual of honoring the sun god. She wore the male royal headdress and the pharaoh ceremonial beards. The male imagery is inconsistent with the queen’s formal assumption of the title of a king and with the many inscriptions that address her as a man.

Hatshepsut as a king was a sculpture that was originally placed in a chapel and was made of hard polished and colored limestone. The sculpture was of symbolic value and featured the queen seated in the chapel waiting to receive offerings which were rituals from the worshippers (Kleiner, p. 89). The statue represented her with “slender arms which were feminine and rounded breasts which were smooth thus contrasting with her headdress which was masculine and the bull’s tail both of which were reserved for pharaohs” (Kleiner, p. 89). The sculpture depicted her dominance in the kingdom of Egypt by demonstrating that she could stump her feet on traditional enemies. Hatshepsut is depicted in a devotional attitude in one of the sculptures where she had a masculine body, ceremonial beards, and king’s headcloth which all represented attributes of a king. The sculptor placed Hatshepsut’s hands on her dress which was triangular as a symbol of devotion toward the deity. Egyptian kings used to have “devotional moments as the fulfillment of their religious role to act as intermediaries between the people and the gods” (Kleiner, p. 90). Senemut was Hatshepsut’s advisor and was of a humble origin who rose through all the administration links to become an advisor. His statue was carved from a grayish stone known as metagraywacke. The sculpture represents him kneeling holding an emblem with a hidden meaning, the sculpture also had a serpent and cow horns. Though the image looked mysterious, it showed the protection of one’s life from evil (Kleiner, p. 89).

The funeral temple which was called holy of holies combined monumental architecture and sculpture. It also integrated the temple into a cliffside which made it look very unique. The sculptures in this temple included the sky goddess who was either represented as a cow or a woman in the Egyptian society, thus giving women the strength of imagination and power. The other figures portrayed involved the jackal-headed god, meant to help in the control as well as protection of the dead in addition to facilitation of the mummification process (Gardner, p. 121). Though most of Hatshepsut’s sculptures were destroyed after her death, the metropolitan’s staff discovered some and were either wholly or partly reconstructed. One of the discovered sculptures was a lion with Hatshepsut face, ceremonial beards, and also had the king’s headdress. It had a bull’s tail which showed how powerful ancient Egyptian royalty was. The lion was originally placed at the lower terrace of the funeral temple arranged symmetrically with its counterparts acting as a protector of the royal funeral temple (Dell, p. 217).

The divine birth of a female pharaoh was shown by the relief sculpture which was in Hatshepsut temple. The pictorial cycles and texts symbolized the expedition of Punt land. At the back of her thrown, there was a goddess who was represented by a sculpture of a pregnant hippopotamus that had feline legs, and the tails at the back of its legs resembled that of a crocodile. This sculpture represented a royal protector.

Conclusion

Hatshepsut was the first female pharaoh in Egypt which made her very famous. This article has explained how her achievements made her famous even though women were not supposed to occupy offices in Egypt. She worked very hard to ensure the development of Egypt mostly through commerce and trade. She also built many temples which was also an achievement that made her popular. The article has also explained how her sculptures were famous in Egyptian art. The sculptures had symbolized her ruling and her power is the first female to be pharaoh in Egypt.

Works cited

1. Dell, Pamela, & Palmer, Rosemary. Hatshepsut: Egypt’s First Female Pharaoh. New York: Compass Point Books, 2008.
2. Gardner, Helen. Art Through the Ages. Chicago: Harcourt, Brace and company, 1969.
3. Kleiner, Fred. Gardner’s Art Through the Ages: The Western Perspective. Chicago: Cengage Learning, 2009.
4. Pancella, Peggy. Hatshepsut: First Female Pharaoh. New York: Paw Prints, 2008.
5. Wells, Evelyn Hatshepsut. Chicago Doubleday, 1969.

Footnotes

1. Dell, Pamela, & Palmer, Rosemary. Hatshepsut: Egypt’s First Female Pharaoh. New York: Compass Point Books, 2008.
2. Gardner, Helen. Art Through the Ages. Chicago: Harcourt, Brace, and company, 1969.