Hatshepsut statues were destroyed because of their supernatural powers

It was not a vendetta From the nephew, Tutmés III, to erase the image of the female Hatshepsut Pharaoh, reveals a new study. Some of his statues were “ritually disabled” to eliminate their supposed supernatural powers.

During the last 100 years, the Egyptologists have thought that when the powerful female pharaoh Hatshepsut Died, his nephew and successor would have started a vendetta against the late Egyptian queen, purposely destroying all his statues to the erase from public memory.

Now, a new study reveals that after all It wasn’t quite like that.

Although many Hatshepsut statues were intentionally broken, the reason behind their destruction It has nothing to do with its genre or even with the intention of erasing its existence, the Egyptologist states Jun Yi Wong.

Instead, the Hatshepsut statues were broken to “disable” and so eliminate your supposed supernatural powersconcludes one published on Tuesday in Antiquity magazine.

The Pharaoh Hatshepsut, which ruled the ancient Egypt between 1473 and 1458 BC, became known to have commissioned the construction of Deir El-Bahri’s beautiful templenear the old Thebes (present-day luxor), and for ordering a successful expedition of Egypt to a land known as “Punt”, whose precise location is currently a cause for debate.

Hatshepsut era Pharaoh Tutmés II wife and half sister which reigned between 1492 and 1479 BC, and should have been regent of his stepson Tutmés III. However, instead of doing so, it became Pharaoh by own rightwhile Tutmés III was co-regent with limited power.

According to, after the death of Hatshepsut, many of his statues Fintentionally setincluding those who adorned the temple of Deir El-Bahri, where in the 1920s and 1930s archaeologists found party remains of their statues buried in wells.

It was believed that these statues would have been matches by order of Tutmés III After the death of Hatshepsut, as a form of retaliation. However, the new study suggests that these statues were actually “Ritually disabled”just as those belonging to other pharaohs.

In the study, the Egyptologist Jun Yi Wonga researcher at the University of Toronto, examined file records from Deir El-Bahri statues that were found in the 1920s and 1930s.

Wong found that the statues were not crushed on the face and they didn’t have their registrations destroyed. Instead, they were neck matchesWaist and feet – something observed in statues of other Egyptian pharaohs during a process that modern Egyptologists call “ritual deactivation.”

The ancient Egyptians saw the statues “as powerful entities And perhaps even alive, ”Wong explains to Live Science. When a Pharaoh died, the ancient Egyptians were common deactivate their statues by starting them at weaknessesthat is, neck, waist and feet, Wong noted.

“Deactivated statues deposits were found in multiple locations in Egypt and Sudan,” said Wong. “One of the best known discoveries in the history of Egyptian archeology is the Karnak’s hiding place, where hundreds of pharaoh statues – from several centuries – were found in a single deposit. Great most statues were deactivated“.

This does not mean that Hatshepsut was not target of political persecution after your death. “There is no doubt that Hatshepsut suffered a persecution campaign – in many monuments throughout Egypt, his images and names were systematically removed“Says Wong.“ We know that this chase campaign was started by Tutmés IIIbut we don’t know exactly why. ”

The fact that their statues in Deir El-Bahri were normally disabled as images and inscriptions their other places were violently attacked suggests that the persecution it suffered may not have been for personal reasons.

The fact that the statues in Deir El-Bahri were normally disabled while statues their places were attacked more violently suggests that Tutmés III It may have felt that it had to pursue Hatshepsut for political reasons, and due to concerns about his reign by his supporters.

“The first Egyptologists assumed that Tutmés III should nourish intense hatred Por hatshepsut, But it is unlikely to be rigorous“, Wong says.“ The treatment of statues, for example, suggests that Tutmés III was motivated by ritual and practical factors rather than any personal animosity. ”