The Seated Statue Of Hatshepsut

The Ancient Egyptian era is divided into six time periods and thirty dynasties. The art and architecture of ancient Egypt was rooted in religious beliefs, traditional rituals and practices and this ‘trend’ appeared to be common throughout the time periods and amongst the dynasties. This may have resulted because most of the art work and architectural structures that had endured the test of time, were discovered mainly from tombs and temples. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has a thirty-nine room, curatorial department that is dedicated to Egyptian art. The collection contains over twenty-seven thousand pieces, which spans from the Paleolithic to the Roman period (ca. 300,000 B.C.–A.D. 4th century) 1 and includes jewelry, mummies, sphinxes,

It was created during her reign in the 18th dynasty (c.1479 – 1458 B.C.E) it was made of limestone and is approximate 763/4 inches in height. In this sculpture Hatshepsut is seated on a throne and depicted in the traditional ceremonial attire of a male Egyptian pharaoh. This ceremonial dress includes the masculine “pharaonic nemes headdress”2 which would have had a uraeus adornment, before its destruction, which was associated with the sun god. However, the image also has some feminine qualities, these are exhibited in the softness and roundness of the facial features of the image as well as the torso being distinctly feminine. Some historians believe that this sculpture focuses on Hatshepsut’s femininity because of how she is rendered and also because the kingly titles inscribed on the sides of the throne were feminized to described Hatshepsut as “the Perfect Goddess, Lady of the Two Lands (Upper and Lower Egypt)” and “Bodily Daughter of Re (the sun god).1”This image is very different compared to the very masculine portrayal of the

The sphinx of Hatshepsut is 649/16 inches high and 1351/6 inches long and made of granite. Once more Hatshepsut is rendered wearing a nemes headdress and royal beard.1 However she has neither a male or female body but that of a lion. One author believe that the sphinx seen above, were originally displayed on the lower terrace of Hatshepsut’s temple at Deir el-Bahri. They wrote that they were six of these sphinxes “that were space evenly in two east-west rows flanking the scared route across the terrace to the ramp that ascended to the temple’s middle level.”3 Due to the positioning the sphinx it can be assumed that they were intended to depict guardianship of the temple and the religious processions into the temple. In this figure, it is apparent that the artist focused on showing the strength of the lion’s body more so than the facial features of Hatshepsut and the body is larger in comparison to the face. It can be hypothesized that this was done because the image would have been viewed from the side initially. Therefore so that the viewer would get the desired feeling or impression of strength and protection, the artists emphasize this in the body of the