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We finally know why Queen Hatshepsut's statues were destroyed in ancient Egypt
Live Science ^ | June 23, 2025 | Owen Jarus

Posted on 06/25/2025 7:22:09 AM PDT by SunkenCiv

For the past 100 years, Egyptologists thought that when the powerful female pharaoh Hatshepsut died, her nephew and successor went on a vendetta against her, purposefully smashing all her statues to erase her from public memory.

Now, a new study finds that's not quite the case. Although many statues of Hatshepsut were intentionally broken, the reason behind their destruction has nothing to do with her gender or even blotting out her existence, an Egyptologist says. Rather, Hatshepsut's statues were broken to "deactivate" them and eliminate their supposed supernatural powers...

After Hatshepsut died, many of her statues were intentionally broken, including at the site of Deir el-Bahri, where archaeologists in the 1920s and 1930s found broken remains of her statues buried in pits. It was believed that these were broken on the orders of Thutmose III after Hatshepsut died, as a form of retribution. However, the new study suggests that these statues were in fact "ritually deactivated" in the same manner that statues belonging to other pharaohs were...

In the study, Jun Yi Wong, a doctoral candidate in Egyptology at the University of Toronto, examined archival records of the statues from Deir el-Bahri that were found in the 1920s and 1930s. Wong found that the statues were not smashed in the face and didn't have their inscriptions destroyed. Instead, they were broken at their neck, waist and feet -- something seen in statues of other Egyptian pharaohs during a process that modern-day Egyptologists call "ritual deactivation."

..."One of the best-known finds in the history of Egyptian archaeology is the Karnak Cachette, where hundreds of statues of pharaohs -- from across centuries -- were found in a single deposit. The vast majority of the statues have been 'deactivated.'"

(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...


TOPICS: History; Science; Travel
KEYWORDS: 18thdynasty; catastrophism; egypt; godsgravesglyphs; hatshepsut; livescience; newkingdom; owenjarus; ritualdeactivation
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Comment #1 Removed by Moderator

To: 75thOVI; Abathar; agrace; aimhigh; Alice in Wonderland; AnalogReigns; AndrewC; aragorn; ...
One of *those* topics.



2 posted on 06/25/2025 7:22:53 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Putin should skip ahead to where he kills himself in the bunker.)
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To: StayAt HomeMother; Ernest_at_the_Beach; 1ofmanyfree; 21twelve; 24Karet; 2ndDivisionVet; 31R1O; ...

3 posted on 06/25/2025 7:23:18 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Putin should skip ahead to where he kills himself in the bunker.)
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To: SunkenCiv

Miss Ogeny..........................


4 posted on 06/25/2025 7:24:20 AM PDT by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegals are put up in 5 Star hotels....................)
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To: SunkenCiv

Interesting projection that, because the pharaohs supposedly wielded powers, then the statues of them did too; i.e., that the image and likeness (to borrow a phrase) was the source or expression of spiritual power.


5 posted on 06/25/2025 7:30:38 AM PDT by Carry_Okie (The tree of liberty needs a rope.)
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To: SunkenCiv

∅bama only moved Churchill’s bust out of the White House.


6 posted on 06/25/2025 7:33:41 AM PDT by Does so ("Trump said today, "I'm with Ukraine". You?.....🇺🇦...Dem☭¢rat... ∅ one ™ ¿ ¡ ☞≣ ½¼vedv)
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To: Carry_Okie

It wasn’t mysogeny? It has to be mysogeny!

She was treated l8je every ither pharoah but evidence was REQUIRED to prove she was not mistreated worse.

I think historians have had a gender problem.


7 posted on 06/25/2025 7:36:49 AM PDT by If You Want It Fixed - Fix It
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To: Carry_Okie

It makes sense especially, then, why God didn’t want His people involved in idol creation and worship, like the nearby pagans.


8 posted on 06/25/2025 7:39:50 AM PDT by married21 (As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.)
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To: SunkenCiv
"However, rather than serving as regent, she became a pharaoh in her own right, with Thutmose III acting as a co-regent who had limited power."

No reason for any animosity there.

9 posted on 06/25/2025 7:44:01 AM PDT by Flag_This (They're lying.)
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[snip] On the upper part of the statue, near Senenmut's shoulder, two groups of hieroglyphs represent the Queen's two names: 'Maatkare' and 'Hatshepsut' in cryptographic form. In the inscription which accompanies them, Senenmut proudly boasts of having invented these cryptograms himself.

More than 20 statues depicting Senenmut, the most favored and influential person during the reign of Queen Hatshepsut, were found in the Karnak cachette. Eight of them portray Senenmut with Princess Neferure, the daughter of Queen Hatshepsut. [/snip]
Egypt Museum
Egypt Museum
There's a nice captioned ancient graffito inside her mortuary temple, showing Senenmut doing Hatshepsut from behind, btw. It's obvious he was Neferure's father. Neferure croaked out probably before age 20; her tomb was id'ed by Howard Carter. Despite being way up a cliff face, it was ransacked, perhaps in ancient times.

10 posted on 06/25/2025 7:44:41 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Putin should skip ahead to where he kills himself in the bunker.)
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To: Flag_This
She has a cool tomb though.


11 posted on 06/25/2025 7:46:23 AM PDT by Flag_This (They're lying.)
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To: married21

Ancient Hebrews were allowed to marry Egyptians up until the time of Ezra. Joseph’s wife and the mother of his two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, was an Egyptian. Her name was Asenath and was the daughter of Potipherah, a priest of On.

The Israelites were in Egypt for over four hundred years and so I would imagine there was a lot of Egyptian blood mixed into the genome from that time.............


12 posted on 06/25/2025 7:49:35 AM PDT by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegals are put up in 5 Star hotels....................)
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To: SunkenCiv

i.e. she was a witch.


13 posted on 06/25/2025 7:57:33 AM PDT by glorgau
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To: SunkenCiv
Men have always thought that women have supernatural powers.

They still do.

I do. I know my wife has spooky supernatural powers.

I've always tried hard to stay on her good side. So far so good.

I've also told my children that, when the end times come and all's lost and hell's raining down from the skies, grab onto her skirt and don't let go because she'll survive and so will everybody around her. In fact, she has said, "I wouldn't want to survive a nuclear war, but with my luck I would, and then I'd have to take care of everybody else."

Women scare me. They've made me do all sorts of things I would never have done if they hadn't cast some powerful spell on me. Don't say I'm imagining things!

14 posted on 06/25/2025 8:06:38 AM PDT by Savage Beast (Nothing inflames unrest in the delusional, and nothing inflames unrest in the evil, like TRUTH.)
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To: Savage Beast

“ Women scare me. They’ve made me do all sorts of things I would never have done if they hadn’t cast some powerful spell on me.”
Especially those who have and know how to swing an iron skillet!


15 posted on 06/25/2025 8:26:58 AM PDT by 9422WMR
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To: Carry_Okie
Interesting projection that, because the pharaohs supposedly wielded powers, then the statues of them did too; i.e., that the image and likeness (to borrow a phrase) was the source or expression of spiritual power.

Sympathetic magic. One of humanities oldest beliefs. And yes the Egyptians were one group who believed in it.

16 posted on 06/25/2025 8:29:17 AM PDT by Harmless Teddy Bear ( Not my circus. Not my monkeys. But I can pick out the clowns at 100 yards.)
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To: Carry_Okie
"Interesting projection that, because the pharaohs supposedly wielded powers, then the statues of them did too..."

...sort of. The Egyptians believed that a person's spirit, the Ka, needed a body to inhabit. If the real, physical body died (the Ba), then an appropriate replica would do. This might be the individual's mummy, or a statue, or an idol. The Egyptians were unsurpassed in creating statues and idols that did seem to have a spirit. Even we, so far removed from their belief system, can feel it by gazing at them.

If you go to the Egyptian collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, or the very good Egyptian collection at the Brooklyn Museum, you will see many examples of these statues that were placed in tombs and later defaced by robbers. Typically, the noses and mouths are mutilated, especially on the male statues. This was done, I believe, as a precaution by the robbers, to disable the Ka, the spirit, of the person whose tomb was being robbed so that it would not take its revenge on them.

17 posted on 06/25/2025 8:31:26 AM PDT by PUGACHEV
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To: SunkenCiv

Women and minorities hardest hit...


18 posted on 06/25/2025 8:35:07 AM PDT by StAnDeliver (TrumpII)
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To: Red Badger

Did they have a No Queens protest?


19 posted on 06/25/2025 9:07:38 AM PDT by Hegemony Cricket (< < Wandering aimfully > >)
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To: SunkenCiv

Spite


20 posted on 06/25/2025 9:22:02 AM PDT by ComputerGuy
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