Two magnificent statues of Hatshepsut – a woman who ruled ancient Egypt as a pharaoh – are on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art this summer, in advance of the re-opening of the Museum's Hatshepsut Gallery later this year. It was announced recently in Cairo that Hatshepsut's mummy – long thought to be lost – has been identified.
A colossal sphinx of the female pharaoh is displayed in the Great Hall, the formal entrance to the Museum, near the galleries where Egyptian art is displayed. Carved from granite and measuring more than eleven feet in length, the sculpture was reconstructed from excavated fragments. Its monumental size suggests the grand scale of the works commissioned by Hatshepsut for her temple. At the end of July, the work will be moved to the Temple of Dendur in The Sackler Wing, where a life-size granite statue showing Hatshepsut as female king is already on view. (The Temple of Dendur, an actual Egyptian cult temple from ca. 15 B.C., is one of the Museum's most popular destinations.) The sculpture shows a seated young woman, dressed in the sleeveless sheath and jewelry that were typical attire for women, wearing the headcloth and uraeus (sacred cobra) of a king.
Hatshepsut is arguably the first important female head of state known to history. She ruled Egypt for two decades (ca. 1479-1458 B.C.) during Egypt's 18th Dynasty and her achievements were comparable to those of England's Elizabeth I.
In the 1920s and early 1930s, the Metropolitan Museum's excavation team was largely responsible for the discovery, excavation, and reconstruction of the statuary that once decorated Hatshepsut's temple at Deir el-Bahri in western Thebes. As a result, many works related to Hatshepsut entered the Museum's collection. More than 20 images of Hatshepsut were allotted to the Museum by the Egyptian government in the division of finds. Many of the works were featured in the 2005-2006 landmark exhibition Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh, organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and will return to view this fall following renovation of the Hatshepsut Gallery.
In a special audio feature/podcast, actor Sam Waterston reads the words of Herbert E. Winlock, head of the Met's excavations at Deir el-Bahri in the 1920s, when fragments of statuary from Hatshepsut's temple were discovered and dozens of figures of Hatshepsut were reconstructed. This feature can be downloaded free at www.metmuseum.org . The audio feature is also available inside the Museum, as a stop on the Antenna Audio Guide program.
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July 12, 2007
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