We finally know why Queen Hatshepsut's statues were destroyed in ancient Egypt

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, according to a study published Tuesday (June 24) in the journal Antiquity.

Hatshepsut (who ruled circa 1473 to 1458 B.C.) was a pharaoh known for commissioning a beautiful temple built at Deir el-Bahri, near ancient Thebes (modern-day Luxor), and for ordering a successful voyage from Egypt to a land known as "Punt," whose precise location is now a matter of debate. She was the wife and half sister of pharaoh Thutmose II (reign circa 1492 to 1479 B.C.) and was supposed to act as regent for her stepson Thutmose III. 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.

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."

The ancient Egyptians saw royal statues "as powerful and perhaps even living entities," Wong told Live Science in an email. When a pharaoh died, it was common for the ancient Egyptians to deactivate their statues by breaking them at their weak points, or the neck, waist and feet, Wong noted.

"Deposits of deactivated statues have been found at multiple sites in Egypt and Sudan," Wong said. "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.'"

Related: Why are the noses broken on so many ancient Egyptian statues?

This isn't to say that Hatshepsut wasn't a target of political persecution after her death. "There is no doubt that Hatshepsut did suffer a campaign of persecution — at many monuments throughout Egypt, her images and names have been systematically hacked out," Wong said. "We know that this campaign of persecution was initiated by Thutmose III, but we are not exactly sure why."

The fact that her statues at Deir el-Bahri were deactivated normally while images and inscriptions of her at other sites were violently attacked suggests that the persecution she experienced may not have been for personal reasons.

Statues of other pharaohs also underwent ritual deactivation, Wong wrote. The fact that the statues of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahri were deactivated normally while statues of her at other sites were more violently attacked suggests that Thutmose III may have felt that he had to persecute Hatshepsut for political reasons, such as concerns about her reign from his supporters.

"Early Egyptologists assumed that Thutmose III must have harboured intense hatred towards Hatshepsut, but this is unlikely to be accurate," Wong said. "The treatment of the statues, for example, suggests that Thutmose III was motivated by ritualistic and practical factors, rather than any personal animosity."

Thutmose III "would have been influenced by political considerations — such as whether Hatshepsut's reign was detrimental to his legacy as a pharaoh," Wong said.

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