Why Hatshepsut's Statues Were Really Smashed in Ancient Egypt

A long-standing theory about the fate of Queen Hatshepsut's statues has been upended by a new study. For decades, Egyptologists believed that Thutmose III, Hatshepsut's nephew and successor, ordered the destruction of her statues in an act of personal revenge after she died to erase all signs of her—possibly due to her unprecedented role as a female pharaoh. But as Live Science reports, new research published in Antiquity suggests a different motive, one that's far more "utilitarian."

According to Jun Yi Wong, an Egyptology doctoral candidate at the University of Toronto, the destruction wasn't about erasing Hatshepsut or targeting her gender. Instead, the statues were "ritually deactivated." Wong's analysis of records from Deir el-Bahri—where many of the statues were found broken and buried in the 1920s and '30s—shows the statues weren't defaced or stripped of inscriptions. "Many of her statues survive in relatively good condition, with their faces virtually intact," Wong says in a release. Instead, they were snapped at the neck, waist, and feet, following a pattern also seen with other pharaohs' statues.

This process, common in ancient Egypt, was believed to neutralize the supernatural powers that such statues were thought to possess. Wong notes that similar deposits of "deactivated" statues have been found at other archaeological sites in Egypt and Sudan, pointing to a widespread ritual practice rather than a personal vendetta. However, Wong clarifies that Hatshepsut did endure a campaign of persecution—her images and inscriptions were systematically vandalized elsewhere in Egypt, likely at the direction of Thutmose III. The motivation behind these acts remains unclear, but Wong suggests political considerations were likely at play.