HSC Ancient History: Hatshepsut historiography (the Section II personality guide)

Question: "Assess the usefulness of the Punt expedition reliefs at Deir el-Bahari for a historian investigating Hatshepsut's reign."

OPA

Origin: a sequence of painted limestone reliefs on the south wall of the middle colonnade of Hatshepsut's mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahari, west Thebes, carved during her reign (approximately 1479-1458 BC). Purpose: to commemorate and legitimise the Punt trading expedition (carried out around year 9, approximately 1470 BC) and to advertise the wealth, divine approval, and Amun-sanctioned royal authority of Hatshepsut. Audience: the gods (the temple was first a cult site for Amun-Ra), the elite of Thebes, and posterity, including the royal successors who controlled the temple.

Usefulness

Very high for the economic, theological, and self-presentational dimensions of the reign. The reliefs depict named exotic goods (incense trees with their root-balls, ebony, ivory, gold, electrum), the Puntite ruler Parahu and his wife Ity, and Hatshepsut's offerings to Amun.

Reliability

Reliable as material primary evidence, but mediated by royal-cultic conventions. The reliefs idealise the expedition (no losses are depicted) and frame the trade as the goddess Hathor's gift, not a commercial venture. Corroborate with the Speos Artemidos inscription (her statement of restoration after the Hyksos) and with Senenmut's tomb texts. Joyce Tyldesley (Hatchepsut: The Female Pharaoh, 1996) reads the reliefs as strategic legitimisation through prosperity; Catharine Roehrig (Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh, MMA catalogue, 2005) emphasises the reliefs' debt to earlier Middle Kingdom precedent. The reliefs are best treated as ideologically curated evidence of a real and successful expedition.

Prompt: "Evaluate the role of male regalia in Hatshepsut's self-presentation as pharaoh."

Hatshepsut's adoption of male pharaonic regalia after approximately year 7 of Thutmose III's reign was a deliberate iconographic strategy rather than a denial of her gender, and the Deir el-Bahari statuary supplies the clearest evidence. The seated limestone statues from the temple (now distributed between the Metropolitan Museum and the Egyptian Museum, Cairo) depict her with the nemes headdress, the false beard (khebset), and the male kilt, while inscriptions retain feminine grammatical forms ("the female Horus"). The Red Chapel reliefs at Karnak (constructed c. 1460 BC, reassembled in the Open Air Museum) show her in fully masculine royal dress receiving Amun's coronation. Gay Robins (The Art of Ancient Egypt, 1997) argues that the role of pharaoh carried a codified male iconography that any incumbent was expected to wear; Joyce Tyldesley (Hatchepsut, 1996) reads the same evidence as a more active feminist reformulation of pharaonic gender. The grammatical retention of feminine forms is the decisive datum: Hatshepsut did not erase her sex, she performed an office whose visual code was male. The regalia is therefore evidence of the office's iconographic conventions, with Hatshepsut's specific innovation being the public, monumental scale of the performance.

Annotation.

1. Topic sentence states the evaluative judgement and signals engagement with historiography in one move.
2. Three named pieces of material evidence (seated statues, Red Chapel reliefs, grammatical forms) ground the paragraph in archaeological specifics.
3. Robins and Tyldesley are paired to show interpretive range; their views are summarised in one clause each, not name-dropped.
4. The grammatical-forms point operates as the analytical fulcrum that adjudicates between the two historians.
5. The closing sentence returns to the prompt verb "evaluate" with a qualified judgement that separates office from incumbent.
6. Word count 207, within the 180-220 target, leaving room for three further paragraphs and framing.

The historiographical debate on the proscription of Hatshepsut's name and image divides Joyce Tyldesley from Peter Dorman on motive and timing. Tyldesley (Hatchepsut: The Female Pharaoh, 1996) argues that the proscription was a misogynistic erasure carried out by Thutmose III shortly after her death, compounded by patriarchal Egyptological tradition. A response can deploy this concisely: "Tyldesley reads the proscription as a gendered erasure that the Breasted school then naturalised, treating Hatshepsut's reign as an aberration."

Peter Dorman (in The Proscription of Hatshepsut, 2005, and his contributions to the Metropolitan Museum catalogue) reframed the question by establishing through detailed chronological analysis that the systematic erasure dates from approximately year 42 of Thutmose III's reign (around 1437 BC), more than 20 years after Hatshepsut's death. A critical response writes: "Dorman's late dating relocates the proscription from grief-driven revenge to a pragmatic succession move in the months before Amenhotep II's co-regency, and weakens (though does not entirely refute) Tyldesley's misogyny thesis." Catharine Roehrig (2005) integrates both readings, noting that political pragmatism and gendered anxiety are not mutually exclusive. Holding Tyldesley, Dorman, and Roehrig in tension - gender, timing, and pragmatic succession - signals Band 6 historiographical handling.

1

Thesis: Senenmut was Hatshepsut's indispensable architect-administrator; romantic readings are speculative. Plan: (a) titles and offices (Steward of Amun, tutor to Neferure); (b) tombs TT 71 (Sheikh Abd el-Qurna) and TT 353 (within Deir el-Bahari precinct); (c) the Deir el-Bahari graffito and its evidentiary limits; (d) his disappearance from records before her death. Evidence: approximately 80 titles attested, statues at British Museum and Cairo, Tyldesley (1996) on cautious reading.

2

Thesis: The expedition was significant primarily for theological self-presentation, secondarily for economic supply. Plan: (a) chronology around year 9 (approximately 1470 BC); (b) Deir el-Bahari reliefs as ideological showcase; (c) goods (incense trees, ebony, electrum) and their cultic destination; (d) Roehrig on Middle Kingdom precedent. Cite Tyldesley.

3

Thesis: Regalia was iconographic convention with personal innovation in scale, not denial of gender. Plan: (a) seated statues from Deir el-Bahari; (b) Red Chapel reliefs and Karnak obelisks; (c) feminine grammatical forms; (d) Robins versus Tyldesley. Evidence: nemes, khebset, male kilt; "the female Horus" titulary.

4

Thesis: The proscription was a late-reign pragmatic political move that drew on but is not reducible to gendered anxiety. Plan: (a) Tyldesley's misogyny reading; (b) Dorman's chronological case for c. year 42 of Thutmose III (approximately 1437 BC); (c) succession planning for Amenhotep II; (d) Roehrig's integrative reading. Evidence: extent of erasures at Deir el-Bahari, survival of obelisks at Karnak.

5

Thesis: The building program demonstrates authority at the highest pharaonic register. Plan: (a) Deir el-Bahari and its theological program; (b) Karnak obelisks (c. 1457 BC) and the Red Chapel; (c) Senenmut's role as overseer; (d) Speos Artemidos and the Sinai expeditions. Cite Tyldesley and Roehrig.