Quick questions on Hatshepsut's death and proscription: HSC Ancient History

Hatshepsut died around 1458 BC, in regnal year 21 or 22 of Thutmose III's reign. The last attestation of her name as ruling pharaoh dates to this period; after her death, Thutmose III ruled alone, beginning the great series of Syrian campaigns that begins with the Battle of Megiddo (around 1457 BC).

Hatshepsut had two prepared tombs:

Two unidentified female mummies were found in tomb KV 60 (a small adjacent tomb in the Valley of the Kings) by Howard Carter in 1903. One was a mummified wet-nurse named Sitre-In (identified by an inscription on a coffin found nearby); the other was unnamed.

The 2007 study of the KV 60 mummy revealed: - Obesity (more visible in life than the slim statues suggest) - Severe dental abscesses - Diabetes (probable) - Bone metastases consistent with cancer (possibly bone cancer or metastatic carcinoma)

After Hatshepsut's death, her name and image were systematically removed from many of her monuments. This is one of the best-documented Egyptian examples of damnatio memoriae.

Succession. The late timing aligns with the preparation of Amenhotep II for succession. Thutmose III's son was being readied to inherit. Removing the visible record of a female pharaoh from Egyptian monuments secured the masculine succession line and prevented Hatshepsut's reign from being used as a precedent for future female claimants.

Charles Nims ("The Date of the Dishonoring of Hatshepsut," 1966) first proposed the late dating of the proscription.

An earlier cliff tomb prepared while she was Great Royal Wife of Thutmose II. The tomb is now lost (or partly excavated but not securely identified). Her sarcophagus from this tomb was found at the Wadi Sikkat Taqet Zayed.

Her royal tomb in the Valley of the Kings. KV 20 is one of the most architecturally complex tombs in the Valley, with a long descending corridor. Hatshepsut arranged for her father Thutmose I to be reburied in KV 20 with her.

Statues at Deir el-Bahri were smashed and dumped in a pit (now known as the Senenmut Quarry). The Metropolitan Museum of Art expedition recovered around 200 statue fragments from this pit, which have been partially reassembled. Cartouches were erased from many monuments.

The proscription was not total. Cartouches in inaccessible positions (high up on the obelisks, deep in internal sanctuaries) were often left. Reliefs showing Hatshepsut as queen rather than as king were sometimes left intact, suggesting the proscription targeted her kingship rather than her existence.

Older interpretations dated the proscription to immediately after Hatshepsut's death, reading it as Thutmose III's personal revenge. Charles Nims (1966) and Peter Dorman (1988, 2005) have revised this. The proscription is now thought to have begun late in Thutmose III's reign, after his regnal year 42 (around 1437 BC, roughly 20 years after Hatshepsut's death).

A 20-year gap between death and proscription rules out personal vendetta as the principal motive. The proscription was a deliberate act long after Hatshepsut's death.

The late timing aligns with the preparation of Amenhotep II for succession. Thutmose III's son was being readied to inherit. Removing the visible record of a female pharaoh from Egyptian monuments secured the masculine succession line and prevented Hatshepsut's reign from being used as a precedent for future female claimants.

A female pharaoh contradicted the standard Egyptian theology of kingship as Horus, the falcon king. Erasing Hatshepsut's kingship from public record restored theological order.