As of this week, the life-size statue of the Egyptian Queen Hatshepsut is back in the National Museum of Antiquities. The sculpture has been on display in the US since 2005, including in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and as the eye-catcher of a traveling exhibition.
Queen Hatshepsut, along with Cleopatra and Nefertiti, is one of the most famous women of ancient Egypt. When her husband Thutmose II died, she became regent for her young stepson Prince Thutmose III. She turned out to be a strong-willed ruler who was willing to break with traditions. She even had herself proclaimed pharaoh, and then ruled for more than 21 years (1479-1458 BC) over a country that would rarely have a woman as queen.
Scattered around the world
During the reign of Queen Hatshepsut, a life-size statue of her was made. After her death the queen fell into disgrace and the image, which stood in her sepulchral temple in the Valley of the Kings at Thebes, was smashed to pieces. Many other images of the queen were also destroyed and her name was carved out of inscriptions. Millennia later, American archaeologists found the smashed and dumped statue in a quarry near the funerary temple.
Separate parts of the image became scattered around the world. The torso part was acquired by Prince Hendrik of the Netherlands in 1869 and donated to the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden in 1928 by Queen Mother Emma. However, the head and base had come into the possession of the Metropolitan Museum. In 1998 the parts were rejoined and from 2005, 3500 years after their violent separation, the complete picture was on display in the US.
As of this week, Queen Hatshepsut is back in the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden and can be admired in its entirety in the permanent 'Egyptians' department. The rare statue wears the traditional headscarf of a queen and is depicted as a woman. Hatshepsut would, against all tradition, also be immortalized as a pharaoh. As a man, with ritual royal beard and crown.