Why were Hatshepsut's statues destroyed in Egypt? We finally know.

For decades, archaeologists have debated the reasons behind the systematic destruction of statues of Hatshepsut, one of the few women to hold the title of pharaoh in ancient Egypt . Her image, depicted in numerous sculptures throughout the country, was mutilated, buried, or removed after her death. Was it an act of misogyny? Political revenge by her successor? New research published in the journal Antiquity on June 24, 2025, offers a radically different interpretation: it was a ritual act to "deactivate" her power, in line with other Egyptian funerary practices.

Hatshepsut ruled Egypt from approximately 1473 to 1458 BC . Although she began as regent for her stepson, Thutmose III, she gradually assumed all the attributes of pharaonic power, including male iconography. Her reign was long and prosperous, characterized by intense construction—such as her majestic mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahri , designed by the royal architect Senenmut, who was probably also her lover—and by trade expeditions, most notably the famous mission to the legendary land of Punt. Her figure has been a subject of fascination both for her power and for having subverted the gender roles of her time.

The destruction of her statues has traditionally been attributed to a campaign organized by Thutmose III , who wanted to erase her memory as a way of consolidating his own power and reestablishing the male line of the dynasty. According to this hypothesis, the mutilation of her images, especially those located at Deir el-Bahri , responded to an attempt at damnatio memoriae: a condemnation to oblivion practiced to delegitimize earlier figures.

However, the new study suggests that this analysis may be flawed, or at least incomplete. Rather than personal revenge or political retaliation, the destruction of Hatshepsut's statues was part of a religious procedure intended to neutralize the sacred energy contained in her images. In ancient Egyptian thought , statues were not simply symbolic representations but could house the ka —the life force—of the person portrayed. Therefore, to prevent this power from persisting beyond what was desired, it was necessary to "close" this spiritual channel.

For the ancient Egyptians, statues were not simple representations; they could house the ka or life force of the person portrayed.

The investigation was based on an exhaustive analysis of the location, arrangement, and state of fragmentation of hundreds of sculptures of the pharaoh. The authors observed that many pieces had been ritually and systematically buried, following patterns similar to those used in other processes of deactivation of sacred objects. Furthermore, they ruled out the possibility that the destructions occurred immediately after her death, suggesting that they were not the result of an impulsive hate campaign, but rather part of a more structured process.

This approach represents a significant shift in the way we understand political and religious memory in Pharaonic Egypt . Rather than interpreting every destruction of an image as an act of censorship or revenge, researchers propose incorporating the ritual dimension, which would have been present even in contexts of dynastic conflict. According to this view, Hatshepsut's images were not destroyed because they were a political scandal or a feminine anomaly, but because her power needed to be carefully managed after her death.