A team of Canadian archeologists has unearthed a rare wooden statue of a pharaoh at a dig site in southern Egypt, and clues suggest the figure may be an important new representation of Hatshepsut — the great female king who enjoyed a long and successful reign about 3,500 years ago, but was almost erased from history by a male successor trying to secure his own power.
Researchers led by University of Toronto archeologist Mary-Ann Pouls Wegner also exposed two previously unknown religious buildings and found dozens of animal mummies — including cats, sheep and dogs — during a hugely successful excavation last summer near the ancient city of Abydos.
"We couldn't believe it," she said, recalling the day the statue was unearthed at the ancient cult centre near a famous temple dedicated to Osiris, god of the afterlife. "It was lying face down and we were really excited, but we wanted to make sure it would be safe. And because of the unrest, the chain of command was not entirely clear."
The royal statue — thought to have been used as a lightweight alternative to stone for ritual processions — and the other artifacts found at Abydos were placed under guard and eventually given crucial attention by conservation experts.
The discovery, announced recently at a meeting of the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities, is to be fully detailed in a forthcoming publication.
The pharaonic figure is not obviously a female, said Pouls Wegner, but is notable for its "smaller waist" and the "more delicate modelling of the chin."
These attributes were typically reserved for female subjects in Egyptian art. And because Hatshepsut was traditionally depicted in the manner of a male pharaoh, such subtle clues are often used by experts to confirm her identity in stone statues and other imagery, she said.
But relatively few depictions of Hatshepsut have survived because of a concerted effort by her stepson and immediate successor — Tuthmosis III — to erase all prominent images of the female ruler.
But "she is one of the most fascinating rulers," Pouls Wegner noted, "first because she was a woman and second because so many of her monuments have been defaced."
Pouls Wegner said she hopes to pursue further research aimed at identifying the type of wood used to carve the statue and to conduct carbon dating on the object to more precisely pin down its age.
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