Hatshepsut came to the throne of Egypt in 1478 BC. She ruled longer than any other female pharaoh and is regarded as being one of the most successful pharaohs in Egyptian history. Egyptologist James Henry Breasted said she is "the first great woman in history of whom we are informed." She re-established trade networks and embarked on great building projects in Egypt. There were so many statues produced during her reign that nearly every major museum that has an Ancient Egyptian exhibit has a Hatshepsut portrait.
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This was obviously a very stylized statue to work from, but it was really fun to guess what she would look like nonetheless. What’s interesting about the depictions of Hatshepsut is that they are very stylized in terms of the large eyes and small head, yet they are incredibly consistent across time and location. Every single portrait I’ve found of her has these large, kind eyes, the same shape nose, and a bit of a smile. None of the portraits of her show any age differences, so I’ve depicted her here as a young woman to match the smooth look of the statue. There aren’t many descriptions of her appearance, but some say she was obese and perhaps balding by the end of her great reign. I’ve given her a skin tone that matched some of the pigment on her statues, and I’m aware this may not be correct - unfortunately we have no DNA evidence or descriptions of skin tone for her. A mummy has been attributed to her that shows diabetes and died of bone cancer in her fifties. If that mummy was indeed her, it would explain her deteriorating appearance and bad teeth in her later years.
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Left Portrait: Public Domain (Metropolitan Museum), Right Portrait base: iStock Photo.
