Scarab Inscribed for the God's Wife Hatshepsut

Scarab Inscribed for the God's Wife Hatshepsut

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This scarab was found in one of the foundation deposits located along the front of Hatshepsut's funerary temple at Deir el-Bahri. The inscription on the base reads: God's Wife Hatshepsut. The title "god's wife" was held by the principal queen or the queen mother. Hatshepsut inherited the title while she was principal queen of her half-brother, Thutmose II. Soon after taking on the titles of King, Hatshepsut passed the title to her daughter, Neferure (see 27.3.324).

Egyptian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Scarab Inscribed for the God's Wife HatshepsutScarab Inscribed for the God's Wife HatshepsutScarab Inscribed for the God's Wife HatshepsutScarab Inscribed for the God's Wife HatshepsutScarab Inscribed for the God's Wife Hatshepsut

The Met collection of ancient Egyptian art consists of approximately 30,000 objects of artistic, historical, and cultural importance, dating from about 300,000 BCE to the 4th century CE. A signifcant percentage of the collection is derived from the Museum's three decades of archaeological work in Egypt, initiated in 1906 in response to increasing interest in the culture of ancient Egypt.