Scarab Inscribed for the God's Wife Hatshepsut, Living

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This scarab was found in one of the foundation deposits located along the front wall of the lower court of Hatshepsut's funerary temple at Deir el-Bahri. The inscription reads: The Living God's Wife, Hatshepsut. In the late Seventeenth early Eighteenth Dynasties, the title God's Wife was held by the principal queen or the queen mother. Hatshepsut inherited the title while she served as principal queen of her half-brother, Thutmose II. Later, shortly after she took on the titles of king, Hatshepsut passed the title on to her daughter, Neferure (see scarab 27.3.325).Unlike most of the scarabs and amulets found in the foundation deposits, the carving and placement of the hieroglyphs (especially the ankh) on this example are rather clumsy.

Egyptian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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.

Metropolitan Museum of Art