Monday 21 February 2011

Hatshepsut - The Queen of Punt


Queen & King of the Land of Punt
Originally uploaded by The Handler

Here is a copy of a depiction of the Queen of Punt from Deir el Bahri.

Although her husband is present - i read his name as Pa-r-h-w (Parehu) it is the queen who draws our attention.

Her depiction as an obese lady has caused much debate. In today's world, we have a syndrome named "Queen of Punt Syndrome".

http://www.edoj.org.eg/vol001/00102/07/quine%20punt.htm

Maybe this is how the Egyptians actually saw the Queen. If so then this is the first time i have seen any Egyptian depiction of someone so large. Sometimes Egyptian people were shown to have rolls of fat on their bodies to show they are established/ well off. The queen of Punt would was not Egyptian and therefore tribal tradition (large = beautiful) could be the answer.

Stuart

2 comments:

Alice said...

Hello Stuart !
The husband of the Queen, Parahou, is ahead of her. Behind her, there is her sons and her daughter... and "the ass carrying his wife", dixit the Egyptian caption :). The name of the Queen if Ity (or Aty).

Stuart Tyler said...

Afternoon Alice. I've amended the article to remove the "behind" comment. Thanks for the confirmation that the 3 figures behind Aty are the children of the Queen. I have very limited knowledge of hieroglyphs, but believed the captions which appear by the elbows of these figures to say "his son(s)" and "his daughter".
I was unaware about the "the ass carrying his wife" so thanks for that. Details like these i will always miss, until i am one day able to get a handle on hieroglyphs.

Thanks for your help Alice- corrections are always welcomed.

Stuart