Today, Thutmose III and Hatshepsut are among the best-known of all the pharaohs, as perhaps the greatest of all conquering kings, and the classic female monarch. However, like almost all pre-Saite rulers of Egypt (up to 664 BC), they had been utterly forgotten for millennia when the proto-Egyptologists of the early 19th century, newly armed with the ability once again to make use of hieroglyphic inscriptions, lifted the veil that had so long hidden them.
Damnatio memoriae
Menkheperra Thutmose III (c.1479-1425 BC) had remained an iconic figure of the past at least until Ptolemaic times. His images were prominent around the temples of Karnak, and were reinstated when walls were affected by restoration work, albeit in contemporary style. In contrast, Maatkara Hatshepsut (c.1473-1458 BC) had been essentially written out of monumental history late in her former co-regent’s reign. Her images were either destroyed or reworked into representations of either her husband, Thutmose II, or her father, Thutmose I.
However, her memory was still alive four centuries later, when Pinedjem I, High Priest of Amun at Karnak (and later king in southern Egypt,1054 BC), decided to name two of his children Menkheperra and Maatkara. Neither name had hitherto been used as anything other than the prenomina of Thutmose III and Hatshepsut, and there seems little question that Pinedjem wished to honour these two rulers together, as an important historical double-act.
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