Johns Hopkins Team Discovers Statue of Egyptian
Queen
Betsy Bryan, director of the Johns
Hopkins expedition, theorizes the statue may be of the
great Queen Tiy, wife of Amenhotep III and mother of
Akhenaten.
PHOTO BY HIPS/JAY VANRENSSELAER
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By Amy Cowles Lunday Homewood
A Johns Hopkins archaeological expedition in Luxor,
Egypt, has unearthed a life-sized statue, dating back
nearly 3,400 years, of one of the queens of the powerful
king Amenhotep III.
The statue, which dates to between 1391 and 1352
B.C.E., was uncovered earlier this month by the
expedition's director, Betsy Bryan, the Alexander Badawy
Professor of Egyptian Art and Archaeology and chair of the
Near Eastern Studies Department
in the Krieger School. Bryan and a graduate student, Fatma
Talaat Ismail, were clearing a portion of the platform of
the temple of the goddess Mut in Luxor, an area dating to
about 700 B.C.E. The statue, which was lying face down in
the ground, appeared to have been used as building rubble,
Bryan said.
The statue's back pillar was unearthed first and led
Bryan to believe briefly that it dated from a far later
period, since an inscription there was clearly made in the
21st Dynasty, about 1000 B.C.E., for a very powerful queen,
Henuttawy.
"The statue, however, when it was removed, revealed
itself as a queen of Amenhotep III, whose name appears
repeatedly on the statue's crown," Bryan said. She said she
theorizes that perhaps this statue is of the great Queen
Tiy, wife of Amenhotep III and mother of Akhenaten, the
so-called heretic king. Akhenaten came to the throne as
Amenhotep IV but later changed his name because of his
rejection of the god Amen in favor of the sun disk Aten.
"Tiy was so powerful that, as a widow, she was the
recipient of foreign diplomatic letters sent to her from
the king of Babylonia in hopes that she would intercede
with her son on behalf of the foreign interests," Bryan
said. "Some indications, such as her own portraits in art,
suggest that Tiy may have ruled briefly after her husband's
death, but this is uncertain."
For reasons relating to inscriptions found on it, the
statue of the queen definitely may be dated to the late
years of Amenhotep III's 38-year rule, Bryan said.
"The king did marry his own daughter, Princess
Sit-Amun, and made her his great royal wife as Tiy became
more elderly," Bryan said. "Thus the statue could also
represent Sit-Amun as queen. Research on this highly
detailed and exquisitely worked large-scale statue is only
beginning. More story will be revealed."
The discovery was made during Bryan's 11th annual
excavation at the Mut Temple Precinct, where she and her
students are exploring the Egyptian New Kingdom (1567 B.C.
E. to 1085 B.C.E.). The crew shares its work with the world
through Hopkins in Egypt Today, an online diary featuring
images by university photographer Jay VanRensselaer and
captions by Bryan that details the day-to-day life on an
archaeological dig. It is located at
www.jhu.edu/neareast/egypttoday.html.
Additional images of the statue are also online at
www.jhu.edu/news/home06/jan06/queen2.html.
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