Large Kneeling Statue of Hatshepsut..Egypt, dynasty 18, joint rule of Hatshepsut and Thutmose III..From Thebes, originally from Hatshepsut's temple at Deir el-Bahri, excavated in fragments in the central part of the quarry; MMA excavations, 1928-29....The large kneeling statue once was part of a group of similar figures aligned on the right-hand (northern) side of the processional way, most probably along the axis of the temple's second court. While statues south of the processional way wore the white (Upper Egyptian) crown, the nemes headdress is subsituted in these images for the red crown of Lower Egytp, doubtless because the antenna-like top of that crown was diffcult to render in stone.....According to the inscription on the base, "Maatkare" (Hatshepsut is represented here as "the one who gives Maat to Amun." Maat was the goddess of order, right balance, and justice, and for a king to offer an image of Maat to another deity meant reaffirming that this was the guiding principle of his/her rule.
