The art of Ancient Egypt, Large Kneeling Statue of Hatshepsut and King Menkaure and Queen

In comparing the head and torso on King Menkora and Queen's sculpture, from the Old Kingdom made circa 2490-2472 BCE to that of the large kneeling statue of Hatshepsut in the New Kingdom made circa 1479-1458 BCE, we see common artistic elements used more than 1,000 years apart to convey royal power. While looking at the Old Kingdom sculpture of King Menkora and Queen, we see a greyish stone used called greywack, yet in the large kneeling statue of Hatshepsut, we see a sculpture made from a pink granite color with blackish grey speckling. On the sculpture of King Menkora and Queen, we can see a distinct difference in the portrayal of body and facial structures from the King to that of the Queen immediately to his side. First, the King has broad, muscular shoulders with rectilinear male pectoral muscles, while the Queen has curvilinear breasts with soft, rounded facial features. Interestingly, more than 1,000 years later, when the female pharaoh Hatshepsut commissioned the large kneeling statue of Hatshepsut, she adopts the male pharaoh king's artistic elements of King Menkora as opposed to those of King Menkora's Queen. In choosing to adopt the artistic elements often reserved for depicting men, the female pharaoh Hatshepsut conveys power using artistic elements loaded with more than 1,000 years of visual language. This visual language includes the headcloth called a nemes with the cobra goddess Lajet protruding from the forehead and the use of a rectangular beard. While Hatshepsut ruled for two decades, she exuded her power by commissioning more than 100 sculptures of herself and commissioning remarkable temples. Through these numerous commissions, we see Hatshepsut asserting royal authority. She utilized art, the architecture of the mortuary temple of Hatshepsut, and she created an entire mythology around her kingship. In this mythology, she is described as being born of a god and that shortly after that, an oracle predicted she would become king. In the fascinating two decades of Hatshepsut's rule, we see the powerful function of art used to create a narrative to control society. In this sense, society's creation of art and rituals centered around sculptures and architectural temples helps usher the living into the afterlife. These creations offered pharaohs such as Hatshepsut and Menkorah a path into the ancient Egyptian afterlife by exerting power over their kingdom's consenting subjects. In this, we begin to see art's central role in structuring society and creating the potential of an eternal afterlife. Fascinatingly, creating a potential afterlife through visual art and literature reinforces the hegemonic power structures of consent within a society. In these ancient Egyptian sculptures, we witness how a stylistic continuity in visual language conveys power for more than a millennium. The profoundly powerful potential within art offers us insights into how future civilizations would convey power and control societies through creating and commissioning artwork and architecture.