Academic Conversation

     As in any field, research is essential for expanding and clarifying our understanding so we can further our knowledge in a field. By finding images of temple walls and creating statistics based on what the findings was analyzed off the image it can help create more conclusive data about how powerful female figures such as Hatshepsut and Nefertiti went about portraying themselves to their people in comparison to male pharaohs. These statistics are meant to give more insight into many debates about if they were a pharaoh or not and if they really portrayed themselves all that differently from male pharaohs at all. This indecisiveness on how powerful Hatshepsut and Nefertiti really were and if they were indeed able to hold a candle to the other pharaohs of Egypt is discussed in Kara Cooney's book: "When Women Ruled the World" which offers an intricate examination of the ongoing debate which is only further fueled by Nefertiti's missing tomb (Cooney). While in the field of Egyptology much of the discussion is an in depth comparison through referencing opinion and historical fact to argue what was the true point. This can be aided by statistics to create a more informed conclusion on what the truth may be. At this point all the photos for the selected pharaohs have been gathered and analyzed at the base level and is now being put into graphs for the final analysis. This methodology began at a base level from Vanessa Davies in which it tried to gather numbers based on certain features of the images. However, it further evolved when I came across a paper discussing the theory that there were a couple main catagories for the scenes and that each held its own form of significance on temples. This paper by Kantor argued that scenes such as Seige scenes, religous scenes, or funerary scenes would be the most common (Kantor). This was not something that had been an original part of my methodology that was originated from Vanessa Davies method and I decided to incorporate it into my own research to see if this was true or if pharaohs did have a common scene type they used to portray themselves. 

     There were definitely a few roadblocks and challenges, in the process of trying to find the images of temples for the 7 pharaohs I wished to analyze I discovered that many of them didn't have temples that existed with images on them and that they would not have a sufficient number of images so that I could analyze 2 of the 7 I had randomly selected. As a result, I had to go back and resort the pharaohs so that I could find pharaohs that I could analyze. I would end up being able to find another singular pharaoh that I could analyze which would bring my total of pharaohs analyzed back up to 6. After analyzing each pharaoh based on their garments, scenes, figures they had depicted, along with a few other things I concluded my research to realize that for the most part many of the pharaohs were varied widely in the manners which they represented themselves and that this wasn't an exclusive concept to females. I would however, also note that Nefertiti was represented very differently from other pharaohs in the manner that her representations were almost always more feminine and had few traits that were alike the other pharaohs. 

     As the purpose of the research was to see how each gender represented themselves on temples to gain better insight this research has better connected each pharaoh to each other through a statistical comparison that revealed that some of the pharaohs were very different including the individuals Akhenaten and Nefertiti which reinforces the idea that the ruling period surrounding Akhenaten and Nefertiti was very different as he cast aside religion. However, other data shows that many of the pharaohs represented themselves in manners that were all individual and unique and it wasn't just female pharaohs though the female pharaohs did have more feminine characteristics that were portrayed in their art. This led to the statistical conclusion that there wasn't strong variation in the portrayal of males and females aside from small differences as a result of the pharaohs own preferences. This research has its limitations though as it doesn't cover every pharaoh in the dynasty and between the 15 there may have been more signifcant differences. However, due to the fact that it was difficult enough to find a sufficient amount of photos to analyze for each pharaoh this wasn't a possibility for my research project as I wouldn't have been able to find that many photos in the allotted time. The other limitations was the destruction or redesigning of temples from ancient and modern times that may have altered the pictures or in some cases destroyed them. This means that not every image will exist on a level that could be analyzed and this isn't something I could really adjust for in my project. While these do limit some elements of my project they have little overall effect on the data that I gatherd but did limit the initial scope that I had when collecting data.

     Ultimately, the statistics generated from my research indicate that pharaohs were all unique in  the way they represented themselves although while Hatshepsut may have risen to the ranks  of a pharaoh Nefertiti remained more closely in line with a king as her portrayal had very few elements that resembled the other pharaohs including royal crowns and other vital garments indicative of the throne. This research helps to clarify the debate regarding if Nefertiti was a pharaoh or not and if the female pharaohs representation of themselves was really different from their male counterparts. 

Sources: 

Cooney, Kara. When Women Ruled the World: Six Queens of Egypt. National Geographic, 2020

Davies, Vanessa. “Hatshepsut’s Use of Tuthmosis III in Her Program of Legitimation.” Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt, vol. 41, 2004, pp. 55–66. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/20297187. Accessed 16 Mar. 2024.

Kantor, Helene J. “Narration in Egyptian Art.” American Journal of Archaeology, vol. 61, no. 1, 1957, pp. 44–54. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/501080. Accessed 15 Mar. 2024.

These slides contain a more visual breakdown of the methodology developed from Vanessa Davies method of looking at specific features to generate data from temple walls.