Historical cities and holy places

Hatshepsut's temple and the pharaoh they tried to erase

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Anorya Team · 31 janv. 2026 · 1 min read

Three terraces cut into a cliff, built for a woman whose successor spent years chiselling her name out.

Deir el-Bahari is the most modern-looking building in ancient Egypt — three colonnaded terraces rising against a sheer cliff, all straight lines and repetition, built around 1470 BC and looking eerily like something from the 1930s.

Hatshepsut's temple and the pharaoh they tried to erase

Hatshepsut ruled for about twenty years as pharaoh in her own right, not as a regent, and the reliefs here argue her case: her divine conception, and the famous expedition to Punt with its ships, its trees carried in baskets and its portrait of the Puntite queen.

After her death her images were systematically chiselled out and her name removed from king lists, probably during the reign of her stepson Thutmose III. The erasures are visible throughout — human-shaped gaps in otherwise complete reliefs. It is an unusually direct thing to see with your own eyes.

Hatshepsut's temple and the pharaoh they tried to eraseHatshepsut's temple and the pharaoh they tried to erase

After her death her images were systematically chiselled out and her name removed from king lists, probably during the reign of her stepson Thutmose III.

There is no shade at all on the terraces and the cliff behind reflects heat straight back at you. Go first thing. The site also sits close to the balloon landing fields, so a dawn flight and this temple make a natural pairing.

Hatshepsut's temple and the pharaoh they tried to erase
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