Thursday, December 17, 2009

Queen of Punt


Now I could complain forever about the lack of concensus, but that's probably what makes Egyptology fun :)
Anyway, here is the queen of Punt from the Cairo Museum, originally from Hatshepsut's Temple. As you can see, her back is curved and her body is fat. People go to great lengths to argue what this means. Some people say she has a disease, like elephantiasis. Some people say it is a way to make her look less beautiful than Hatshepsut. Nobody knows. But it is a rarity in Egyptian art for any woman to be depicted like this, therefor it must mean something. Maybe it was just how she looked, sort of. I mean, there's nothing wrong with being fat and lots of cultures find it attractive. So maybe the queen of Punt was just normal or even really cool for her culture?

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