This shrine and the cow’s statue were retrieved from under heaps of debris south of the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahari. The shrine is from the reign of Thutmose III. Its roof is painted blue with yellow stars to imitate the Vault of Heaven.
The statue of Hathor as the divine cow, in the middle of the shrine, is inscribed for Amenhotep II, Thutmose III’s son and successor. Hathor’s head is surmounted by a uraeus, a solar-disc, and two short plumes. Amenhotep can be seen twice in the statue: once at the front beneath the cow’s head, and a second time depicted as a young boy nursing beneath the cow’s right side.
New Kingdom, mid 18th Dynasty, reign of Thutmose III, ca. 1479-1425 BC. Now in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo.
