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Senenmut: Hatshepsut's steward and his name in hieroglyphs
13 October 2026
Senenmut was the most powerful official of Hatshepsut's reign, around 1470 BC: her chief steward, tutor to her daughter Neferure and the man credited with her temple at Deir el-Bahari. His name, sn-n-mwt, means "brother of the mother", and the mother is usually taken to be the goddess Mut.
He was born a commoner, and nobody of his rank ever wrote a cartouche. His name stands in plain columns of text, yet it appears in places no official had a right to be, including behind the doors of a royal temple.
An arrowhead and a vulture spell his name
The name is said "sen-en-mut". The arrowhead (T22) writes sn, "brother", and a ripple of water (N35) after it spells out its last sound, n, a reading aid scribes added to many signs.
A second ripple of water is the little word n, "of". Then comes the vulture (G14), which writes mwt, "mother", and is also the name of Mut, the mother goddess of Thebes. The bread loaf (X1) gives the feminine t of mwt.
The spelling varies between monuments, and many add a seated man at the end, the silent sign scribes put after men's names. You will also find him written Senmut or Senemut in older books.
He rose from Armant to the palace
His parents, Ramose and Hatnefer, came from Armant, south of Thebes. They were literate people of modest rank.
His first known posts were steward of the God's Wife, that is Hatshepsut as queen, and steward of the king's daughter, Neferure. After Hatshepsut was crowned he became great steward of the king and gathered many other titles. He says he oversaw the raising of her obelisks at Karnak and the works at Deir el-Bahari.
Senenmut liked to show off
Several of his statues, eight by one count, show him with Neferure, often as a block statue with only her small head peeping from his cloak. One of these, from Karnak and now in Cairo, carries puzzle writings of Hatshepsut's names, Maatkare and Hatshepsut. In its inscription he claims to have invented them himself.
He also cut small figures of himself, kneeling with his name beside him, behind the doors of shrines in Hatshepsut's temple, where the open doors would hide them. Some scholars read the figures as royal permission and a sign of special favour. A rude graffito in a tomb used by the temple's workmen, showing a figure in royal dress, has been taken by a few as a joke about him and the king. Who is meant cannot be proved, and any love affair between them is speculation.
Both his tombs were damaged under Thutmose III
He prepared two tombs at Thebes. Tomb TT71, on the hill of Sheikh Abd el-Qurna, was begun around year 7 of the reign. A banquet scene there shows him with his mother and father, and a block statue of him is cut into the rock above the chapel. Tomb TT353, close to Hatshepsut's temple, has no chapel at all, only rooms deep in the rock.
The ceiling of TT353 is the earliest known astronomical ceiling in Egypt, divided into the northern and the southern sky. Both tombs were badly damaged under Thutmose III. A quartzite sarcophagus made for him, a stone normally reserved for kings, was probably never used. Where, or whether, he was buried is unknown, and his name fades from the record before the end of Hatshepsut's reign.
His kneeling figures still hide at Deir el-Bahari
Start at Deir el-Bahari. In the upper shrines of Hatshepsut's temple, look behind the door recesses for a small kneeling man with his name in a short column beside him.
Museums hold most of his statues. The Egyptian Museum in Cairo keeps block statues from the Karnak cachette. The British Museum in London has the seated statue with Neferure on his lap, and the Egyptian collection in Berlin, shown at the Neues Museum, has another block statue with the princess. The Metropolitan Museum in New York holds ceiling paintings from TT71 and his quartzite sarcophagus, rebuilt from more than a thousand fragments.
His name takes no oval
Leave out the oval: Senenmut was not royal. Draw the arrowhead pointing up, two flat zigzag ripples, then the vulture standing in profile with the small loaf beside its tail.
On the site his name is shown the same way, in plain signs with no ring around them.
Questions
Was Senenmut Hatshepsut's lover?
The idea rests on his unusual privileges and on an anonymous graffito, and many Egyptologists think the evidence proves only that he was trusted.
Did Senenmut build Hatshepsut's temple?
He is credited with it, and he claims to have been chief architect of the works at Deir el-Bahari. Building such a temple took many craftsmen and crews, and how much of the design was his own cannot be measured.
What happened to Senenmut?
His career seems to end in the later years of Hatshepsut's reign, and no burial has been found. Whether he died, fell from favour or simply stopped appearing in the record is debated.
Was Senenmut married?
No wife or children are known from his monuments, which show his parents and siblings instead. Some scholars think he never married.
Glossary
- cartouche
- An oval ring drawn around a royal name, a loop of rope tied at one end. Kings wrote their two main names in cartouches.
- God's Wife of Amun
- A title of royal women who served the god Amun at Thebes. In the Late Period the God's Wife ran Amun's great estate there.
- obelisk
- A tall, four-sided stone pillar with a pointed top, usually set up in pairs before a temple and carved with the king's names.
- sarcophagus
- A large stone coffin. In rich burials it held one or more coffins of wood.
- scribe
- A person trained to read and write, who kept accounts, wrote letters and copied texts. Few Egyptians could write, and scribes were well respected.
- temple
- The house of a god, where priests served the god's statue. Temples for dead kings kept up their offerings after death.
- tomb
- A burial place: a pit, a mastaba, a pyramid or rooms cut into rock. Its chapel was where the family brought offerings.
People in this article
Where to see it
- Temple of Hatshepsut (Deir el-Bahari) site
- Karnak Temple site
- Egyptian Museum, Cairo museum
- British Museum, London museum
- Neues Museum, Berlin museum
- Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York museum
Sources
More to read
- Pepi II's cartouche: Neferkare and Pepi read sign by sign Pepi II's cartouche in hieroglyphics: throne name Neferkare and birth name Pepi read sign by sign, his pyramid at Saqqara, and the 94-year question.
- Menkaure name meaning: what his cartouche says, sign by sign Menkaure name meaning: "eternal are the kas of Ra", read from the six signs of his cartouche, plus the Greek Mycerinus and where to see the name at Giza.
- Tutankhamun's name in hieroglyphs: King Tut's two cartouches, sign by sign King Tut's name in hieroglyphics: his two cartouches, Nebkheperure and Tutankhamun, read sign by sign, and where to see them in Egypt today.