Painted Restoration of the Hathor-Head Frieze in the Tomb of Senenmut

Around 1490, British Egyptologist and illustrator Nina M. Davies produced a painted restoration of a fragment from the Hathor-head frieze in the tomb of Senenmut. The work, now part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection, reconstructs a portion of the original wall decoration that featured the goddess Hathor and her attendant figures.

Davies employed a careful, hand‑painted approach that mirrors the ancient palette of blues, yellows, reds and greens. The figures are arranged in orderly rows, each clothed in striped garments of blue and yellow, while a patterned border below incorporates a black beetle, a yellow bird and a snake rendered in the same vivid hues, echoing the rhythmic geometry of the original Egyptian mural.

The original frieze belonged to the tomb of Senenmut, a high‑ranking official under Pharaoh Hatshepsut in the 15th century BCE. Hathor’s presence in tomb art reflects her role as a guide for the deceased, and the repetitive, regimented arrangement of her attendants underscores the Egyptian emphasis on order and protection in the afterlife.

Davies’s restoration remains a valuable reference for Egyptologists studying the visual language of New Kingdom funerary art. By reproducing the colors and motifs with scholarly precision, the piece aids contemporary viewers in visualizing the lost original and contributes to ongoing research on the iconography of Hathor and her cult.