The remarkable pharaoh Hatshepsut is just one of five females known to have ruled over Egypt, and an extremely rare depiction of the great pharaoh who ascended the throne in 1478 BC has just been found by Swansea University lecturer and Egyptologist Dr. Kenneth Griffin.

As students who undertake the study of Egyptology at Swansea University regularly examine Egyptian artifacts from the Egypt Center, it was on one of these occasions that Dr. Griffin noticed that a particular artifact really stood out from the others, as Science Daily report.

The Egyptian artifact in question was constructed out of limestone and had been broken into two different fragments which had been fastened together with glue. This specific artifact had first been chosen to be examined based upon an old black and white photograph that had been taken of it as it sat hidden away for decades.

The discovery that this piece of art featured the pharaoh Hatshepsut was especially tricky in the beginning as on the front side of the relief sculpture a head can clearly be seen, but the face of the mystery figure is missing.

However, with hieroglyphs that were written using a female pronoun featured near the head of the individual as well as a cobra (or uraeus) on the forehead, it appeared that the relief must be associated with one of Egypt’s rulers, and a female one at that.

BBC News – Rare female pharaoh artwork found at Swansea University https://t.co/RSeLoG2F2w — Egyptologynews (@egyptologynews) March 24, 2018

When the unique piece was researched to see what information the Egypt Center had on it, it was discovered that the object first arrived in Swansea in 1971 along with a wide assortment of artifacts from Sir Henry Wellcome.

Cut marks that were found on the back side of the artwork showed that at some point it was taken off of a tomb or temple, and it was at this point that Dr. Kenneth Griffin, a frequent visitor to Egypt, noticed that this relief looked very much like other ones that he had seen inside the temple of Hatshepsut that is located in Luxor.

As Dr. Griffin explained, the discovery that this piece of art that had been tucked away for so long was that of the great pharaoh Hatshepsut was an extremely exciting moment, and the relief sculpture of Hatshepsut has now been put on display in the House of Life at the Egypt Center.

“The identification of the object as depicting Hatshepsut caused great excitement amongst the students. After all, it was only through conducting handling sessions for them that this discovery came to light. While most of the students have never visited Egypt before, the handling sessions help to bring Egypt to them.”

Featured image credit: Hassan Ammar AP Images

While it is assumed that this newly discovered relief of the pharaoh Hatshepsut originally came from her temple at Luxor, further research will be undertaken to confirm this.