Although 80 percent of Accurex’s business lies in the industrial application of precision metrology and scanning, the company always enjoys the occasional cultural heritage project. When the Accurex team was called upon to scan the Sphinx of Hatshepsut, it was ready for the challenge.

Hatshepsut was the principal queen of her half-brother, Pharaoh Thutmose II. After he died she became regent for Thutmose III, her stepson and nephew. She adopted the title of Pharaoh, making her the young prince's senior co-ruler. Sculptures of Hatshepsut soon depicted the queen in male regalia.

After Hatshepsut died, Thutmose III ordered the dismantling of all male representations of her. Thousands of statue fragments, discovered in two pits near Hatshepsut’s funerary temple, have been painstakingly reassembled by scholars at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Figure 1: Sphinx of Hatshepsut

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