Two decades after Hatshepsut's death, during Thutmose III's forty-second regnal year, he decided that all evidence of her reign as king of Egypt should be erased. His reasons for proscribing her reign remain unclear. Several methods of erasure were employed at her temple by Thutmose III in his campaign. The least damaging were the scratching out of feminine pronouns and suffixes, which otherwise left the text intact. More thorough removal methods included chiselling away, roughening, smoothing, patching or covering over of her image and titles. The most destructive method was the obliteration of her statuary in the temple.