[1] Senenmut was of low commoner birth, born to literate provincial parents, Ramose and Hatnofer (or "Hatnefret") from Iuny (modern Armant).

[2] However, only Minhotep is named outside chapel in his tomb TT71 and in his hypogeum TT353, in an inventory on the lid of a chest found in the burial chamber of Ramose and Hatnofer.

Senenmut supervised the quarrying, transport, and erection of twin obelisks, at the time the tallest in the world, at the entrance to the Temple of Karnak.

(The remaining obelisks of Hatshepsut were erected in Year Fifteen as part of her Heb Sed Festival; one still stands in the Temple of Karnak whilst the other is in pieces, having fallen many centuries ago.)

The building complex design is thought to be derived from the mortuary temple of Mentuhotep II built nearly 500 years earlier at Deir-el-Bahri.

[6] Senenmut's importance at the royal court under Hatshepsut is unquestionable: Senenmut's Theban Tomb 71 was started late in Year 7, "shortly after Hatshepsut's accession, the death of Hatnofer, and Hatnofer's interment with the exhumed remains of several family members", while the "excavation on the chapel seems to have continued until after Year 7" of the female pharaoh's reign.

Facts that are typically cited to support the theory are that Hatshepsut allowed Senenmut to place his name and an image of himself behind one of the main doors in Djeser-Djeseru, and the presence of graffiti in an unfinished tomb used as a rest house by the workers of Djeser-Djeseru depicting a male and a hermaphrodite in pharaonic regalia engaging in an explicit sexual act.