Queen Hatshepsut
Hatshepsut,
or Hatchepsut, meaning Foremost of Noble Ladies, was the fifth
pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Ancient Egypt. She is
generally regarded by Egyptologists as one of the most successful
female pharaohs, reigning longer than any other woman of an
indigenous Egyptian dynasty.
Although records of her reign are
documented in diverse ancient sources, Hatshepsut was once
described by early modern scholars as only having served as
a co-regent from about 1479 to 1458 BC, during years seven
to twenty-one of the reign previously identified as that of
Thutmose III. It is now known that Hatshepsut assumed the
position of pharaoh, and her reign as king is usually given
as twenty-two years since Manetho assigns her a reign of 21
years and 9 months. The date of her death is known to have
occurred in 1458, which implies she became pharaoh circa 1479
BC.
Although it was uncommon for Egypt
to be ruled by a woman, this situation was not unprecedented.
Hatshepsut was the second known to have formally assumed power
as "King of Upper and Lower Egypt" after Queen Sobekneferu
of the Twelfth Dynasty. As a queen regnant she is preceded
by Merneith of the First Dynasty; and Nimaethap of the Third
Dynasty, who may have been the dowager of Khasekhemwy, but
who certainly acted as regent for her son, Djoser, during
the Third Dynasty, and—she may have reigned as pharaoh in
her own right.
Other women whose possible reigns
as pharaohs are under study include Nefertiti, Meritaten,
Neferneferuaten, and Twosret. Another pharaoh, Smenkhkare,
generally has been believed to have been male, but there is
some evidence that this was a woman also.
Among the later, non-indigenous Egyptian
dynasties, the most notable example of another woman who became
pharaoh was Cleopatra VII, the last pharaoh of Ancient Egypt.
Identification of mummy
Hatshepsut's remains were long considered
lost, but in June 2007 a mummy from Tomb KV60, known as the
"Strong One" was publicly identified as her remains by Zahi
Hawass, the chief of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities.
Evidence supporting this identification includes the results
of a DNA comparison with the mummy of Ahmose Nefertari, Hatshepsut's
grandmother. Further conclusive evidence includes the possession
of a broken tooth previously found inside a small wooden box
inscribed with Hatshepsut's name and cartouche: Zahi Hawass's
team's CAT scan revealed that this tooth exactly matches this
mummy's jaw. Modern CT scans of that mummy believed to be
Hatshepsut suggest she was about fifty years old when she
died from a ruptured abcess after removal of a tooth. Although
this was the cause, it is quite possible she would not have
lived much longer; there are signs in her mummy of metastatic
bone cancer, as well as possible liver cancer and diabetes.
Egyptologists not involved in the project, however, have reserved
acceptance of the findings until further testing is undertaken.
Family and early life
Hatshepsut was the elder daughter
of Thutmose I and Queen Ahmose, the first king and queen of
the Thutmoside clan of the Eighteenth Dynasty. Thutmose I
and Ahmose are known to have had only one other child, a daughter,
Akhbetneferu (Neferubity), who died in infancy. Thutmose I
also married Mutnofret, possibly a daughter of Ahmose I, and
produced several half-brothers to Hatshepsut: Wadjmose, Amenose,
Thutmose II, and possibly Ramose, through that secondary union.
Both Wadjmose and Amenose were prepared to succeed their father,
but neither lived beyond adolescence.
In her childhood, Hatshepsut is believed
to have been favored by the Temple of Karnak over her two
half-brothers by her father. Hatshepsut apparently had a close
relationship with both of her parents. Among the official
records 
of
her reign are assertions that her father, Thutmose I, named
her as his direct heir and later, official depictions of Hatshepsut
show her dressed in the full regalia of a pharaoh, including
the traditional false beard of pharaohs to indicate that she
ruled Egypt in her own right.
Upon the death of her father in 1493
BC, Hatshepsut married her half-brother, Thutmose II, and
assumed the title of Great Royal Wife. Thutmose II ruled Egypt
for either 3 or 13 years, during which time it has traditionally
been believed that Queen Hatshepsut exerted a strong influence
over her husband.
Royal lineage was traced through
the women in ancient Egypt. Marriage to a queen of the royal
lineage was necessary, even if the king came from outside
of the lineage as happened occasionally. Secondary unions
to other women in the royal family assured that there would
be heirs from the lineage and women who could become the royal
wives. This is the reason for all of the intermarriages. The
royal women also played a pivotal role in the religion of
ancient Egypt. The queen officiated at the rites in the temples,
as priestess, in a culture where religion was inexorably interwoven
with the roles of the rulers.
Hatshepsut had one daughter with
Thutmose II: Neferure. Hatshepsut may have groomed Neferure
as the heir apparent, commissioning official portraits of
her daughter wearing the false beard of royalty and the sidelock
of youth. Some scholars think this is evidence that Hatshepsut
and Thutmose II were grooming Neferure for the throne; others
speculate that she was being prepared to assume her mother's
own roles as queen, but to have Neferure prepared to be a
pharaoh, if necessary.
When Thutmose II died, he left behind
only one son, a young Thutmose III to succeed him. The latter
was born as the son of a lesser wife of Thutmose II rather
than of the Great Royal Wife, Hatshepsut, as Neferure was.
Due to the relative youth of Thutmose III, he was not eligible
to assume the expected tasks of a pharaoh. Instead, Hatshepsut
became the regent of Egypt at this time, assumed the responsibilities
of state, and was recognized by the leadership in the temple.
At this time, her daughter, Neferure, took over the roles
Hatshepsut had played as queen in official and religious ceremonies.
This political arrangement is detailed in the tomb autobiography
of Ineni, a high official at court:
“He (Thutmose II) went forth to heaven in triumph,
having mingled with the gods; His son stood in his place as
king of the Two Lands, having become ruler upon the throne
of the one who begat him. His (ie. Thutmose II's) sister the
Divine Consort, Hatshepsut settled the affairs of the Two
Lands by reason of her plans. Egypt was made to labour with
bowed head for her, the excellent seed of the god, which came
forth from him.”
Thus, while Thutmose III was designated
as a co-regent of Egypt, the royal court recognised Hatshepsut
as the pharoah on the throne until she died. It is believed
that Neferure became the royal wife of Thutmose III and the
mother of his eldest son, Amenemhat, who did not outlive his
father.
Thutmose III ruled as pharaoh for
more than thirty years after the death of Hatshepsut. This
relationship between Neferure and Amenemhat is debated among
authors, but since Neferure is depicted in her mother's funeral
temple, there are some who believe that Neferure was still
alive in the first few years of the rule by Thutmose III as
pharaoh, that his eldest son, Amenemhat, was her child, and
that he thereby was the heir to the throne of Thutmose III
until he died.
Rule
Dates and length of reign
Hatshepsut is given a reign as pharaoh
of about twenty-two years by ancient authors. Josephus writes
that she reigned for twenty-one years and nine months while
Africanus states her reign lasted twenty-two years, both of
whom were quoting Manetho. At this point in the histories,
records of the reign of Hatshepsut end, since the first major
foreign campaign of Thutmose III was dated to his twenty-second
year, which also would have been Hatshepsut's twenty-second
year as pharaoh. Dating the beginning of her reign is more
difficult, however. Her father's reign began in either 1506
or 1526 BC according to the low and high chronologies, respectively.
However, the length of the reigns of Thutmose I and Thutmose
II cannot be determined with absolute certainty. With short
reigns, Hatshepsut would have ascended the throne fourteen
years after the coronation of Thutmose I. Longer reigns would
put her ascension twenty-five years after Thutmose I's coronation.
Thus, Hatshepsut could have assumed power as early as 1512
BC or as late as 1479. Older chronologies dated her reign
from 1504 to about 1482. Modern chronologists, however, tend
to agree that Hatshepsut reigned as pharaoh from 1479 to 1458
BC, but there is no definitive proof.
Policies
Upon the death of Thutmose II, the
throne passed to Thutmose III, and Hatshepsut—as the child's
royal aunt and stepmother—was selected to be interregnum regent
until he came of age. Although ancient histories mark her
reign from the death of her father, some scholars argue that
initially, it appears that Hatshepsut was patterning herself
after the powerful women who were regents during Egypt's then-recent
history, but as Thutmose III approached maturity, if that
was so, she could have had only one model in mind: Sobekneferu,
the last monarch of the Twelfth Dynasty, who ruled in her
own right. Hatshepsut took one step further than Sobekneferu,
however, by being crowned pharaoh around 1473 BC, taking the
throne name Maatkare, meaning "Truth in the soul of the sun
god Re." Her reign is marked more by emulation of her father
as pharaoh, assuming most of his titles.
The date of her formal assumption
as king is not known but this event must have occurred by
her Seventh Year due to the discovery of the intact tomb of
Senenmut's parents—Ramose and Hatnofer—which contained various
grave goods including several pottery jars, one of which was
dated to 'Year Seven' and bore the seal the 'God's Wife Hatchepsut'
and two of which were stamped with the royal seal of 'The
Good Goddess Maatkare', the name she took as pharaoh. Hence,
by Year 7 of her regency, Hatshepsut was formally recognised
to be a pharaoh of Egypt. After she ascended the throne, her
name changed in some records from the feminine Hatshepsut
to Hatshepsu, which is not identified as a feminine name.
Hatshepsut surrounded herself with
strong and loyal advisors, many of whom are still known today
the Vizier Hapuseneb, the second prophet of Amun Puyemre and
her right hand man and closest advisor, the royal steward,
tutor and "overseer of all Royal Works" (or architect) Senenmut.
Because of the close nature of Hatshepsut and Senemut's relationship,
some Egyptologists have conjectured that they might have been
lovers. Among the evidence they offer to support this claim
is the fact that Hatshepsut allowed Senenmut to place his
name and image behind one of the main doors in Djeser-Djeseru,
which was a rare and unusual sharing of credit, and because
Senenmut had two tombs constructed near Hatshepsut's tomb.
However, the latter was a standard privilege for close advisors.
Other evidence offered as a justification
of this conjecture is a graffito from an unfinished Middle
Kingdom Deir el-Bahri tomb used as a rest house by the workers
of her mortuary temple: it depicts a male and a second person
of ambiguous gender with pharaonic regalia engaging in an
explicit sexual act from behind. The latter person in the
graffito "is wearing what has been identified as a royal headdress
withou However, other scholars argue that the drawing has
been misinterpreted "as a contemporary political parody to
highlight one way in which Hatchepsut could never be a true
king--she could never dominate a man in the way that she is
now being dominated."
Although the conjecture that Hatshepsut
and Senenmut might have been lovers has been well circulated,
it is highly contested among Egyptologists; all that is agreed
upon is that her administrator had ready access to the pharaoh's
ear. Senenmut's rapid rise in fortune at court and privileges
extended to him including the placing of his non-royal tomb
within the confines of Hatshepsut's temple at Deir el-Bahri
is cited. However, it is difficult to accept that an intelligent
woman such as Hatshepsut was being manipulated by Senenmut,
he seems to have served her father and husband also, and it
may simply be that she was rewarding her servant for his great
loyalty to her and his obvious skills given the achievements
accomplished in her projects in the typical fashion of pharaohs.
Major accomplishments
As Hatshepsut reestablished the trade
networks that had been disrupted during the Hyksos occupation
of Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period, thereby building
a wealth of the Eighteenth Dynasty that has become so famous
since the discovery of the burial of one of her descendants,
Tutankhamun, began to be analysed.
She oversaw the preparations and
funding for a mission to the Land of Punt. The expedition
set out in her name with five ships, each measuring 70 feet
(21 m) long bearing several sails and accommodating 210 men
that included sailors and 30 rowers. Many trade goods were
bought in Punt, notably myrrh, which is said to have been
Hatshepsut's favorite fragrance. Most notably, however, the
Egyptians returned from the voyage bearing 31 live frankincense
trees, the roots of which were carefully kept in baskets for
the duration of the voyage. This was the first recorded attempt
to transplant foreign trees. It is reported that Hatshepsut
had these trees planted in the courts of her Deir el Bahari
mortuary temple complex. She had the expedition commemorated
in relief at Deir el-Bahri, which also is famous for its depiction
of the Queen of the Land of Punt, who appears to have had
a genetic trait called steatopygia.
Although many Egyptologists have
claimed that her foreign policy was mainly peaceful, there
is evidence that Hatshepsut led successful military campaigns
in Nubia, the Levant, and Syria early in her career.
Building projects
Djeser-Djeseru
is the main building of Hatshepsut's mortuary temple complex
at Deir el-Bahri. Designed by Senemut, the building is an
example of perfect symmetry that predates the Parthenon, and
it was the first complex built on the site she chose, which
would become the Valley of the KingsHatshepsut was one of
the most prolific builder pharaohs of ancient Egypt, commissioning
hundreds of construction projects throughout both Upper and
Lower Egypt, that were grander and more numerous than those
of any of her Middle Kingdom predecessors.
She employed two great architects:
Ineni, who also had worked for her husband and father and
for the royal steward Senemut. During her reign, so much statuary
was produced that almost every major museum in the world has
Hatshepsut statuary among their collections; for instance,
the Hatshepsut Room in New York City's Metropolitan Museum
of Art is dedicated solely to these pieces.
Following the tradition of most pharaohs,
Hatshepsut had monuments constructed at the Temple of Karnak.
She had twin obelisks, at the time the tallest in the world,
erected at the entrance to the temple. One still stands, as
the tallest surviving ancient obelisk on Earth; the other
has since broken in two and toppled. Karnak's Red Chapel,
or Chapelle Rouge, was intended as a barque shrine and may
have stood between her two obelisks originally. She later
ordered the construction of two more obelisks to celebrate
her sixteenth year as pharaoh; one of the obelisks broke during
construction, and thus a third was constructed to replace
it. The broken obelisk was left at its quarrying site in Aswan,
where it still remains, known as The Unfinished Obelisk, serving
as a demonstration of just how obelisks were quarried.
In the fashion of the pharaohs, the
masterpiece of Hatshepsut's building projects was her mortuary
temple complex at Deir el-Bahri. It was designed and implemented
by Senemut on a site on the West Bank of the Nile River near
the entrance to what is now called the Valley of the Kings
because of all the pharaohs who chose to associate their complexes
with the grandur of hers. Her buildings were the first planned
for that location. The focal point was the Djeser-Djeseru
or "the Sublime of Sublimes", a colonnaded structure of perfect
harmony nearly one thousand years before the Parthenon was
built. Djeser-Djeseru sits atop a series of terraces that
were once graced with lush gardens. Djeser-Djeseru is built
into a cliff face that rises sharply above it. Djeser-Djeseru
and the other buildings of Hatshepsut's Deir el-Bahri complex
are considered to be among the great buildings of the ancient
world.
Official propaganda
While all ancient leaders used propaganda
to laud their achievements, Hatshepsut has been called the
most accomplished pharaoh at promoting her accomplishments.
This may have resulted from the extensive building executed
during her time as pharaoh in comparison to many others because
it afforded her with opportunities to laud herself, but it
also reflects the wealth that her policies and administration
brought to Egypt, enabling her to finance such projects. Aggrandizement
of their achievements was traditional when pharaohs built
temples and their tombs. The term propaganda is rarely applied
to similar activities by male pharaohs, and begs the question
of why it is used here. Much of her decorative reliefs had
religious overtones and was supported fully by the officials
at the Temple of Karnak. Since the passage of leadership was
determined in advance by these same religious leaders, and
enacted at the moment of the death of a pharaoh, the transition
to the next occurred without question and immediately. Hence,
there was no need to influence "public opinion" or for the
subtle manipulation associated with the concept of "propaganda"
that is implied in some scholarship about Hatshepsut. Selected
by the religious leaders and assisted by an accomplished administration,
she ruled over a kingdom that markedly prospered under her
rule.
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Large granite sphinx bearing
the likeness
of the
pharaoh Hatshepsut, depicted
with the traditional false beard,
a symbol of her pharaonic power,
residing in the Metropolitan
Museum of Art
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Women had a high status in ancient Egypt and enjoyed
the legal right to own, inherit or will property. As noted previously,
lineage was traced through maternal relationships. A woman becoming
pharaoh was rare, however; only Khentkaues, Sobeknefru, Twosret,
and possibly Nitocris preceded her in known records as ruling
solely in their own name. The latter's existence is disputed.
At that point in Egyptian history, there was no word for a Queen
regnant, only one for Queen consort. Hatshepsut is not unique,
however, in taking the title of King. Sobekneferu, ruling six
dynasties prior to Hatshepsut, also did so when she ruled Egypt.
Hatshepsut had been well trained in her duties as the daughter
of the pharaoh. She had taken a strong role as queen to her
husband and was well experienced in the administration of her
kingdom by the time she became pharaoh. There is no indication
of challenges to her leadership and until her death, her co-regent
remained in a secondary role, quite amicably heading her powerful
army.
Hatshepsut assumed all of the regalia
and symbols of the Pharaonic office in official representations:
the Khat head cloth, topped with an uraeus, the traditional
false beard, and shendyt kilt. Many existing statues alternatively
show her in typically feminine attire as well as those that
depict her in the royal ceremonial attire. Statues portraying
Sobekneferu also combine elements of traditional male and
female iconography and, by tradition, may have served as inspiration
for these works commissioned by Hatshepsut. After this period
of transition ended, however, all formal depictions of Hatshepsut
as pharaoh showed her in the royal attire, with all of the
pharaonic regalia, and with her breasts obscured behind her
crossed arms holding the regal staffs of the two kingdoms
she ruled, as the symbols of the pharaoh were much more important
to be displayed traditionally.
The reasons for her breasts not being
emphasized in the most formal statues were debated among early
Egyptologists who never drew a parallel to the fact that many
women and goddesses portrayed in ancient Egyptian art lack
delineation of breasts and that the gender of pharaohs was
never stressed in ancient Egyptian Art. Interpretations by
these early scholars were that her motivation for wearing
men's clothing was a personal choice.
Modern scholars, however, have opted
for an alternative theory: that by assuming the typical symbols
of pharaonic power, Hatshepsut was asserting her claim to
be the sovereign and not a "King's Great Wife" or Queen consort.
The gender of pharaohs was never stressed in official depictions,
even the men were depicted with the highly stylized false
beard associated with their position in the society.
Most of the official statues commissioned
of Hatshepsut show her less symbolically and more naturally
as a woman in typical dresses of the nobility of her day.
Notably, even after assuming the formal regalia, Hatshepsut
still described herself as a beautiful woman, often as the
most beautiful of women, and although she assumed almost all
of her father's titles, she declined to take the title "The
Strong Bull", which tied the pharaoh to the goddesses Isis,
the throne, and Hathor by being her son sitting on her throne
-- since Hatshepsut became allied with the goddesses herself.
Religious concepts were tied into all of these symbols and
titles.
While Hatshepsut was depicted in
official art wearing regalia of a pharaoh, such as the false
beard that male pharaohs also wore, it is most unlikely that
she ever wore such ceremonial decorations, just as it is unlikely
that the male pharaohs did. Statues such as those at the Metropolitan
Museum of Art, depicting her seated wearing a tight-fitting
dress and the nemes crown, are thought to be a more accurate
representation of how she would have presented herself at
court.
As a notable exception, only one
male pharaoh abandoned the rigid symbolic depiction that had
become the style of the most official artwork representing
the ruler, Pharaoh Amenhotep IV (later Akhenaten) of the same
Eighteenth Dynasty, whose wife, Nefertiti, also may have ruled
in her own right following the death of her husband. Nefertiti
is thought to have been a woman from the same lineage as Hatshepsut.
One of the most famous examples of
the legends about Hatshepsut is a myth about her birth. In
this myth, Amun goes to Ahmose in the form of Thutmose I and
awakens her with pleasant odors. At this point Amun places
the ankh, a symbol of life, to Ahmose's nose, and Hatshepsut
is conceived by Ahmose. Khnum, the god who forms the bodies
of human children, is then instructed to create a body and
ka, or corporal presence/life force, for Hatshepsut. Heket,
the goddess of life and fertility, and Khnum then lead Ahmose
along to a lion bed where she gives birth to Hatshepsut.
The Oracle of Amun proclaimed that
it was the will of Amun that Hatshepsut be Pharaoh, further
strengthening her position. She publicized Amun's support
by having endorsements by the god Amun carved on her monuments:
“Welcome my sweet daughter, my favorite, the
King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Maatkare, Hatshepsut. Thou
art the Pharaoh, taking possession of the Two Lands.”
Hatshepsut claimed that she was her
father's intended heir and that he made her the heir apparent
of Egypt. Almost all scholars today view this as historical
revisionism on Hatshepsut's part since it was Thutmose II--a
son of Thutmose I by Mutnofret--who was her father's heir.
Moreover, Thutmose I could not have foreseen that his daughter
Hatshepsut would outlive his son within his own lifetime.
Thutmose II soon married to Hatshepsut and the latter became
both his senior royal wife and one of the most powerful women
at court. Evelyn Wells, however, accepts Hatshepsut's claim
that she was her father's intended successor. Once she became
pharaoh herself, Hatshepsut supported her assertion that she
was her father's designated successor with inscriptions on
the walls of her mortuary temple:
"Then his majesty said to them: "This daughter
of mine, Khnumetamun Hatshepsut—may she live!—I have appointed
as my successor upon my throne... she shall direct the people
in every sphere of the palace; it is she indeed who shall
lead you. Obey her words, unite yourselves at her command."
The royal nobles, the dignitaries, and the leaders of the
people heard this proclamation of the promotion of his daughter,
the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Maatkare—may she live eternally.”
American humorist Will Cuppy wrote
an essay on Hatshepsut which was published after his death
in the book The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody.
Regarding one of her wall inscriptions, he wrote,
Death and mummification
Hatshepsut died as she was approaching,
what we would consider middle age given typical contemporary
lifespans, in her twenty-second regnal year. The precise date
of Hatshepsut's death--and the time when Thutmose III became
sole ruler of Egypt--is considered to be Year 22, II Peret
day 10 of their joint rule as recorded on a single stela erected
at Armant[34] or January 16, 1458 BC. This information validates
the basic reliability of Manetho's kinglist records since
Thutmose III and Hatshepsut's known accession date was I Shemu
day 4. (ie: Hatshepsut died 9 months into her 22nd year as
Manetho writes in his Epitome for a reign of 21 years and
9 months) No mention of the cause of her death has survived.
If the recent identification of her mummy in KV60 is correct,however,
CT scans would indicate that she died of blood infection while
she was in her 50s.; it also would suggest that she had arthritis,
bad teeth, and probably had diabetes.
For a long time, her mummy was believed
to be missing from the Deir el-Bahri Cache. An unidentified
female mummy—found with Hatshepsut's wet nurse, In-Sitre,
one of whose arms was posed in the traditional burial style
of pharaohs—has led to the theory that the unidentified mummy
in KV60 might be Hatshepsut. Don Ryan working with Pacific
Lutheran University and The Evergreen State College reopened
KV60 in 1989, which had been resealed after it was discovered
at the turn of the century. The tomb had been damaged, but
the mummies remained in site.
In March 2006, Zahi Hawass claimed
to have located the mummy of Hatshepsut, which was mislaid
on the third floor of the Cairo Museum. In June 2007, it was
announced that Egyptologists believed they had identified
Hatshepsut's mummy in the Valley of the Kings; this discovery
is considered to be the "most important find in the Valley
of the Kings since the discovery of King Tutankhamun". Decisive
evidence was a molar found in a wooden box that was inscribed
with Hatshepsut's name, found in 1881 among a cache of royal
mummies hidden away for safekeeping in a near-by temple. The
tooth has been conclusively proven to have been removed from
the mummy's mouth, fitting exactly an empty socket in the
mummy's jawbone.
Burial Complex
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Hatshepsut's TempleHatshepsut had
begun construction of a tomb when she was the Great Royal
Wife of Thutmose II, but the scale of this was not suitable
when she became pharaoh, so a second tomb was built. This
was KV20, which was possibly the first tomb to be constructed
in the Valley of the Kings. The original intention seems to
have been to hew a long tunnel that would lead underneath
her mortuary temple, but the quality of the limestone bedrock
was poor and her architect must have realized that this goal
would not be possible. As a result, a large burial chamber
was created instead. At some point, it was decided to dis-inter
her father, Thutmose I, from his original tomb in KV38 and
place his mummy in a new chamber below hers. Her original
red-quartzite sarcophagus was altered to accommodate her father
instead, and a new one was made for her. It is likely that
when she died (no later than the twenty-second year of her
reign), she was interred in this tomb along with her father.
The tomb was opened in antiquity,
the first time during the reign of Hatshepsut's successor,
Thutmose III, who re-interred his grandfather, Thutmose I,
in his original tomb, and may have moved Hatshepsut's mummy
into the tomb of her wet nurse, In-Sitre, in KV60. Although
her tomb had been largely cleared (save for both sarcophagi
still present when the tomb was fully cleared by Howard Carter
in 1903) some grave furnishings have been identified as belonging
to Hatshepsut, including a "throne" (bedstead is a better
description), a senet game board with carved lion-headed,
red-jasper game pieces bearing her pharaonic title, a signet
ring, and a partial ushabti figurine bearing her name. In
the Royal Mummy Cache at DB320 an ivory canopic coffer was
found that was inscribed with the name of Hatshepsut and contained
a mummified liver. However, there was a royal lady of the
Twenty-first dynasty of the same name, and this could belong
to her instead.
Changing recognition
Toward the end of the reign of Thutmose
III, an attempt was made to remove Hatshepsut from certain
historical and pharaonic records. This elimination was carried
out in the most literal way possible. Her cartouches and images
were chiselled off the stone walls—leaving very obvious Hatshepsut-shaped
gaps in the artwork—and she was excluded from the official
history that was rewritten without acknowledgment of any form
of co-regency during the period between Thutmose II to Thutmose
III. At the Deir el-Bahri temple, Hatshepsut's numerous statues
were torn down and in many cases, smashed or disfigured before
being buried in a pit. At Karnak there was even an attempt
to wall up her obelisks. While it is clear that much of this
rewriting of Hatshepsut's history occurred only during the
close of Thutmose III's reign, it is not clear why it happened,
other than the typical pattern of self-promotion that existed
among the pharaohs and their administrators, or perhaps saving
money by not building new monuments for the burial of Thutmose
III and instead, using the grand structures built by Hatshepsut.
For many years, Egyptologists assumed
that it was a damnatio memoriae, the deliberate erasure of
a person's name, image, and memory, which would cause them
to die a second, terrible and permanent death in the afterlife.
This appeared to make sense when thinking that Thutmose might
have been an unwilling co-regent for years. This assessment
of the situation is probably too simplistic, however. It is
highly unlikely that the determined and focused Thutmose—not
only Egypt's most successful general, but an acclaimed athlete,
author, historian, botanist, and architect—would have brooded
for two decades before attempting to avenge himself on his
stepmother. According to renowned Egyptologist Donald Redford:
“Here and there, in the dark recesses of a shrine
or tomb where no plebeian eye could see, the queen's cartouche
and figure were left intact ... which never vulgar eye would
again behold, still conveyed for the king the warmth and awe
of a divine presence.”
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These two statues once
resembled each other, however, the symbols of her
pharaonic power: the Uraeus, Double Crown, and traditional
false beard have been stripped from the left image.
Many images portraying Hatshepsut as pharaoh were
destroyed or vandalized within decades of her death
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The erasures were sporadic and haphazard,
with only the more visible and accessible images of Hatshepsut
being removed; had it been more complete, we would not now
have so many images of Hatshepsut. Thutmose III may have died
before his changes were finished, or it may be that he never
intended a total obliteration of her memory. In fact, we have
no evidence to support the assumption that Thutmose hated
or resented Hatshepsut during her lifetime. Had that been
true, as head of the army, in a position given to him by Hatshepsut
(who was clearly not worried about her co-regent's loyalty),
he surely could have led a successful coup, but he made no
attempt to challenge her authority during her reign and her
accomplishments and images remained featured on all of the
public buildings she built for twenty years after her death.
It is possible that Thutmose III,
lacking any sinister motivation, decided toward the end of
his life, to relegate Hatshepsut to her expected place as
queen regent--which was the traditional role of powerful women
in Egypt's court as the example of Queen Ahhotep attests--rather
than king. By eliminating the more obvious traces of Hatshepsut's
monuments as pharaoh and reducing her status to that of his
co-regent, Thutmose III could claim that the royal succession
ran directly from Thutmose I to Thutmose III without any interference
his aunt.
The deliberate erasures or mutilations
of the numerous public celebrations of her accomplishments,
but not the rarely seen ones, would be all that was necessary
to obscure Hatshepsut's accomplishments. Moreover, by the
latter half of Thutmose III's reign, the more prominent high
officials who had served Hatshepsut would have died thereby
eliminating the powerful bureaucratic resistance to a change
in direction in a highly stratified culture. Hatshepsut's
highest official and closest supporter, Senenmut himself seems
to have either retired abruptly or died around Years 16 and
20 of Hatshepsut's reign and was never interred in either
of his carefully prepared tombs. The enigma of Senenmut's
sudden disappearance "has teased Egyptologists for decades"
given the lack of solid archaeological or textual evidence"
and permitted "the vivid imagination of Senenmut-scholars
to run wild" resulting in a variety of strongly held solutions
"some of which would do credit to any fictional murder/mystery
plot." Newer court officials, appointed by Thutmose III, would
also have had an interest in promoting the many achievements
of their master in order to assure the continued success of
their own families.
A more recent hypothesis about Hatshepsut
suggests that Thutmose III's erasures and defacement of Hatshepsut's
monuments were a cold but rational attempt on Thutmose's part
to extinguish the memory of an "unconventional female king
whose reign might possibly be interpreted by future generations
as a grave offence against Ma'at, and whose unorthodox coregency"
could "cast serious doubt upon the legitimacy of his own right
to rule. Hatshepsut's crime need not be nothing more than
the fact that she was a woman." Thutmose III may have considered
the possibility that the example of a successful female king
in Egyptian history could set a dangerous precedent since
it demonstrated that a woman was as capable at governing Egypt
as a traditional male king. This event could, theoretically,
persuade "future generations of potentially strong female
kings" to not "remain content with their traditional lot as
wife, sister and eventual mother of a king" instead and assume
the crown. While Queen Sobekneferu of Egypt's Middle Kingdom
had enjoyed a short c.4 year reign, she ruled "at the very
end of a fading [12th dynasty] Dynasty, and from the very
start of her reign the odds had been stacked against her.
She was therefore acceptable to conservative Egyptians as
a patriotic 'Warrior Queen' who had failed" to rejuvenate
Egypt's fortunes--a result which underlined the traditional
Egyptian view that a woman was incapable of holding the throne
in her own right. Hence, few Egyptians would desire to repeat
the experiment of a female monarch. In contrast, Hatshepsut's
glorious reign was a completely different case: she demonstrated
that women were as equally capable as men in ruling the two
lands since she successfully presided over a prosperous Egypt
for more than two decades. If Thutmose III's intent here was
to forestall the possibility of a woman assuming the throne,
it failed. Two female kings are known to have assumed the
throne after Thutmose's reign during the New Kingdom: Neferneferuaten
and Twosret. Unlike Hatshepsut, however, both rulers enjoyed
brief and short-lived reign of only 2 and 1 years respectively.
The erasure of Hatshepsut's name,
whatever the reason, almost caused her to disappear from Egypt's
archaeological and written records. And, when nineteenth-century
Egyptologists started to interpret the texts on the Deir el-Bahri
temple walls (which were illustrated with two seemingly male
kings) their translations made no sense. Jean-Francois Champollion,
the French decoder of hieroglyphs, was not alone in feeling
confused by the
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Hieroglyphs showing Thutmose
III on the left and Hatshepsut on the right, she having
the trapings of the greater role
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obvious conflict between words and
pictures: