HATSHEPSUT

'Hatshepsut' (or 'Hatchepsut', ),^[1] meaning ''Foremost of Noble Ladies'',^[2] 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.^[3] 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.^[4]
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.

Contents

Identification of mummy

Family and early life

Rule

Dates and length of reign

Policies

Major accomplishments

Building projects

Official propaganda

Death and mummification

Burial complex

Changing recognition

Popular and fictional attention

See also

Notes

References

External links

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.^[5] 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.^[6]
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. [1] 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:
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.^[7]

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.^[8] 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.^[9] 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.^[10] Longer reigns would put her ascension twenty-five years after Thutmose I's coronation.^[11] 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.^[12]
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.^[13]
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.^[14]
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.^[15] Because of the close nature of Hatshepsut and Senemut's relationship, some Egyptologists have conjectured that they might have been lovers.^[16] 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.^[17] The latter person in the graffito "is wearing what has been identified as a royal headdress without the uraeus, and is generally acknowledged to represent Hatchepsut."^[18] 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."^[19]
Although the conjecture that Hatshepsut and Senenmut might have been lovers has been well circulated, it is highly contested among Egyptologists;^[20]
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.^[21] 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,^[22] there is evidence that Hatshepsut led successful military campaigns in Nubia, the Levant, and Syria early in her career.

Building projects

Hatshepsut 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.^[23]
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.^[24] 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.

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

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^[25] 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.^[26] 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.[2]
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:
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:
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.^[27] 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^[28] or January 16, 1458 BC.^[29] 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'.^[30] (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.^[31]
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.^[32] 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.^[33] 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.^[34] 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".^[35] 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.Tooth clinches identification of Egyptian queen Reuters June 27, 2007.

Burial complex

Hatshepsut's Temple

Hatshepsut 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.^[36]
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.^[37]

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:

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.^[38] 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."^[39] 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."^[40] 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.^[41] 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.^[42] 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.^[42] 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 obvious conflict between words and pictures:

The 2006 discovery of a foundation deposit including nine golden cartouches bearing the names of both Hatshepsut and Thutmose III in Karnak may shed additional light on the eventual attempt by Thutmose III to erase Hatshepsut from the historical record and the correct nature of their relationship and her role as pharaoh.^[44]
Hatshepsut went from being one of the most obscure leaders of Egypt at the beginning of the twentieth century to one of its most famous, by the century's end. Archaeological discoveries of the early twentieth century provided information that had been missing from historical records and technical advances later in the century, enabled better identifications to make contemporary historical records more complete.

Popular and fictional attention

As the Feminist movement matured, prominent women from antiquity were sought out and their achievements increasingly publicized. Biographies such as ''Hatshepsut'' by Evelyn Wells romanticized her as a beautiful and pacifistic woman—"the first great woman in History." This was quite a contrast to the nineteenth-century interpretations of Hatshepsut as a wicked stepmother usurping the throne from Thutmose III. The novel ''Mara, Daughter of the Nile'' by Eloise Jarvis McGraw, maintains the wicked stepmother view by casting Hatshepsut as the story's villainess. The plot revolves around the efforts of the slave girl Mara and various nobles to overthrow Hatshepsut and install the "rightful" heir, Thutmose III, as Pharaoh. They blame Hatshepsut's numerous building projects for the bankruptcy of the Egyptian state and she is depicted as keeping Thutmose III as a prisoner within the palace walls. At least four authors have written fictional novels featuring Hatshepsut as the historical heroine: '' by Moyra Caldecott, ''King and Goddess'', by Judith Tarr, ''Child of the Morning'' by Pauline Gedge, and ''Pharaoh'' by Eloise Jarvis McGraw, as well as the Lieutenant Bak series of mystery novels which is set during her reign.
There is a popular theory that before her father's death, Hatshepsut was the princess who found Moses floating in the Nile, which has been largely debated by Egyptologists, Muslim and Biblical scholars.^[45] She is depicted in this role in Orson Scott Card's historical novel ''Stone Tables''.
Hatshepsut appears as the leader for Egypt in ''Civilization IV''.

See also

★ Hatshepsut problem

★ History of ancient Egypt

★ Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt Family Tree

★ List of Pharaohs

★ Hatshepsut's temple

Notes

1. Hatshepsut
2. Clayton, Peter. Chronicle of the Pharaohs, Thames & Hudson Ltd, 1994. p.104
3. Dodson, Aidan. Dyan, Hilton. The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt Thames & Hudson, 2004. ISBN 0-500-05128-3. p.130
4. Women in Power: BCE 4500-1000
5. Egypt Says Mummy of Queen Discovered
6. The Search for Hatshepsut and the Discovery of Her Mummy by Dr. Zahi Hawass, June 2007
7. Shaw, op.cit., p.254 (''see below:'' References).
8. Steindorff, George; and Seele, Keith. ''When Egypt Ruled the East'' p.53. University of Chicago, 1942
9. Grimal, Nicolas. ''A History of Ancient Egypt'' pp. 204. Librairie Arthéme Fayard, 1988.
10. Gabolde, Luc (1987).''La Chronologie du règne de Thoutmosis II, ses conséquences sur la datation des momies royales et leurs répercutions sur l'histoire du développement de la Vallée des Rois'' SAK 14: 61–87.
11. Grimal, Nicolas. ''A History of Ancient Egypt'' p.204. Librairie Arthéme Fayard, 1988
12. Steindorff, George; and Seele, Keith. ''When Egypt Ruled the East'' p.40. University of Chicago, 1942.
13. Tyldesley, p.99 (''see below:'' References).
14. Seawright.
15. Tyldesley, op. cit., p.168 & 177
16. Tyldesley, p.192-93.
17. Tyldesley, pp.188-191.
18. Tyldesley, p.190.
19. Tyldesley, pp.190-191.
20. Tyldesley pp.189-193 and Wells pp.194-195 (''see below:'' References).
21. Tyldesley, p.192.
22. Tyldesley pp. 137-144 (''see below:'' References).
23. ''The Unfinished Obelisk'' by Peter Tyson March 16, 1999 NOVA online adventure
24. Hatshepsut
25. Back in the limelight by Nevine El-Aref, Al-Ahram Weekly.
26. Callender/Shaw p.170.
27. Tyldesley pp. 210.
28. Joyce Tyldesley, Chronicle of the Queens of Egypt, Thames & Hudson, 2006. p.106
29. James P. Allen, 'The Military Campaign of Thutmose III' in "Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh," ed: Catherine Roehrig, The Metropolitan Museum of Art New York, Yale Univ. Press, 2005. p.261 Allen writes here that the Armant stela is considered by scholars to mark the occasion of Thutmose III's sole reign since he uses the epithet "Thutmose, Ruler of Maat" twice on this document for the first time in his reign. This means he was asserting his own claim to the administration of Egypt subsequent to that of Hatshepsut who had likely passed away
30. Jürgen von Beckerath, Chronologie des Pharaonischen Ägypten. Mainz, Philipp von Zabern. 1997. p.189
31. Tooth May Have Solved Mummy Mystery New York Times June 26 2007
32. Tyldesley pp. 213-214.
33. The Search for Hatshepsut and the Discovery of her Mummy
34. Hatshepsut Mummy Found Accessed August 20, 2006
35. Egyptologists think they have Hatshepsut's mummy. Reuters June 25, 2007.
36. Maatkare Hatshepset: The Female Pharaoh, by Forbes, Dennis C. pp. 26-42, KMT, Fall 2005.
37. Bickerstaffe, Dylan The Discovery of Hatshepsut's 'Throne', pp. 71-77, KMT, Spring 2002.
38. Tyldesley, op. cit., p.206
39. Tyldesley, op. cit., p.207 Tyldesley notes on page 252 that a detailed discussion of Senenmut's disappearance and a useful list of other publications on this topic is given in A.R. Schulman's 1969-1970 paper "Some Remarks on the Alleged 'Fall' of Senmut," JARCE 8, pp.29-48
40. Tyldesley, p.225
41. Tyldesley, pp.225-226
42. Tyldesley, p.226
43. Tyldesley, p.226
44. Tuthmosid foundation deposits at Karnak, , Romain, Mensan, Egyptian Archaeology, 2007
45. Harbin, p.122.

References

★ Donald B. Redford, History and Chronology of the 18th dynasty of Egypt: Seven studies, Toronto: University Press, 1967

★ Ian Shaw, ''The Oxford History of ancient Egypt'', Oxford University Press, 2000, 512 pages, ISBN 0-19-280293-3

★ Gae Callender ''The Middle Kingdom Renaissance (Chapter 7)''

★ Joyce Tyldesley, Hatchepsut: The Female Pharaoh, Penguin Books, 1998, paperback, 270 pages, ISBN 0-14-024464-6

★ Evelyn Wells, Hatshepsut, Double Day, 1969, hardback, 211 pages, Library of Congress catalog card # 69-10980

★ Harbin, Michael, ''The Promise and the Blessing'', Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Press, 2005

★ Judith Tarr, ''King and Goddess'', Tor Books, 1996, hardback, 384 pages, ISBN 0-31-286092-9

External links

★ Hatshepsut - Archaeowiki.org

★ June 27, 2007 - Mummy positively identified as that of Hatshepsut

★ Mummy Of Egyptian Queen Hatshepsut Found

★ Interactive, panoramic online view of Hatshepsut’s mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahari, Egypt

★ The Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir El-Bahri: The Construction and Restoration of a Masterpiece by Bonnie Sampsell, Journal of the Egyptian Study Society, Winter 2004-2005; Spring 2006

★ Video tour the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s gallery of Hatshepsut sculptures

★ Hatshepsut - the fifth ruler of the 18th Dynasty

★ Hatshepsut, the Queen who would be King at bediz.com

★ Poetry honoring Hatshepsut at bediz.com

★ 360° Panorama images