Hatchepsut: The Female Pharaoh (4 page)

Many of the most productive archaeological expeditions at the turn of the century were funded by wealthy westerners, both individuals and institutions, who were rewarded for their generosity by a share in the finds. This has caused its own problems as valuable collections were routinely split up and dispersed throughout the museums of Egypt, Europe and America. The statuary of Hatchepsut, whose sites have generally been funded by Americans, can now be far better studied in the Metropolitan Museum of New York than in the museums of Luxor or Cairo. While this has almost certainly led to the preservation and display of objects which might otherwise have been condemned to languish in the storerooms of Egypt's over-full museums, it does pose logistical problems for the impoverished student of Hatchepsut-abilia. Hatchepsut herself suffered badly from the fact that the tomb of Tutankhamen, a relatively insignificant king whose burial chamber was stuffed with golden objects, was discovered in 1922, diverting attention away from equally valuable but less obviously exciting work which was just starting at the Deir el-Bahri mortuary temple. From 1922 onwards Tutankhamen entered the public imagination as the instantly recognized symbol of ancient Egypt, and any less spectacular discoveries were generally classified as worthy but dull.

The written evidence used in the reconstruction of Egyptian history comes from two main sources: the formal monumental inscriptions carved or painted on the temple and tomb walls, and the more informal prayers, administrative records, stories and love poems preserved on papyrus and on broken pieces of pottery or limestone chips now
known as ostraca (singular ostracon). Again, this evidence needs to be approached with an appropriate degree of caution; we should never lose sight of the fact that the written record is incomplete, randomly selected, and carries its own biases. The monumental inscriptions, for example, are basically a mixture of religious and propaganda texts which tell the story that the king him- or herself wished to convey, and which cannot be taken as the literal truth. The translators of these inscriptions are faced with problems not just of accuracy but of interpretation; even the most scrupulous of scholars is aware that he or she is likely to read a text through the lens of personal feelings. Nevertheless, and in spite of its obvious drawbacks, this type of evidence, taken in conjunction with the archaeological data and enlivened by the writings of contemporary and later visitors to Egypt, can provide modern historians with an invaluable glimpse into the life of ancient Egypt.

Those unfamiliar with Egyptian history are often puzzled by the use of dynasties and individual regnal years to date events. Rather than providing a specific calendar date, such as 1458
BC
, egyptologists will refer to Hatchepsut's regnal Year 21, while her reign is itself counted as part of the early 18th Dynasty of the New Kingdom of the dynastic age. This is done not to confuse but to ensure the greatest possible accuracy. We know, for example, that Hatchepsut ruled for twenty-two years, but her precise calendar dates are less certain, and various experts have suggested differing time-spans for her reign (for example, 1504–1482
BC
1490/88–1468
BC
; 1479–1457
BC
; 1473–1458
BC
). The practice of referring to regnal years, followed throughout this book, avoids the complications engendered by this multiplicity of suggested but unproven calendar dates.

The Egyptians divided their year into twelve months of 30 days plus 5 additional days each year, giving an annual total of 365 days. The months in turn were grouped into three seasons based on the agricultural cycle: inundation, spring and summer. However, there was no ancient equivalent of our modern calendar, and year numbers started afresh with every new reign. In order to be sure of their own history, the Egyptian scribes were forced to maintain long chronological lists detailing successive monarchs and their reigns. Fortunately, enough of these so-called king lists have survived to allow us to reconstruct Egypt's past with a fair degree of accuracy. The work of the Egyptian priest
and historian Manetho has provided useful corroborative evidence. Manetho, working in approximately 300
BC
, compiled a detailed history of the kings of Egypt. This original work is now lost, but fragments have been preserved in the writings of Josephus (
AD
70), Africanus (early third century
AD
), Eusebius (early fourth century
AD
) and Syncellus (
c
.
AD
800). These preserved extracts do not always agree, and the names given are often wildly incorrect, but students of Egyptian history still acknowledge a huge debt to Manetho, the ‘Father of Egyptian History’. It was Manetho who first divided the various reigns into dynasties, and it was Manetho who preserved the memory, if not the actual name, of King Hatchepsut.

Another potential source of confusion is the profusion of slightly different personal names attributed by various authors to the same place or person, particularly when older sources are being quoted. Hatchepsut, for example, is also variously referred to as Hatasu, Hashepsowe, Hatshopsitu, Hatshepsut and Hatshepsuit; her father Dhutmose or Thutmose is now more commonly known by the Greek version of his name, Tuthmosis, and the state gods Amen and Re are often rendered as Amun and Ra. Some authorities have devised their own exclusive variants. Sir Alan Gardiner, for example, consistently uses Pwene in place of the more widely accepted Punt, while Naville, Buttles and other turn-of-the-century egyptologists reverse Hatchepsut's throne-name Maatkare to read as Kamara. Unfortunately for modern readers, the ancient Egyptians wrote their hieroglyphic texts with no weak vowels and with an assortment of consonants not found in our modern alphabet, so the correct pronunciation of any Egyptian name must be a matter of educated guesswork. Throughout this book, the most simple and widely accepted version of each proper name has been used, all diacritical marks have been omitted, and the names included in citations within the text have been, as far as possible, standardized in an effort to avoid an unnecessary and confusing muddle for the non-specialist reader.

1

Backdrop: Egypt in the Early Eighteenth Dynasty

I have raised up what was dismembered, even from the first time when the Asiatics were in Avaris of the North Land, with roving hordes in the midst of them overthrowing what had been made; they ruled without Re…
¹

Princess Hatchepsut was born into the early 18th Dynasty, at a time when the newly united Egypt was still reeling from the ignominy of seeing foreign kings seated on the divine throne of the pharaohs. Although the 18th Dynasty was to develop into a period of unprecedented Egyptian prosperity, the deep humiliation of a hundred years of Hyksos rule and the widespread civil unrest of the Second Intermediate Period were never fully forgotten, and a concern with replicating the halcyon days of the Old and Middle Kingdoms – and in particular the glorious 12th Dynasty – became a constant underlying theme of early 18th Dynasty political life.

The 12th Dynasty had represented a truly golden age. Recovering from a somewhat shaky start which included the assassination of its founder, Amenemhat I, there had followed almost two hundred years of internal peace and stability which are now widely regarded as forming one of the classical periods of Egyptian civilization. Throughout the dynasty a succession of strong pharaohs ruled over a united land from the new capital of Itj-Tawy (a northern city lying somewhere between the Old Kingdom capital of Memphis and the mouth of the Faiyum), their position as absolute rulers greatly strengthened by a well-planned series of civil service reforms aimed at restricting the power of the wealthy nobles who, after the local autonomy of the First Intermediate Period, might otherwise have been tempted to establish their own independent local dynasties. Twelfth Dynasty foreign policy was as successful as it
was adventurous, and trade and diplomatic links were established with both the Aegean and the Near East as Egypt abandoned her traditional insularity and started to play a more prominent role in the Mediterranean world. There were intrepid expeditions, including a mission to the fabulous land of Punt, and significant military conquests as a new aggressive attitude towards the south pushed Egypt's boundary further into Nubia. Within Egypt's newly strengthened borders the eastern desert was exploited for its natural resources which included gold, the Sinai was mined for turquoise and copper and the Faiyum was developed for agriculture through a series of innovative irrigation techniques.

A combination of increasing Egyptian wealth, foreign stimulation and political stability throughout the Middle Kingdom allowed the arts to flourish. This was to become the period of classical Egyptian language and literature when many of the best-known texts, inscriptions and narrative stories were composed. The writings of the Old Kingdom had been brief, formal and very self-conscious in style. Middle Kingdom compositions are both longer and far more fluent; the autobiographies
²
recorded on the walls of the private tombs are simultaneously more informative and more imaginative than their Old Kingdom counterparts while the instructive texts, or
Instructions in Wisdom
, show a new realism in their desire to stress the chaos poised to overwhelm Egypt in the absence of a strong king. However, it is for the development of narrative fiction that the Middle Kingdom literature is most justly celebrated.
The Satire of the Trades, The Story of the Eloquent Peasant, The Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor
and
The Story of Sinuhe
all date to this period, allowing us to trace the evolution of the genre from simple action-packed adventures taken straight from the oral tradition (for example,
The Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor
– a
Boys' Own
-style tale of shipwreck and adventure including a fabulous snake-like creature) to more thought-provoking tales told in an increasingly more sophisticated blend of styles (for example,
The Story of Sinuhe
– the fictional autobiography of a nobleman exiled from Egypt and longing for home).
³

Artists and sculptors were quick to reflect the new mood of combined nostalgia and realism and their work, while still based on the traditional and highly formalized style of the Old Kingdom, demonstrates a willingness to portray subjects as individuals rather than stereotypes. The royal sculptors now felt themselves free to depict a more
human pharaoh; when we look at the portrait heads of the 12th Dynasty kings Senwosret III and Amenemhat III we see strong, serious and somewhat weary men striving to conduct their divine role with regal severity, a marked contrast to the more serene and remote all-powerful god-kings of the Old Kingdom. At the same time the range of private sculpture expanded as ordinary individuals started to be represented in a variety of innovative forms rather than the limited range of statues found in Old Kingdom tombs. Few royal paintings have survived from the Middle Kingdom but the private tombs of Beni Hassan vibrate with colourful life as representations of wrestling, warfare and dancing now join the more restrained scenes found in Old Kingdom tombs.

Large-scale building projects recommenced during the 12th Dynasty, with the form of the pyramid being re-adopted as a means of emulating the Old Kingdom precedent and emphasizing the status of the king and his connection with the sun god, Re. However, there was now to be no single public building on the grand scale of the Giza pyramids. Instead of following their royal predecessors and concentrating their efforts on one solitary mortuary monument, the monarchs of the Middle Kingdom decided to spread their resources rather more widely. The extent to which these kings were willing to construct stone additions to existing mud-brick temples in the provinces is unclear because of the extensive re-modelling which occurred during the 18th Dynasty, but the evidence, where it survives, suggests a construction programme which extended the royal monopoly of stone buildings to the furthest corners of the most distant Egyptian provinces. Unfortunately, many important temples from this period were deliberately destroyed so that their precious stone blocks could be re-used in later buildings, and our knowledge of 12th Dynasty architecture is consequently sadly restricted. Our best-known example is the White Chapel of Senwosret I. This beautiful building, which demonstrates a thorough mastery of stone-working techniques including some impressive relief carving, had been dismantled and used as part of the filling of a pylon built by the New Kingdom Pharaoh Amenhotep III at Karnak. After painstaking reconstruction it is now restored to its former glories and is on permanent display in the Open-Air Museum at Karnak.

All good things must come to an end. Eventually the royal family, which had until now provided one of the longest continuous lines ever
to rule Egypt, found itself without a male heir to the throne. Amenemhat IV, the final king of the 12th Dynasty, was therefore of necessity succeeded by his sister or half-sister Sobeknofru, who ruled as Queen of Upper and Lower Egypt for three years, ten months and twenty-four days before dying a natural death in office. With her death came the end of her dynasty. Although there was, in theory, nothing to prevent a woman from becoming pharaoh and, indeed, there appears to have been no opposition to Sobeknofru assuming this role – although any unsuccessful opposition would, of course, be difficult for us to detect – such an obvious departure from royal tradition was a sure sign that something was very wrong within the royal family, and Sobeknofru's reign is now generally interpreted as a brave but doomed attempt to prolong a dying royal line. An alternative view, that she must have seized the crown as the result of a vicious family quarrel, is now largely discredited on the grounds of lack of evidence. The fact that Sobeknofru's name was included on the Sakkara king list may be taken as a good indication that her reign was acceptable both to her people and to the historians who preserved her memory.