Hatshepsut a Successful King of Egypt

María José Amor Martínez Mfbx9ma2 Year 2 Was Hatshepsut a successful king of Egypt? (3067 words)

I hereby declare that the materials contained in this essay are entirely the product of my own work, that sources used are fully documented and that the whole has not previously been submitted for any other purpose.

Introduction The concept of success implies an idea of accomplishment. What were the duties of a King of Ancient Egypt? Maat is the Egyptian idea that presides every royal performance, but what is Maat? On the walls of the temple devoted by Hatshepsut to the goddess Pakhet is written: “[Maat] is my bread whose flavor I swallow in order to be one single body to him.” (Desroches 2002 p. 418) Maat is a very difficult concept to express. Whenever Maat is present, things are running well: the inundation on time, and within the right levels, the people happy and well organized, large crops, the gods satisfied, the ancestors appeased and the enemies far away from the frontiers. To decide whether Hatshepsut´s reign was successful or not, we must analyze these aspects during the time she wielded the power as a king of Egypt. But first of all: how she became a king of Egypt being in fact a woman? According to Manetho (Maneton, p. 56), the third king of the second dynasty (Binotris) enacted a law allowing women to become king. So, in principle, there are no legal impediments on that. But law is one thing and another thing is moral. Moral is something related with customs and traditions and no woman had ever been king (not queen, nor king´s wife, nor king´s mother, but king) in the history of Egypt. Hatshepsut was a woman in a period of the Egypt´s history when women wielded more power than ever (apart from, probably, on the first Dynasty). The reason must be in the war against the hyksos, because, by this time most of the pharaohs and their heirs died at early ages because of war wounds, so the king´s wife or king´s mother had to rule the country. That was the case of the great queens of the early XVIII Dynasty such as Tetisheri, Ahhotep and Ahmosis- Nefertari, all of them had to wield a regency because their sons were too young to rule by the time their fathers died. Hatshepsut was not a King´s Mother, but King´s Daughter (of Tutmosis I) and King´s Wife (of Tutmosis II). The roots of her aspirations to the throne, lie in an oracle and in an annunciation. The oracle occurs during the reign of Tutmosis I,

year II, in the large court of Luxor and it seems that her father supported the event, even though he was at Kush at that time (Desroches 2002, p.55) The Annunciation must be considered as a materialization of the Oracle: Hatshepsut is conceived by her father Amun in the womb of her mother Ahmes. All the details are described in a relief on the walls of the second terrace of her Funerary Temple at Deir el Bahari. The text is called “Text of the youth of Hatshepsut”, whose fundamentals were reproduced by Tutmosis III at Karnak (Grimal 1994 p.209) Tutmosis II had died and his son Tutmosis III was proclaimed king when Hatshepsut officially became a nswt, between the second and the seventh year of the reign of Tutmosis III (Dorman 1988, p.18) while he was still a child, a ‘hawk in the nest’ and Hathsepsut, his stepmother, was his regent. Why choose to materialize the prophecy of Amun just now and not before or afterwards? I don´t know, but all of that would have been impossible without the support of Hapuseneb, the High Priest of Amun. The point is that even if she became a King at this moment (after an official ceremony of coronation) the fact is that she recounts the years of her reign from the day of the Amun´s oracle, some years before. That is why she had her own Sed Festival at the end of her reign (Desroches 2002 p. 427). The first Sed Festival in the XVIII Dynasty. It is not easy to follow the reign of Hatshepsut and her numerous activities because most of her inscriptions on monuments (and even the monuments themselves) have been destroyed. The only way for a historian to get to know the events related to a particular king or character of the history is reading what this person has written on his own monuments or what other characters have written about him. In the case of Hatshepsut the situation is complicated because of "damatio memorie": a systematic destruction of her name from most of the monuments she built and the substitution for the name of other king and not always the king instigator´s name (Tyldesley, 1996 p.79). In the reconstruction of her reign I will follow different authors, most of them do not agree with each other about certain events. Whenever something is not clear, different and shifting theories arise and figure out throughout all of them is a real

challenge. I will analyze the reign of Hatshepsut from different points of view: religious, military, artistic and social to decide whether it was a successful reign or not.

Religious Innovations Hatshepsut was a very cultivated woman, in modern terms we can consider her as a kind of humanist. She gathered the knowledge from the past and delved into them. She developed a theogony based upon the ancient written of the Westcar Papyrus that contains the divine birth of the first pharaohs of the V Dynasty: the three sons of the sun Ra and a priesthood´s wife of the temple of Atum at Heliopolis (Ratie 1979, p. 104). In this way, she managed to find a religious foundation (a precedent) to support her claims to the throne. Being as it was a so irregular situation, she managed to convince people that her rights were founded. She revisited the ancient concept of sxr from the times of ‘The Story of Sinuhe’, when it first appears, which involves direct intervention of God in human affairs: the god speaks directly to the pharaoh and expresses his will; for example when Amun asked Hatshepsut to fetch him the aromatic scents from Punt. From Hatshepsut on this will be a constant of the pharaohs (Perez-Largacha 2010, web) and provides a divine guarantee to the actions of the king. Apparently, Amun was the god that Hatshepsut has devoted the most, but for the first time, appears a very peculiar and synergic relationship between two very different divinities: Amun, the occult, related somehow to the North Wind and dark forces in general, whose cult was celebrated in the inner chapel of the temple: the ‘sancta santorum’ only for a few, and Ra, the Sun God of Heliopolis and the Delta in general, whose cult was always outdoors under the sun rays. It was He who inspired Hatshepsut the divine conception of her mother and Hatshepsut had a chapel devoted to him in the north wing of the second terrace of her temple at Deir el Bahari. However, Hatshepsut joined the two opposite deities in a single one: Amun-Ra the powerful God of Tebas and she erected incredible obelisks (the foremost symbol of the sun) systematically, in front of the pylons of the temple of Amun: And so, Amun-Ra first appears in the Egyptian History and represented the

beliefs from both the North and the South combined, a common Egyptian cult in order to propitiate the union of the Two Lands. For the first time in the Egyptian history appears the most elaborated funerary book: ‘The Book of the Hidden Chamber’, that is to say, the Egyptian Book of the Amduat, the first well organized funerary text that contains the travel of Amun-Ra since his disappearance under the horizon till his triumphant occurrence at dawn including all the dangers and difficulties the sun must face in each of the twelve hours of the night (Hornung 2007 p.7). Not only in the royal tomb of Hatshepsut (Ratie p. 337) but Tutmosis III also decorated the entrance of his tomb at the valley of the kings with the sacred texts of the Book of the Amduat. In ancient times, religion and science were the same thing and knowledge was kept and stored in the ‘house of life’ within the temple enclosure. Some of this knowledge came to light during this time as we have seen above and also on the ceiling of the funerary chamber of the tomb of Senenmut (the foremost person during Hatshepsut reign) at Deir el Bahari. In here appears the first astronomical ceiling in the world: a lunar calendar with the three stations of the year and an astronomical chart with the constellations of the northern and southern sky and four planets: Venus, Mercury, Jupiter and Saturn. A truly marvel.

Military Campaigns Hatshepsut has not been a ‘pacifist’ in the modern meaning of the word but strictly fulfilled their military obligations without fanfare (Vandersleyen 1995, p. 281) After the campaigns of Tutmosis I and Tutmosis II (at least one is known to be done in Nubia) Egypt had achieved a period of great stability and prosperity. Hatshepsut was determined to engage herself to increase the wealth of the country. First, she scavenged the nomads that maraud the Sinai and re-opened the important mining of the area because the production of turquoises and copper was very important to Egypt. A stele at Serabit el Khadim shows the queen Hatshepsut as a God´s Wife testifying this (Desroches 2002, p.127)

On the island of Sehel exists a special inscription written by Thutiy proving a military intervention of Hatshepsut in Nubia: “I have seen her subduing the nomads. Their leaders were taken prisoners. I saw her destroying the country of nehestyw” (Brestead 1906, p.154) Those texts are confirmed by another inscription very damaged (as usual) on the walls of the temple of Deir el Bahari that alludes to a military campaign performed in the South, in the Kush´s country similar to the intervention of her father in the same country… “She destroyed the countries of the South, all the countries are now under her sandals (…) as her father, the king of the Two Lands Aajeperkare, did.” (Desroches 2002, p.128). When she was close to death she left written in the base of the northern obelisk located in the ‘Uadjit Hall’ at Karnak, a kind of colophon of her reign. She says that all the barbarian countries around are under her sandals and she established the exact limit of Egypt at this moment, she wrote: ‘‘The country of the God (Punt) is in my fist. My eastern border reaches the borders of Asia, and the Asia herders are in my clutches. My western boundary reaches the mountains of Manu; I have ruled the Libyans” (Ratie 1979 p.224). The Northern frontier is erased in the text and cannot be read.

The Expedition to Punt The Egyptian concept of victory (nxt) is very special. A campaign or expedition is considered 'successful' as far as it obtains goods from other ruler. It doesn’t matter the way employed to get it: by arms, by negotiations, or both of them (Galán 2002 p. 25). The more products it gets, the more successful the event is considered. It was not the first time for the Egyptians to travel to Punt (wherever it is) but the most profitable. Punt was a country of rear and exotic products to trade in the old sense of the word i.e. a way of obtaining luxurious imports rather than export surpluses (Tydesley 1998, p. 145). For this ‘pacific’ expedition, five ships were launched, under sail and oar, and armed, perhaps involving a military campaign (Desroches, 2002 p. 233).

There is a fragment of a scene from the land of Punt representing a parade of soldiers in the museum of Alnwick Castle (Ratie1979, p. 140). In fact, Punt was not the amicable country, as is usually thought; in a recently discovered tomb at El Kab (the tomb of the Governor Sebeknakht) is described an attack to Upper Egypt from a coalition of tribes of Wawat, the riverine upper Nubia and of the Medjat beduin of the desert and even from the exotic land of Punt (Davies 2005, p.50). So perhaps Hatshepsut was ready to face whatever circumstances she would find. Everything about this exceptional expedition conducted by Nehesy is written on the south walls of the second terrace of the Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el Bahari. But nothing about the way they took to arrive and where exactly the country of Punt is. Desroches (Desroches, 2002, p. 235) places Punt in a region between the Atbara and the delta of the river Gash whose core is Kassala and it extends to the Red Sea. There are two possibilities to get there: through the sea (Red Sea) or going up the Nile to beyond the fifth cataract. After the military campaigns of Ahmosis, Amenhotep I and Tutmosis I, the area of Wawat (from first to third cataracts) and Kush (from third to fifth cataracts) were more or less under control. Hatshepsut had participated as a young princess in a expedition as far as Kurgus situated North of the fifth cataract (Davies 2005 p.52). If Tutmosis I and his retinues were able to sail up the Nile till so far away, perhaps Hatshepsut wanted to go a little further, and so she would arrive to the country of Punt situated, probably,southeast of the sixth cataract. The Egyptians hated the sea (Collomber, 2000, p. 202) and were great experts navigators sailing the Nile. The trip was a great challenge in many ways: the geographical difficulties (the cataracts) the threat of the inhabitants of the lands they passed through, and even the technical difficulties of carrying such an enormous amount of goods; not only skins, jewelry and perfumes but also living animals and planting trees and vegetables. It was quite a prowess and apparently without any military skirmish.

Building projects

Hatshepsut’s reign was an outburst of creativity. She wanted to get connected to the old traditional pharaonic style but, at the same time, she wanted to revitalize and innovate the system at all levels, and so she did. Her constructions policy is reported in her temple at Beni Hassan, the Speos Artemidos where she engraved a summary of her policy in building affairs: a policy of renewal and restoration after the hiksos disaster (Tyldesley 1998, p. 157) and she kept her very word. An exhaustive description of all her building is impossible in this essay but to get an idea we can cite the most important ones. At the Great Temple of Karnak: Erection of two enormous obelisks in the wdjit hall of Tutmosis I. An extraordinary work that involves a high degree of technical knowledge and a complex and well structured organization. A monumental doorway facing south: The Eighth Pylon leading towards the temple of Mut by a processional paved way flanked by sphinxes and pourvu of groups of shrines as a resting place of the god to encourage public involvement in the festival (Bryan 2005, p. 181). The most beautiful contribution of Hatshepsut to the temple was a chapel for the Barque of Amun, her Red Chapel: ‘The place of the heart of Amun’, in the middle of the Amun temple of Middle Kingdom ages. The exact location of the chapel is difficult to ascertain given that their remains were found scattered around the temple. At the eastern end of the temple, outside the enclosure and attached to the brick wall, Hatshepsut built a shrine devoted to the rising sun that penetrates to the deep into the primitive chapel. It is considered as the first reference to the worship of the solar disk Aton. In fact it was there where Akhenaton built his first temple to Aton at Karnak (Ratie, 1979, p. 192). What a coincidence: a woman-king and her mirror image: a feminine pharaoh linked by a solar cult. But the most impressive construction was undoubtedly her Funerary Temple at Deir el Bahari: a circus of limestone on the west bank of the Nile, just in front of Karnak´s temple and connected with it by a special processional circuit meant to be used on specifics dates such as the Beautiful Fest of the Valley.

Its design reminds that of the Montuhotep funerary temple that lies beside but in all senses it is a masterpiece of architecture never seen before worldwide. Its beauty lies on the perfect integration with the landscape, the lightness and grandiosity perfectly interweaved. The construction of her tomb was a real challenge to the techniques due to the length and deep drill on the hard rock. As Tyldesley said (Tyldeslay 1996, p. 94) the complexity of a tomb is a manifestation of the life span of a pharaoh rather than a sign of success. But in the case of Hatshepsut concurs both of them.

Social Atmosphere Hatshepsut was a very popular king in her time, the problems came later, several years after her death but during her lifetime she got peace and prosperity for all the people. Even the foreign countries were calm and not a single revolt occurs (Ratie, 1979, p. 328). We must bear in mind that Tutmosis III needed seventeen campaigns to fight against the revolts. In the city of worker at Deir el Medinet we can observe a rising of the living standards (Ratie,1979 p. 327). She promoted popular festivals so that the world of gods became closer to people, i.e. the festival of Opet for the first time performed during Hatshepsut’s reign during the second month of the Akhet, when the Teban Triad were paraded from Karnak towards the temple of Luxor on their sacred barks to commemorate the hierogamia between Amun and his divine wife Mut (Largacha, 2006 p. 361). And she restored ancient festivals like the Festival of Drunkenness performed at the columned porch of the temple of Mut and at Medamud, intimately connected with Hathor and the appeasement of dangerous lion deities (Bryan 2005, p. 182). Both of them were very popular festivals at this time.

In conclusion

Hatshepsut was a truly innovative person in every way but, at the same time, she knew how to connect with the tradition. She was able to surround herself with the greatest minds of her time and obtain the best of them. She was a real bridge between the past and the future and between the God and the people. She bore a cluster of innovations that would be developed over time. She deserves living among the imperishable stars just as she wished.

Bibliography

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Web sites:

Pérez-Largacha, A. Hatshepsut reina de Egipto I y II http://www.liceus.com/cgibin/aco/his/02/05/0500.asp. Dec. 2010