What happened to Hatshepsut?

Born in the 15th century BC, Hatshepsut, daughter of Tuthmose I and Aahmes, both of royal lineage,[ check the family tree for better understanding] was the favorite of their three children. When her two brothers died, she was in the unique position to gain the throne upon the death of her father. To have a female pharaoh was unprecedented, and probably most definitely unheard of as well. When Tuthmose I passed away,his son by the commoner Moutnofrit[possibly a daughter of Ahmose I], Tuthmose II, technically ascended the throne. For the few years of his reign, however, Hatshepsut seems to have held the reins. From markings on his mummy, archaeologists believe Tuthmose II had a skin disease, and he died after ruling only three or four years. Hatshepsut, his half sister and wife, had produced no offspring with him (her daughter Nefrure was most likely the daughter of her lover Senmut), although he had sired a son through the commoner Isis. This son, Tuthmose III, was in line for the throne, but due to his age Hatshepsut was allowed to reign as queen dowager.Hatshepsut was not one to sit back and wait for her nephew to age enough to take her place. As a favorite daughter of a popular pharaoh, and as a charismatic and beautiful lady in her own right, she was able to command enough of a following to actually take control as pharaoh. She ruled for about 15 years, until her death in 1458 BC, and left behind more monuments and works of art than any Egyptian queen to come.

Hatshepsut is given a reign of about 22 years by ancient authors. Josephus writes that she reigned 21 years and 9 months, while Africanus states her reign lasted 22 years, both of whom were quoting Manetho. It is also at this point in time that Hatshepsut disappears, as is indicated by the fact that Thutmose III's first campaign was dated to his 22nd year, which would also have been Hatshepsut's 22nd.Dating the beginning of her reign is more difficult, however. Her father's reign definitively 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 14 years after Thutmose I's coronation.Longer reigns would put her ascension 25 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 tend to agree that Hatshepsut reigned from 1479 to 1458, but there is no definitive proof.

Hatshepsut, as a female, had many obstacles to overcome. There was always a threat of revolt, especially as her bitter nephew came of age. Using propaganda and keen political skills, she deftly jumped each hurdle she
faced. To quell the fears of her people, she became a "king" in all statuary and relief during her reign. She even dressed in the traditional garb of male rulers: the shendyt kilt, the nemes headdress with its uraeus and khat headcloth, and the false beard. Although there were no wars during her reign, she proved her sovereignty by ordering expeditions to the land of Punt, in present-day Somalia, in search of the ivory, animals, spices, gold and aromatic trees that Egyptians coveted. These expeditions are well documented in the hieroglyphic inscriptions on the walls of her temple. With these inscriptions are included incised representations of the journey, including humorous images of the Puntites and their queen, at whom the Egyptians no doubt looked while restraining a giggle; the queen has folds of fat hanging over her knees and elbows, her back is crooked and she has an aquiline nose. To the short, thin Egyptian she was probably quite a sight.

Hatshepsut, in a final bid to be recognized as a legitimate queen, constructed a fabulous temple in the Valley of the Kings, of all places, by a tall plateau at Deir-el-Bahri, across the Nile from Thebes.Hatshepsut was a master politician, and an elegant stateswoman with enough charisma to keep control of an entire country for twenty years. Her charisma and experience could carry her only so far, however. She used two devices to ensure the legitimacy of her position. The first was to emphasize not only her relationship to Tuthmose I, but her favor from that popular ruler. She claimed to have been handpicked by her father, above her two brothers and her half-brother. In her temple are written the words of Khnum, the divine potter who sculpted the forms of the gods: I will make you to be the first of all living creatures, you will rise as king of Upper and of Lower Egypt, as your father Amon, who loves you, did ordain.

This assertion has validity, as other texts indicate. Her second conceit was more doubtful, however: she claims a direct divine lineage. As in the previous passage, she claims Amon is her father. On the walls of her tomb is inscribed a story detailing the night the Theban god Amon-Re approached Aahmes in the form of Tuthmose I. Amon took the form of the noble King Tuthmose and found the queen sleeping in her room. When the pleasant odours that proceeded from him announced his presence she woke. he gave her his heart and showed himself n his godlike splendour. When he approached the queen she wept for joy at his strength and beauty and he gave her his love...

These propaganda worked well to cement Hatshepsut's position. But as Tuthmose III grew, her sovereignty grew tenuous. He not only resented his lack of authority, but no doubt harbored only ill will towards his step-mother's consort Senmut. Senmut originally intended to be buried in the tomb he designed for Hatshepsut, but was actually buried nearby in his own tomb. Not long after his death, however, his sarcophagus was completely destroyed. The hard stone that had been carved for his funerary coffin was found in over 1,200 pieces. His mummy was never found. Hatshepsut's mummy was likewise stolen and her tomb destroyed. Only one of the canopic jars was found, the one containing her liver. After her death, it is presumed that Tuthmose III ordered the systematic erasure of her name from any monument she had built, including her temple at Deir-el-Bahri. Since most of the images of her were actually males, it was convenient to simply change the name "Hatshepsut" to "Tuthmose" I, II or III wherever there was a caption. Senmut's name was also removed. Whether Tuthmose killed Hatshepsut, Senmut and Nofrure is questionable but likely. Since he paid little respect to her in death, it is quite possible he paid even less in life.Towards the end of Tuthmose III's reign an attempt was made to delete Hatshepsut from the historical and pharaonic record. 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 now ran without any form of co-regency from 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 history occurred during the latter part of Thutmose's reign, it is not clear why it happened.

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. Thutmose must have been an unwilling co-regent for years. But this assessment of the situation is probably too simplistic. It is highly unlikely that the determined and focused Thutmose - not only Egypt's most successful general, but an acclaimed athlete, author, hstorian, botanist and architect - would have brooded for two decades before attempting to avenge himself on his stepmother. Furthermore, renowned Egyptologist Donald Redford states that:
"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."
Furthermore the erasure was both 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. It seems that Thutmose must have died before his act of vengeance was finished, or that he never intended a total obliteration of her memory at all. In fact, we have no evidence to support the assumption that Thutmose hated or resented Hatshepsut during her lifetime. Had he done so he could surely, as head of the army (a position given to him by Hatshepsut, who was clearly not worried about her co-regent's loyalty), have led a successful coup. It may well be that Thutmose, lacking any sinister motivation, was, towrds the end of his life, simply engaged in 'tidying up' his personal history, restoring Hatshepsut to her rightful place as queen regent rather than king. By eliminating the more obvious traces of his female co-regent, Thutmose could claim all the achievements of their joint reign for himself.

The erasure of Hatshepsut's name, whatever the reason, allowed for her to disappear from Egypt's archaeological and written record. Thus, when 19th-century Egyptologists started to interpret the texts on the Deir el-Bahri temple walls (which were illustrated with two obviously 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:
“ If I felt somewhat surprised at seeing here, as elsewhere throughout the temple, the renowned Moeris [Thutmose III] , adorned with all the insignia of royalty, giving place to this Amenenthe [Hatshepsut], for whose name we may search the royal lists in vain, still more astonished was I to find upon reading the inscriptions that wherever they referred to this bearded king in the usual dress of the Pharaohs, nouns and verbs were in the feminine, as though a queen were in question. I found the same peculiarity everywhere... ”
These two statues once resembled each other, however the symbols of pharaonic power: the Uraeus, Double Crown, and False beard have been stripped from the left image. Images portraying Hatshepsut as Pharaoh were destroyed, or vandalized within decades of her death.
These two statues once resembled each other, however the symbols of pharaonic power: the Uraeus, Double Crown, and False beard have been stripped from the left image. Images portraying Hatshepsut as Pharaoh were destroyed, or vandalized within decades of her death.

Of interest on this topic is the recent discovery of nine golden cartouches bearing the names of both Hatshepsut and Thutmose III near the obelisk at Hatshepsut's temple in Luxor. Further study may shed additional light on the question of their relationship and the eventual attempt to erase Hatshepsut from the historical record.

While this account is the most accepted of theories, the Hatshepsut Problem was a source of endless debate near the turn of the twentieth century. The archeaologists Edouard Naville and Kurt Sethe went head-to-head on the order of rule between the three Tuthmoses and Hatshepsut. Since it is generally assumed that if one ruler's name is replaced with another, the second ruler is in power at the time, a confusing problem exists. Theoretical timelines indicate that the succession followed this sequence:

1. Tuthmose I 2. Tuthmose III 3. Tuthmose III and Hatshepsut, together 4. Tuthmose III alone 5. Tuthmose I and Tuthmose II 6. Tuthmose II alone 7. Hatshepsut and Tuthmose III 8. Tuthmose III alone

This sequence seems as illogical as it is complicated, and only after the discovery of the tomb of Ineni, the architect of the tomb of Tuthmose I. His description follows a more intuitive sequence, and disproves the previously-held belief that only Tuthmose III would put his name in Hatshepsut's place.Not only was Hatshepsut's name erased, but some of her monuments were destroyed. She built two obelisks of red granite, the largest built to that point. This was a continuation of the works of her father, who was not able to complete all his construction plans. Her name appeared on the obelisks, but instead of toppling them, Tuthmose III ordered them sheathed in masonry. Their gilded pyramidions were probably the only original elements to be exposed. Later, one of the obelisks was destroyed after all.

In all, Hatshepsut accomplished what no woman had before her. She rule the most powerful, advanced civilization in the world, successfully, for twenty years. Even if there were some who resented her success, her success stands for all eternity.