Preface
1. My thoughts on this subject have been informed by a class I recently developed at UCLA called Women and Power in the Ancient World, in which we examine biological and social motivators for women’s lesser place in politics in complex society, including R. D. Masters and F. de Waal, “Gender and Political Cognition: Integrating Evolutionary Biology and Political Science,” Politics and the Life Sciences 8, no. 1 (1989): 3–39; M. Ingalhalikar et al., “Sex Differences in the Structural Connectome of the Human Brain,”Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2013); Carol R. Ember, “The Relative Decline in Women’s Contribution to Agriculture,” American Anthropologist 85, no. 2 (1983): 285–304; Ernestine Friedl, “Society and Sex Roles,” Human Nature(April 1978), reprinted in Anthropology 94/95 (Guilford, CT: Dushkin Publishing, 1994), 124–29; Bella Vivante, Women’s Roles in Ancient Civilizations: A Reference Guide (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999).
Chapter One: Divine Origins
1. There are no texts from Hatshepsut’s time—historical, administrative, religious, or otherwise—that betray openly expressed negative feelings toward the ruling king or political activities of officials. We do have veiled references from earlier Middle Kingdom literary texts that obliquely discuss the regicide of Amenemhat I, the instability of the times, and the royal family’s inability to trust any of the courtiers and officials. See Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, vol. 1, The Old and Middle Kingdoms(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975), 135–38. Later legal texts will point toward another regicide, that of Ramses III in Dynasty 20, and the involvement of the royal harem. See Susan Redford, The Harem Conspiracy: The Murder of Ramesses III(DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2002). The Tale of Wenamen, a text from the end of Dynasty 20 that belongs to both the literary and historical genres, reveals the opinion that the Egyptian king had lost his power over foreign lands and even his own country. See Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, vol. 2, The New Kingdom (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), 224–30.
2. The length of Thutmose II’s reign is disputed, but most historians think he ruled for only three years. See Erik Hornung, Rolf Krauss, and David A. Warburton, eds., Ancient Egyptian Chronology, Handbook of Oriental Studies, sec. 1, The Near and Middle East (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2006), 200–201; Luc Gabolde, “La chronologie de règne de Thoutmosis II, ses consequences sur la datation des momies royales et leurs repercutions sur l’histoire du development de la Vallée des Rois,” Studien zur Altägyptischen Kultur14 (1987): 61–82. For the argument for a longer reign, see J. von Beckerath, “Noch einmals zur Regierung Tuthmosis’ II,” Studien zur Altägyptischen Kultur 17 (1990): 70–71. Betsy M. Bryan, “The Eighteenth Dynasty Before the Amarna Period,” in The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, ed. Ian Shaw (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 235–36. Circumstantially, it could be argued that Hatshepsut’s kingship was only possible with a short reign for Thutmose II, because it was this king’s death that put Egypt into the hands of a toddler king, unable to rule for a dozen years at least.
3. For a possible identification of Hatshepsut’s mummy, see Zahi Hawass, “The Quest for Hatshepsut—Discovering the Mummy of Egypt’s Greatest Female Pharaoh,” http://www.drhawass.com/events/quest-hatshepsut-discovering-mummy-egypts-greatest-female-pharaoh, and Zahi Hawass, Yehia Z. Gad, and Somaia Ismail, “Ancestry and Pathology in King Tutankhamun’s Family,” Journal of the American Medical Association 303, no. 7 (2010). Many are of the opinion, however, that Zahi Hawass’s identification of Hatshepsut as mummy KV 60A is not sound and certainly not backed up by DNA evidence. See Erhart Graefe, “Der angebliche Zahn der angeblich krebskranken Diabetikerin Königin Hatschepsut, oder: Die Mumie der Hatschepsut bleibt unbekannt,”Göttinger Miszellen 231 (2011). There is also the problem that both coffins in KV 60 bear only the title of Royal Wet Nurse. Despite the lack of evidence for Hatshepsut’s mummy, there is no reason to believe that Hatshepsut’s body was not prepared as a queen and God’s Wife, at the very least, and possibly even as a king. I did appear as an expert in the Discovery Channel’s Secrets of Egypt’s Lost Queen (2007), but I was not part of the mummy identification.
4. If Hatshepsut’s rule lasted from 1473 to 1458 BCE, and if she started her kingship after her twentieth year, then she was born around year 1500 BCE. See Ian Shaw, ed., The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 481. Also see Hornung, Krauss, and Warburton, Ancient Egyptian Chronology, 201, 492.
5. The word Hyksos comes from the Egyptian Heka khasut, meaning “rulers of foreign lands.” See Janine Bourriau, “The Second Intermediate Period,” in Shaw, Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, 184–217.
6. Some historians have argued that he had a son named Amenemhat, whose mummy bore a pectoral with the name of Amenhotep I on it; see W. C. Hayes, Scepter of Egypt II (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1953), 419. However, because the pectoral probably dates from the Twentieth or Twenty-First Dynasty and because Amenhotep I was deified in later reigns, the pectoral is not evidence that Amenhotep I sired any children; see David Aston, Burial Assemblages of Dynasties 21–25: Chronology, Typology, Developments (Vienna: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2009), 231.
7. In Egyptian, the word for hand is djeret, a feminine word. Atum thus had sex with the feminine element of his person. See J. P. Allen, Genesis in Egypt: The Philosophy of Ancient Egyptian Creation Accounts, Yale Egyptological Studies (San Antonio, TX: Van Siclen Books for Yale Egyptological Seminar, Yale University, 1988).
8. Indeed, back in the pioneering days of the First Dynasty, fifteen hundred years earlier, with Egypt newly minted out of hostile principalities, Merneith ruled the country in the name of her young son, Den, after the premature death of her husband, Djet. As such, she was granted a tomb among the kings of her time, of the same size and grandeur as theirs.
9. Ahhotep I has the title of God’s Wife of Amen on her coffin in the royal cache of Theban Tomb 320, but nowhere else. Evidence for Ahmes-Nefertari’s priestesshood, on the other hand, is ample and comes from contemporaneous documents, in particular the Donation Stela of Ahmose, now in the Luxor Museum, on which King Ahmose documents his purchase of her priestly office from the Amen Priesthood at Karnak. Identifying Ahhotep I as the first God’s Wife of Amen is therefore problematic. For more, see Gay Robins, Women in Ancient Egypt (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), chap. 8, and Anne K. Capel and Glenn E. Markoe, eds., Mistress of House, Mistress of Heaven: Women in Ancient Egypt (New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1996), 91–120.
10. Amen is also known as Amen-Re in his manifestation as King of the Gods. Amen literally means “hidden.” To unite that which is hidden and thus permeates everything with that which is visible—the sun god Re—creates a powerful new divine manifestation as Amen-Re. Amen’s other manifestations include Amen-Min, the sexually excited form of the god who can engender his own rebirth; Amen Kamutef, or “Amen Bull of His Mother,” who can impregnate his own mother with the essence of his own future self; and Amen-djeser-a, meaning “Amen Sacred of Arm,” a clear allusion to his ability to create himself from nothing. For more on the god Amen, see Kurt Heinrich Sethe, Amun und die acht Urgötter von Hermopolis, eine Untersuchung über Ursprung und Wesen des aegyptischen Götterkönigs (Berlin: Verlag der Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1929), and Jan Assmann, Egyptian Solar Religion in the New Kingdom: Re, Amun and the Crisis of Polytheism, Studies in Egyptology (London: Kegan Paul International, 1995).
11. For more on Karnak, see Elizabeth Blyth, Karnak: Evolution of a Temple (London: Routledge, 2006), and Diane Favro, Willeke Wendrich, and Elaine Sullivan, “Digital Karnak,” University of California, Los Angeles, http://dlib.etc.ucla.edu/projects/Karnak/.
12. For more on the God’s Wife of Amen, see Erhart Graefe, Untersuchungen zur Verwaltung und Geschichte der Institution der Gottesgemahlin des Amun vom Beginn des neuen Reiches bis zur Spätzeit (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1981), and Robins, Women in Ancient Egypt, 149–56. For more on the political and economic powers of the God’s Wife office, see Betsy Bryan, “Property and the God’s Wives of Amun,” in Women and Property, a conference with The Center for Hellenic Studies, Harvard. Deborah Lyons and Raymond Westbrook, eds. Published online at www.chs.harvard.edu/.
13. For the statues of Min, see Barry Kemp, Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of a Civilization (London: Routledge, 1991), 79–85, fig. 28.
14. This analysis isn’t completely accepted by scholars who see little evidence of Merytamen serving as God’s Wife, but see Lana Troy, Patterns of Queenship, Acta Universitatis Upsaliensus Boreas 14 (Uppsala: University of Uppsala, 1986), 162–63. For a brief history of the God’s Wives of Amen in the early Eighteenth Dynasty, see Bryan, “Eighteenth Dynasty Before the Amarna Period,” 226–30, and Robins, Women in Ancient Egypt, 149–56.
15. It has been suggested that Thutmose I’s mother was married to Ahmose-Sipairi, making him the grandson of Seventeenth Dynasty king Seqenenre Taa. See Aidan Dodson and Dyan Hilton, The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt (London: Thames and Hudson, 2004), 126. The mummy from the royal cache at Theban Tomb 320 that is usually identified as Thutmose I is most certainly not him. See Salima Ikram and Aidan Dodson, The Mummy in Ancient Egypt: Equipping the Dead for Eternity (London: Thames and Hudson, 1998), 320–30.
16. The Amduat was the first of the Underworld Books, a series of magical incantations and descriptions of the underworld space inside of the sky, through which the dead sun god was believed to travel after his setting in the west. The Amduat came to be used only for kings’ burials, but curiously the vizier Useramen, a contemporary of Hatshepsut and Thutmose III, had the text inscribed in his private tomb. Some Egyptologists believe the Amduat was composed from scratch during the Eighteenth Dynasty, while others believe that these texts were parts of older temple liturgies that tied the king’s afterlife journey to the successful passage of the sun through the hours of night. See Erik Hornung, The Ancient Egyptian Books of the Afterlife, trans. David Lorton (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999), 27–53.
17. There is a debate over whether KV 38 was Thutmose I’s original tomb, or whether it had been made for him by his grandson Thutmose III after his mummy’s removal from Hatshepsut’s burial chamber in KV 20. It is also possible that even if the tomb was made during his lifetime, the decoration was added at the time of the move from KV 20 and that the latter was decorated with the Amduat by Hatshepsut. For more on the debate about these royal tombs, see Catharine H. Roehrig, “The Building Activities of Thutmose III in the Valley of the Kings,” in Thutmose III: A New Biography, ed. Eric H. Cline and David O’Connor (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006), 238–59.
18. For more on the Egyptian harem, see Silke Roth, “Harem,” UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, 2012, http://escholarship.org/uc/item/1k3663r3?query=harem.
19. For a discussion of ancient Egyptian palaces, see in particular Manfred Bietak, ed., House and Palace in Ancient Egypt, Denkschriften der Gesamtakademie 14 (Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences, 1996).
20. I have chosen to use the name Ahmes instead of Ahmose for Hatshepsut’s mother, to avoid confusion with King Ahmose. Both names mean “The moon is born” and are spelled with the same hieroglyphs, except for the determinative (the explanatory sign at the end of a word); however, the pronunciation for each sex would have likely been different. Most think Thutmose I did not marry Ahmes until his accession; see Bryan, “Eighteenth Dynasty Before the Amarna Period,” 231. Some Egyptologists argue that Ahmes may have married Thutmose I before his accession to the throne, which would mean Hatshepsut was many years older when she married Thutmose II. See Ann Macy Roth, “Models of Authority: Hatshepsut’s Predecessors in Power,” in Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh, ed. Catharine H. Roehrig (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006), 11, and Peter F. Dorman, “The Early Reign of Thutmose III: An Unorthodox Mantle of Coregency,” in Cline and O’Connor, Thutmose III: A New Biography, 60. This is unlikely, however, given the many ostensible barriers for the King’s Sisters and Daughters to marry anyone other than the king. It is also unlikely that a nonroyal man would have been allowed to marry a King’s Sister before his accession to the throne, and there is no evidence of such a thing taking place in the early Eighteenth Dynasty.
21. This is not to say that I argue for any kind of “heiress theory” that the new and unrelated king was required to marry a specific female member of the old family to secure his place. I do suggest, however, that a new king with no relation to the old dynastic line would have been expected to take on one or more of that older family’s women as wives, to ensure that his offspring also be related to that original family. For more on the importance of royal women in the Eighteenth Dynasty, see Bryan, “Eighteenth Dynasty Before the Amarna Period,” 226–30. Also see Gay Robins, “A Critical Examination of the Theory That the Right to the Throne of Ancient Egypt Passed Through the Female Line in the 18th Dynasty,” Göttinger Miszellen 62 (1983): 68–69.
22. The historical information about Ahmes is unclear. She has the title of King’s Sister but not King’s Daughter. See Troy, Patterns of Queenship, 163. In L’Égypte et la vallée du Nil, vol. 2, De la fin de l’ancient empire à la fin du nouvel empire (Paris: PUF, 1995), Claude Vandersleyen argues that she was Thutmose I’s own sister. But according to Betsy Bryan (“Eighteenth Dynasty Before the Amarna Period,” 231), Ahmes’s name suggests that she was a member of Amenhotep I’s family, perhaps a daughter of Prince Ahmose-ankh, a son of Ahmose and Ahmes-Nefertari and a brother of Amenhotep I.
Even though we do see Ahmes’s title of King’s Sister only after the marriage, there is no evidence of a woman named Ahmes at all before the reign of Thutmose I. Before her marriage to the king, she was essentially invisible, as so many royal women were when they had no political or ideological use. Based on the fact that Ahmes was named King’s Sister but not King’s Daughter, we might conclude that she was sister to Amenhotep I or another early Eighteenth Dynasty king and that Amenhotep I could not produce male or female heirs. If Ahmes was the sister of Amenhotep’s father, Ahmose, the previous king, then she must have been one of his much younger sisters, given that Ahmose’s son, Amenhotep I, ruled for twenty years.
In any event, the lack of an heir made Ahmes very important. This royal woman’s connections to the Ahmoside family may have been essential for Thutmose to create a convincing claim to the throne, because only with Queen Ahmes could this general produce children with a link to the kings who began the Eighteenth Dynasty. The dynastic succession had been broken on the male side, but an appropriate royal woman could create some kind of continuation. Their children, at least, would have the royal blood that Thutmose I did not have.
23. There has been the suggestion that royal women “gave up” their titles of King’s Daughter or King’s Sister to marry outside the royal family, thus providing an explanation for why we never see these women anywhere but married to the king at Hatshepsut’s time. However, there is little, if any, evidence for this happening during the Eighteenth Dynasty. See Roth, “Models of Authority,” 11.
24. Bryan, “Eighteenth Dynasty Before the Amarna Period,” 227–28.
25. I have to be clear that there is no explicit evidence that marrying the king was a formal “rule” for royal women, only that there is no evidence of royal sisters or daughters marrying anyone but the king in the early Eighteenth Dynasty. Such strict control over royal women was not characteristic of all time periods. Back in the Old Kingdom and later in the Third Intermediate Period, royal daughters regularly married outside the royal family. Although some historians argue that there are simply not enough definite sister-wives during the New Kingdom to be able to infer this kind of endogamous “rule” (see Dodson and Hilton, Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt, 122–41), I conclude that King’s Daughters and King’s Sisters were expected to marry the current or next king, at least during the early Eighteenth Dynasty, and that there were important political and economic benefits for this practice.
26. For more about marriage in ancient Egypt, see Robins, Women in Ancient Egypt, and J. Toivari-Viitala, Women at Deir el-Medina: A Study of the Status and Roles of the Female Inhabitants in the Workmen’s Community During the Ramesside Period (Leiden: Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten, 2001).
27. Some Egyptologists see no reason to date the marriage of Thutmose and Mutnofret to his accession as king, leaving room for an earlier date. Aidan Dodson, for instance, believes that Mutnofret could have been Thutmose I’s wife for many years before he became king and that their relationship would provide an excellent argument against a ban on royal women “marrying out” (Dodson, personal communication, 2013; also see Peter Dorman, “Early Reign of Thutmose III” in Cline and O’Connor, Thutmose III: A New Biography, 59n7). However, because the only evidence for their marriage comes from after his accession and because there is no other evidence of royal daughters marrying nonroyal men, I prefer the hypothesis that Mutnofret married Thutmose I after his ascension.
28. Thutmose I reigned for thirteen or fourteen years. See Hornung, Krauss, and Warburton, Ancient Egyptian Chronology, 199–200; Dorman, “Early Reign of Thutmose III,” 39; and Bryan, “Eighteenth Dynasty Before the Amarna Period,” 230–35.
For related discussions of Hatshepsut’s age at queenship, regency, and kingship, see F. Maruéjol, Thoutmosis III et la corégence avec Hatchepsout (Paris: Pygmalion, 2008), 22–25, and David A. Warburton, Architecture, Power, and Religion: Hatshepsut, Amun & Karnak in Context, Beiträge zur Archäologie 7 (Zurich: LIT Verlag, 2012), 239–40.
29. For details on childbirth and childhood in ancient Egypt, see J. J. Janssen and Rosalind Janssen, Growing Up in Ancient Egypt (London: Rubicon Press, 1990); Robins, Women in Ancient Egypt; and Toivari-Viitala, Women at Deir el-Medina.
30. For proof that hunter-gatherers understand the link between breast-feeding and conception, see M. Konner and C. Worthman, “Nursing Frequency, Gonadal Function, and Birth Spacing Among !Kung Hunter-Gatherers,” Science 207 (1980). For evidence of knowledge of this link in the ancient world, see V. Flides, Breasts, Bottle and Babies: A History of Infant Feeding (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1986). Egyptians must have known about breast-feeding and its immunity and contraception benefits. See Erika Feucht, “Women,” in The Egyptians, ed. Sergio Donadoni (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), 315–46.
31. There is little research on wet-nursing in ancient Egypt, but see Keith R. Bradley, “Wet-Nursing at Rome: A Study in Social Relations,” in The Family in Ancient Rome, ed. Beryl Rawson (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986), 201–29.
32. A poorly preserved sandstone statue of a small adult King Hatshepsut sitting on the lap of her wet nurse, Satre, also known as Inet, was placed in her funerary temple at Deir el-Bahri after Satre’s death. The statue is currently in Cairo’s Egyptian Museum (JdÉ 56264) and was found by Winlock during excavations at Deir el-Bahri. See Herbert E. Winlock, “The Museum’s Excavation at Thebes,” Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 27, no. 3 (1932). Amazingly, the inscription on an ostracon in the Ambras Collection in Vienna matches the broken text on the statue, allowing a better understanding of the piece. Winlock translated it as follows: “May the king Maatkare [Hatshepsut] and Osiris, first of the Westerners, [the great god] Lord of Abydos, be gracious and give a mortuary offering [of cakes and beer, beef and fowl, and everything] good and pure, and the sweet breath of the north wind to the spirit of the chief nurse who suckled the Mistress of the Two Lands, Sit-Re, called Yen [Inet], justified.”
One of the bodies found in the undecorated KV 60 may represent Hatshepsut’s wet nurse. Two bodies were found in KV 60, one body in a coffin, another on the floor. The coffin holding the body was inscribed with the name of In, or Inet, and it seems possible that the wet nurse was given the privilege of burial in the Valley of the Kings by Hatshepsut.
33. Evidence for infant mortality rates is spotty. For estimated ages at death of individuals from the predynastic cemetery of Naga ed Deir, see P. V. Podzorski, Their Bones Shall Not Perish: An Examination of Predynastic Human Skeletal Remains from Naga-ed-Der in Egypt (New Malden, UK: SIA Publishing, 1990). Also see Janssen and Janssen, Growing Up in Ancient Egypt.
34. See the Kahun Gynecological Papyrus published by F. L. Griffith and W. M. Flinders Petrie, The Petrie Papyri: Hieratic Papyri from Kahun and Gurob (Principally of the Middle Kingdom) (London: B. Quaritch, 1898). For more specific information about how women aided conception and pregnancy in New Kingdom, see Toivari-Viitala, Women at Deir el-Medina, 168–82.
35. Later Ramesside texts from western Thebes indicate that fertility was the man’s responsibility. See Toivari-Viitala, Women at Deir el-Medina, 161. For ideological notions of fertility in ancient Egypt, see Ann Macy Roth, “Father Earth, Mother Sky: Ancient Egyptian Beliefs About Conception and Fertility,” in Reading the Body: Representations and Remains in the Archaeological Record, ed. Alison E. Rautman, Regendering the Past (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000).
36. Most Egyptologists see Neferubity as a daughter of Ahmes, making her Hatshepsut’s full sister. See Troy, Patterns of Queenship, 164; Bryan, “Eighteenth Dynasty Before the Amarna Period,” 231; and Dodson and Hilton, Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt, 132.
37. Neferubity would later be depicted in the Amen sanctuary of Hatshepsut’s Temple of Millions of Years at Deir el-Bahri, a great honor and evidence of their bond.
Chapter Two: A Place of Her Own
1. Wadjmose and Amenmose appear in the tomb of Paheri at el-Kab, because the official Paheri acted as tutor for the princes; see J. J. Tylor and F. L. Griffith, The Tomb of Paheri at El Kab (London: Egypt Exploration Fund, 1894), 11. Amazingly, we don’t know who was the mother of these sons, and Egyptologists’ opinions are divided among Ahmes, Mutnofret, and a third wife, perhaps one who was married to Thutmose in his youth. Not knowing the full parentage of a prince is not surprising. Given Egypt’s patriarchal system, a prince’s masculine parent was the most essential part of his creation to document formally, and his connection with his mother might have only been stressed upon his succession to the throne, as an honor to her. Some historians believe that Amenmose was actually one of Thutmose I’s sons from his first marriage, because by the fourth year of his father’s reign Amenmose had already been named as a general in the army on a broken naos shrine that documents his hunting activities on the Giza plateau—unlikely activities for a three-year-old child (now in the Louvre, accession no. E 8074). However, the title of Great General of the Army was also used to designate the crown prince in ancient Egypt, so why not use it for a three-year-old Amenmose if he was the chosen heir to the throne? The noas also labels him as the king’s eldest son. For more on this discussion, see Christiane Zivie-Coche, Giza au deuxième millénaire: Bibliothèque d’étude (Cairo: Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale, 1976), 52–55, plate 4; Dodson and Hilton,Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt, 130; and Bryan, “Eighteenth Dynasty Before the Amarna Period,” 230–31.
2. Hatshepsut’s sister was later memorialized at Deir el-Bahri in the Amen sanctuary. See Édouard Naville, The Temple of Deir el Bahari, vol. 5, The Upper Court and Sanctuary (London: Egypt Exploration Fund, 1895), Plates CXIX–CL.
3. This palace was built by Thutmose I at right angles to the Karnak Temple entrance on the north side. See Blyth, Karnak, 65–66, and David O’Connor, “Thutmose III: An Enigmatic Pharaoh,” in Cline and O’Connor, Thutmose III: A New Biography, 18.
4. We learn about this moment from an autobiography recorded in the tomb of the official Ahmose son of Ibana at el-Kab. After the battle, “his Majesty sailed northward, all countries in his grasp, with that defeated Nubian bowman being hanged head down at the [front] of the [boat] of his Majesty, and landed at Karnak.” This translation is based on Bryan, “Eighteenth Dynasty Before the Amarna Period,” 234. Bryan identifies the bowman with the leader of the Kerma insurrection. For the text of Ahmose son of Ibana, see Kurt Sethe, Urkunden der 18. Dynastie, Band 1, ed. Georg Steindorff, Urkunden des ägyptischen Altertums 4 (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs’sche Buchhandlung, 1906), 1–13.
5. For the inscription from Hagr el-Merwa, see two works by Vivian W. Davies: “Kurgus 2002: The Inscriptions and Rock-Drawings,” Sudan and Nubia 7 (2003): 55–57, and “Egypt and Nubia: Conflict with the Kingdom of Kush,” in Roehrig, Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh, 52.
6. Although in English it is better to differentiate between “nurse” and “tutor,” in ancient Egyptian the word was almost the same: mena for “tutor” and menat for “nurse.” Both had the breast determinative, and both were associated with the idea of nursing, or feeding a baby nourishment from the breast. Conceptually, this nourishment could take the form of education and support, and thus it could be provided by a male nurse as well as a female. For more on this topic, see Catharine H. Roehrig, “The Eighteenth Dynasty Titles Royal Nurse (mn’t nswt), Royal Tutor (mn’ nswt), and Foster Brother/Sister of the Lord of the Two Lands (sn/snt mn’ n nb t3wy)” (PhD diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1990).
7. Hatshepsut’s position as God’s Wife probably predated the reign of Thutmose II; in “Eighteenth Dynasty Before the Amarna Period,” 236–37, Bryan states: “A stele of Thutmose II’s reign shows the king followed by Ahmose and Hatshepsut. Apparently the latter was already ‘god’s wife of Amun’ in the reign of Thutmose I, following Ahmose-Nefertari’s death.” Hatshepsut was definitely God’s Wife of Amen and queen during the reign of Thutmose II, according to remains of a limestone structure from Karnak that is now in the Open Air Museum in Luxor, showing her with her daughter Nefrure behind her. See Betsy M. Bryan, “In Women Good and Bad Fortune Are on Earth: Status and Roles of Women in Egyptian Culture,” in Capel and Markoe, Mistress of the House, Mistress of Heaven, 31–32, and Luc Gabolde, Monuments décorés en bas relief aux noms de Thoutmosis II et Hatchepsout à Karnak, Mémoires publiés par les membres de l’Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale du Caire, t. 123 (Cairo: Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale, 2005). Some Egyptologists think that Hatshepsut was not God’s Wife of Amen until as late as Thutmose III; see Dmitri Laboury, “How and Why Did Hatshepsut Invent the Image of Her Royal Power?” in Theban Symposium: Creativity and Innovation in the Reign of Hatshepsut, Occasional Proceedings of the Theban Workshop, ed. José M. Galán, Betsy M. Bryan, and Peter F. Dorman (Chicago: Oriental Institute, University of Chicago, forthcoming). However, Bryan thinks it is quite possible that Hatshepsut took on this priestess role as early as her father’s reign because Ahmes-Nefertari and Merytamen, the previous God’s Wives of Amen, died during the reign of Thutmose I and were likely replaced by Hatshepsut. If we follow the idea that the reigning king had political motivations to place one of his closest female blood relatives in the position, Hatshepsut would have been the ideal candidate. Furthermore, Hatshepsut was probably just old enough to be trained by Ahmes-Nefertari before she was officially placed. Hatshepsut was therefore the first member of the Thutmoside family to act as God’s Wife. See Troy, Patterns of Queenship, 91–114.
8. Some Egyptologists deny actual sexual manipulation of sacred statuary by human hands, concluding that only verbalization was necessary to evoke sexual movements and subsequent creative actions. If we look at the many surviving texts about these divine transformations meant to occur in Egyptian temple spaces, it seems more appropriate to take the Egyptians at their word and understand titles like God’s Hand or God’s Wife literally rather than figuratively. The actual mechanisms for such sacred sexual rites remain, as we would expect, veiled.
9. Bryan, “Administration in the Reign of Thutmose III”; JJ Shirley, “Viceroys, Viziers and the Amun Precinct: The Power of Hereditary and Strategic Marriage in the Early 18th Dynasty,” Journal of Egyptian History 3.1 (2010): 73–113.
10. Egyptologists once connected the God’s Wife of Amen to a kind of heiress system, in that the God’s Wife produced the future kings. But for sound refutation, see Robins, “Critical Examination of the Theory That the Right to the Throne of Ancient Egypt Passed Through the Female Line in the 18th Dynasty,” Göttinger Miszellen 62 (1983).
11. If Ahmes-Nefertari was grandmother to Hatshepsut through her mother, the choice of Hatshepsut to be God’s Wife was likely influenced by her Ahmoside family line. See Bryan, “Eighteenth Dynasty Before the Amarna Period.”
12. For this text, “The Contendings of Horus and Seth,” see Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, 2:197–99.
13. Ibid., 27. This text comes from one of Hatshepsut’s later obelisks, which is still standing at Karnak Temple.
14. Zivie-Coche, Giza au deuxième millénaire, 52–55, plate 4. There is even still some disagreement about the parentage of Amenmose and doubt that he was even a son of Thutmose I. See H. Hohneck, “Hatte Thutmosis I wirklich einen Sohn namens Amenmose?,” Göttinger Miszellen 210 (2006): 59–68.
15. Thutmose IV, who attained the throne by bypassing his elder brothers, mutilating their monuments, and publicly ascribing his accession to the favor of a god, is one Eighteenth Dynasty exception. See Betsy Bryan, The Reign of Thutmose IV (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991).
16. Wadjmose appears in a memorial chapel near the Ramesseum at Thebes (B. Porter and R. Moss, Topographical Bibliography of Ancient Egypt: Hieroglyphic Texts, Reliefs, and Paintings, 2nd ed. [revised by J. Malek from 1974 onward], Oxford: Griffith Institute, 444–46) and in the tomb of Paheri, a court official buried at El Kab, as a little boy on his tutor Itruri’s lap (Tylor and Griffith, Tomb of Paheri at El Kab).
17. Even if marriage was imminent, there is no evidence of a betrothal to seal the deal. Both parties ostensibly waited until they were sexually ready and able. For instance, Ann Macy Roth suggests that Nefrure could not be married to Thutmose III at his accession, when Hatshepsut would have needed this link most, because both were too young (“Models of Authority: Hatshepsut’s Predecessors in Power,” 13).
18. For more on Hatshepsut’s depictions as God’s Wife of Amen, see Christina Gil Paneque, “The Official Image of Hatshepsut During the Regency: A Political Approximation to the Office of God’s Wife,” Trabajos de Egiptologa 2 (2003): 83–98.
19. For more on the obelisks in Karnak Temple, see the reconstructions on the UCLA Digital Karnak website at http://dlib.etc.ucla.edu/projects/Karnak/archive/query?type=obelisk.
20. See two works by Aidan Dodson: “The Burials of Ahmose I,” in Thebes and Beyond: Studies in Honour of Kent R. Weeks, ed. Zahi Hawass and Salima Ikram (Cairo: Conseil Supréme des Antiquités, 2010), 25–33, and “On the Burials and Reburials of Ahmose I and Amenhotep I,” Göttinger Miszellen 238 (2013): 19–24.
21. For a discussion of Thutmose I’s tomb, see J. Romer, “Tuthmosis I and the Bibân el-Molûk: Some Problems of Attribution,” Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 60 (1974): 119–33; Roehrig, “Building Activities of Thutmose III,” 246; Catharine H. Roehrig, “The Two Tombs of Hatshepsut,” in Roehrig, Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh, 184–86.
22. This is from an inscription in the tomb chapel of Ineni. James Henry Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt, vol. 2, The Eighteenth Dynasty (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1906), 38.
Chapter Three: King’s Great Wife
1. There is disagreement about this funerary temple: was it built specifically for the sons, or were the sons added to the king’s funerary temple later? See the two reports by G. Lecuyot and A. M. Loyrette, “La Chapelle de Ouadjmès: Rapport préliminaire I,”Memnonia 6 (1995): 85–93 and “La Chapelle de Ouadjmès: Rapport préliminaire II,” Memnonia 7 (1996): 111–22.
2. The family maintained their memory as the two princes were revered in later generations as part of Theban ancestor cults, including their insertion into the 19th Dynasty ancestor list preserved in the Theban craftsman Khabekhnet’s tomb at Deir el-Medina. See Dorman, “Early Reign of Thutmose III,” 40. For the text from Theban Tomb 2 of Khabekhnet, see Kenneth Kitchen, Ramesside Inscriptions: Historical and Biographical, 8 vols. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1969–90), 3:806–7.
3. The mummy identified as Thutmose II was just over 5 feet 6 inches tall (168 centimeters) and had extremely good teeth, a sign that he died young. See G. Elliot Smith, The Royal Mummies, Catalogue général des antiquités égyptiennes du Musée du Caire, nos.61051–61100 (Cairo: Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale, 1912), 28–30. Determining the age of ancient remains is problematic, because modern aging criteria may not be fully applicable to ancient times; however, teeth-wear patterns present useful criteria. See T. Molleson and M. Cox, The Spitalfields Project, vol. 2, The Anthropology: The Middling Sort (York, UK: Council for British Archaeology, 1993), 169. Even though mummy research usually focuses on the cause of death, rather than overall health, or lack thereof, thus limiting results for social studies, the mummy of Thutmose II shows evidence for a life plagued by physical ailments.
4. There is disagreement about whether Ahmes served as Thutmose II’s regent, but her placement on Egypt’s monuments does suggest that she, instead of the boy’s mother, was the highly placed woman who acted as regent over all official and administrative management. For a stela of Thutmose II with his wife Hatshepsut and his mother-in-law Ahmes, see the Berlin stela with accession number 15699 in D. Wildung, “Zwei Stelen aus Hatschepsuts Frühzeit,” in Festschrift zum 150 jährigen Bestehen des Berliner ägyptischen Museums (Berlin: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, 1974), 255–68, plate 34; also see Troy, Patterns of Queenship, 110. It is still not clear why Mutnofret did not act as regent for her young son, given her patrician origins. Was she politically disconnected even though she was a King’s Daughter?
5. Some Egyptologists suggest that Ahmoside elements from the family of Amenhotep I were waiting in the wings to take over the kingship, although there is no hard evidence for such an Ahmoside threat. See in particular Dimitri Laboury, “Royal Portrait and Ideology: Evolution and Signification of the Statuary of Thutmose III,” in Cline and O’Connor, Thutmose III: A New Biography, 266.
6. The relative ages of Hatshepsut and her husband-brother Thutmose II are debated. If Ahmes married Thutmose I first, as expected for the highest-ranking royal wife, then Hatshepsut may have been born before Thutmose II. Mutnofret was a secondary wife, and thus likely married Thutmose I later. And because Thutmose II was positioned lower in the rankings for kingship, we can assume he was a younger brother of not only his older brothers Wadjmose and Amenmose, but also of his sister Hatshepsut. Of course, if Thutmose I married Ahmes before his accession (for which there is no evidence), none of this accounting can stand. Or, if Mutnofret was married to Thutmose I before his accession, as his primary wife before he became king (for which there is also no evidence), then Thutmose II may have been older than Hatshepsut. See Dorman, “The Early Reign of Thutmose III,” 59n7.
7. The most well-known monument showing Thutmose II with his wife Hatshepsut and his mother-in-law Ahmes is a stela from ancient Thebes.
8. For monuments from Hatshepsut’s time as queen and regent, see Gabolde, Monuments décorés en bas relief, and Troy, Patterns of Queenship, 108–14.
9. For a digital reconstruction of this festival court, see the UCLA Digital Karnak website at http://dlib.etc.ucla.edu/projects/Karnak/feature/PylonAndFestivalCourtOfThutmoseII.
10. Senenmut’s beginnings were humble. His father had no title of significance, and his mother had a rich burial only because by the time of her death Senenmut had attained a high enough status to bury his mother with costly goods. See Peter F. Dorman, The Monuments of Senenmut: Problems in Historical Methodology (New York: Kegan Paul International, 1988).
11. The titles are Overseer of the King’s Great House and Overseer of the House of the King’s Great Wife; see ibid.
12. Bryan demonstrates how these bureaucrats benefited from their positions in “Administration in the Reign of Thutmose III.”
13. Some Egyptologists suggest that he started his professional life in the army, an institution known to allow quick changes in social status, but there is little evidence for this conclusion. Theban Tomb 71 of Senenmut mentions gold armbands in association with battle or plunder, but this provides no evidence that he himself served in the army. Senenmut’s titles are administrative, and none of his plentiful monuments mention any affiliation with the army. See Dorman, Monuments of Senenmut, 7–13.
14. The biography of Ahmose Pennekhbet, one of Hatshepsut’s later trusted officials, refers to Nefrure as “the eldest daughter,” implying that there was a younger daughter, as does a statue of Senenmut now in the Chicago Field Museum (Acc. No. 173800). See Sethe, Urkunden der 18. Dynastie, Band 1, 34.
15. These scenes are from the tower gate at the funerary temple of Ramses III at Medinet Habu. See Oriental Institute Epigraphic Survey, ed., Medinet Habu, vol. 7, The Eastern High Gate (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), plates 630–54.
16. The ancient Egyptian historian Manetho claims that Thutmose II ruled for thirteen years, but this assertion is not widely accepted. For a discussion of this longer reign, see Jürgen von Beckerath, Chronologie des pharaonischen Ägypten: die Zeitbestimmung der ägyptischen Geschichte von der Vorzeit bis 332 v. Chr., Münchener Universitätsschriften; Philosophische Fakultät.; Münchner ägyptologische Studien, 46 (Mainz am Rhein: Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 1997), 201. A thirteen-year reign would add almost ten years to Hatshepsut’s ages put forth in this book. Thus she would have been around twenty-five when she served as regent for Thutmose III at the death of her husband, and then in her thirties at her own accession as king.
17. The text is recorded on her Red Chapel barque shrine at Karnak. See N. Grimal, F. Burgos, and F. Larché, La chapelle rouge: Le sanctuaire de barque d’Hatshepsout (Paris: Centre Franco-Égyptien, 2006). For a translation of these texts, see Warburton,Architecture, Power, and Religion, 226–33. The recorded information about the mechanics of the oracle is very vague, partly because we are dealing with a divinely inspired moment, and partly because the text was purposefully destroyed, leaving Egyptologists with only traces to reconstruct the full inscription. The festival was said to occur in year 2, but the reign of which king is not stated. If it was the second year of Thutmose I’s reign, Hatshepsut would, ostensibly, have been a mere infant then. Perhaps it was meant to occur in year 2 of Thutmose II, even though at this point Hatshepsut may have already been acting as God’s Wife of Amen and the King’s Great Wife.
18. We do not know if this oracle really happened in a way that everyone in the audience could understand, or if this revelation was shared only with Hatshepsut, who then communicated it to her people. There is another oracle recorded on the Red Chapel, also ascribed to Hatshepsut, with another first-person text talking about another year 2 of an unidentified king, which took place at Luxor Temple, not Karnak, and referring to the god marking her as the next king. David Warburton treats these oracles together, and they are connected in the same narrative stream; see Architecture, Power, and Religion, 226–33. The description of events, however, suggests two separate oracles at two different times—the first when she was marked as God’s Wife and the second when she was marked as king. Both are said to have happened in year 2 of an unspecified king, however, and it seems we are meant to see these events as happening in quick succession of one another.
19. Pascal Vernus, “La grande mutation idéologique du Nouvel Empire,” Bulletin de la Société d’égyptologie Genève 19 (1995): 69–95. In his book on Hatshepsut’s architecture, Warburton cites Vernus when he says, “The use of oracles to legitimate the inheritance of kingship by Hatshepsut and Thutmose III was an ideological innovation. It can also be related to a change in the understanding of the authority behind kingship, as Hatshepsut appeals to Amun rather than Re” (Architecture, Power, and Religion, 42). Warburton continues with the argument that in tying her legitimacy to Amen rather than her own “accomplishment of justice as the successor of Re,” as he puts it, Hatshepsut forever weakened Egyptian kingship, transforming it into an institution that was hereafter looking to the heavens for its justification rather than to its own kingly ideology of power on earth (ibid., 49).
Chapter Four: Regent for a Baby King
1. For the oracle marking Thutmose III as king, also known as the Texte de la Jeunesse, see Sethe, Urkunden der 18. Dynastie, Band 1, 155–76, and Piotr Laskowski, “Monumental Architecture and the Royal Building Program of Thutmose III,” in Cline and O’Connor, Thutmose III: A New Biography, 184. For the idea that this oracle text may have Middle Kingdom origins, see Donald Redford, “The Northern Wars of Thutmose III,” in Cline and O’Connor, Thutmose III: A New Biography, 340. To take just one issue that is unclear in this oracle text: was Thutmose II actually present when the new king was chosen, as the text suggests but never overtly states, or was “the majesty” referred to in the text meant to be the god Amen? Perhaps “the majesty” is referred to obliquely because he wasn’t there in person. Perhaps the reigning king was ill, and a choice needed to be made about his heir. Or maybe he wasn’t there at all in body but only in spirit because he had just died, and the oracular choice was made in haste.
2. This is, of course, assuming that Hatshepsut was indeed God’s Wife of Amen during the reign of her father, Thutmose I, for which there is no direct evidence, but for which the circumstances of dynastic rule—and having a God’s Wife related to the reigning king—make a strong case. The new Thutmoside dynasty would almost certainly have wanted a God’s Wife from its own family. See Bryan, “Eighteenth Dynasty Before the Amarna Period,” 231.
3. Sethe, Urkunden der 18. Dynastie, Band 1, 59–60. Although some Egyptologists argue that the biography of Ineni would have been written down long after the reign of Hatshepsut (see Laboury, “How and Why Did Hatshepsut Invent the Image of Her Royal Power?,” in Galán, Bryan, and Dorman, Theban Symposium), there is evidence that Ineni’s inscription finds its origins in the early reign of Thutmose III and thus is a remnant of the insecurity of that very moment in history when a baby was sitting on the throne of Egypt and a woman was making all the decisions. Bryan, for example, thinks that Ineni’s biography represents how Egyptians perceived Hatshepsut’s regency in its contemporary historical moment. See Betsy M. Bryan, “Hatshepsut and Cultic Revelries in the New Kingdom,” in Galán, Bryan, and Dorman, Theban Symposium.
4. Marianne Schnittger entertains the possibility that it was Ahmes who acted as the regent for the baby king until her own demise, leaving the role to Hatshepsut. This discounts the evidence for Ahmes living into the reign of her daughter Hatshepsut, however. See Hatschepsut: Eine Frau als König von Ägypten (Mainz am Rhein: Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 2008), 26.
5. Another one of Hatshepsut’s trusted officials—Ahmose Pennekhbet, whose daughter became one of Thutmose III’s most important wives—also recorded his autobiography on the walls of his tomb, listing all the kings under whom he had served: “I have accompanied the kings of Upper and Lower Egypt, the Gods (deceased kings), under which I lived, on their campaigns in southern and northern foreign countries, at each place, to which they have gone, the King of Upper and Lower Egypt ‘Nebpehtyre’ (Ahmose I), the blessed one, the King of Upper and Lower Egypt ‘Djeserkare’ (Amenhotep I), the blessed one, the King of Upper and Lower Egypt ‘Aakheperkare’ (Thutmosis I), the blessed one, the King of Upper and Lower Egypt ‘Aakheperenre’ (Thutmosis II), the blessed one, down to this good God, the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, ‘Menkheperre’ (Thutmosis III), given life for ever. The God’s Wife repeated favors for me, the Great King’s Wife ‘Maatkare’ (Hatshepsut), justified; I educated her eldest daughter, Neferure, justified, when she was a child at the breast.” The translation is based on Dorman, Monuments of Senenmut, 37–38.
Egyptologists have long used this text to prove that Hatshepsut was—just a few years after her death—posthumously demoted, no longer remembered as king but only as the God’s Wife and King’s Wife. However, new work on Ahmose Pennekhbet’s tomb suggests that this text is actually a copy from his original family tomb, which was decorated during Hatshepsut’s regency for Thutmose III. This new information indicates that Ahmose Pennekhbet was recording the rank of Hatshepsut as regent, from a time before she was officially king, rather than demoting the monarch in his tomb inscriptions after her death. For this new understanding, see Vivian W. Davies, “A View from Elkab: The Tomb and Statues of Ahmose-Pennekhbet,” in Galán, Bryan, and Dorman,Theban Symposium.
6. See Boyo Ockinga, “Hatshepsut’s Appointment as Crown Prince and the Egyptian Background to Isaiah 9:5,” in Egypt, Canaan and Israel: History, Imperialism, Ideology and Literature; Proceedings of a Conference at the University of Haifa, 3–7 May 2009, ed. S. Bar, D. Kahn, and JJ Shirley (Leiden: Brill, 2011).
7. Roth, “Models of Authority,” 11.
8. Indeed, there is evidence that the elites of Thebes were very worried about the possible death of their infant king. Children were named Menkheperreseneb, meaning “May Menkheperre (Thutmose III) be healthy!” One such child would grow up to become High Priest of Amen during the sole reign of Thutmose III.
9. Some Egyptologists suggest a longer reign for Thutmose II to alleviate the perceived problem of Hatshepsut’s age and inexperience. See Dorman, “Early Reign of Thutmose III,” 61. Donald Redford solves this problem by suggesting that Amenhotep I and Thutmose I had a coregency and arguing that toward the end of the reign of Amenhotep I, the king chose one of his generals, Thutmose, to succeed him and that he married him off to Ahmes and elevated him to the level of king. See Donald B. Redford, History and Chronology of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt: Seven Studies (New York: University of Toronto Press, 1967), 73. However, Murnane includes no evidence of a coregency for these kings. See William J. Murnane, Ancient Egyptian Coregencies (Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 1977), 115.
10. The only surviving statue of Thutmose III’s mother, Isis, is in the Cairo Museum (JdÉ 37417; CG 42072).
11. This passage is from the “Instruction of Ptahhotep”; my translation is based on Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, 1:64.
12. This passage is from the “Instruction for King Merikare,” which dates from the First Intermediate Period; my translation is based on ibid., 106.
13. See Sethe, Urkunden der 18. Dynastie, Band 1, 159.
14. Only scraps of this building activity remain. Depictions of Hatshepsut as queen regent were found at Karnak. See Gabolde, Monuments décorés en bas relief, and the Karnak Temple page on the webpage of Karl H. Leser, “Maat-ka-Ra Hatshepsut,” http://www.maat-ka-ra.de/english/start_e.htm.
15. Peter F. Dorman, “Hatshepsut: Princess to Queen to Co-Ruler,” in Roehrig, Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh, 88.
16. See Gabolde, Monuments décorés en bas relief, plates XI, XLII.
17. This was not always the case; the evidence suggests that during later Dynasties 25 and 26 these priestesses were unmarried and, it seems, also celibate. See Mariam F. Ayad, God’s Wife, God’s Servant: The God’s Wife of Amun (c. 740–525 BC) (London: Routledge, 2009).
18. Ancient Egyptian letters do not usually contain gossip, unless there was a legal issue at the core, and they certainly do not include discussions of the king’s (or regent’s) romantic engagements. See Edward F. Wente, Letters from Ancient Egypt (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990).
19. For the erroneous hypothesis that these graffiti represent Hatshepsut and Senenmut, see Edward F. Wente, “Some Graffiti from the Reign of Hatshepsut,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 43, no. 1 (1984), and John Romer, People of the Nile: Everyday Life in Ancient Egypt (New York: Crown, 1985), 156–59. For a muchneeded corrective, see Bryan, “In Women Good and Bad Fortune Are on Earth,” 35: “Surely more caution is demanded. The tolerance for female rulers exhibited throughout Egypt’s first eighteen dynasties must be taken into account before we espouse such unsubstantiated opinions.”
20. Consider the parallel of Catherine II (the Great) of Russia, who bore two children with one of her lovers, having taken the throne after the overthrow and subsequent murder of her husband, Emperor Peter III.
21. Toivari-Viitala, Women at Deir el-Medina, 168–70.
22. Some Egyptologists once believed that Neferubity was Hatshepsut’s second daughter, born after Nefrure, but most would now argue that Neferubity was Hatshepsut’s sister instead. See Dodson and Hilton, Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt, 140. Nonetheless, it is completely within the realm of possibility that Hatshepsut bore another daughter to Thutmose II during his three-year reign and that the girl died in childhood, leaving us with little evidence of her existence beyond the mention that Nefrure was Hatshepsut’s “eldest” child in the tomb of Ahmose Pennekhbet.
23. From the Netjery Menu temple at East Karnak. See Gabolde, Monuments décorés en bas relief, and Blyth, Karnak, 65.
24. Anthony J. Spalinger, “Covetous Eyes South: The Background to Egypt’s Domination of Nubia by the Reign of Thutmose III,” in Cline and O’Connor, Thutmose III: A New Biography, 344–69.
25. It is also possible that Thutmose II appointed Senenmut as chief treasurer before Hatshepsut became regent and during his own reign. The Egyptian name for the treasurer was Overseer of the Seal, which meant that he was in charge of the seal placed on the doors of the treasury and thus monitored everything that came in and everything that went out. See Bryan, “Administration in the Reign of Thutmose III,” 77–81.
26. These obelisks were placed in East Karnak, at what the Egyptians called the “Upper Gateway.” See Blyth, Karnak, 55. For a reconstruction, see the contra temple obelisks on the UCLA Digital Karnak website at http://dlib.etc.ucla.edu/projects/Karnak/feature/ObelisksAtContraTemple. It is possible that the limestone temple Netjery Menu, which was constructed during Hatshepsut’s regency, was also here at East Karnak. See Gabolde, Monuments décorés en bas relief, 26.
27. Judith Weingarten, “Hatshepsut and the Tomb Beneath the Tomb,” http://judithweingarten.blogspot.com/2009/03/hatshepsut-and-tomb-beneath-tomb.html; José M. Galán, “The Tombs of Djehuty and Hery (TT 11–12) at Dra Abu el-Naga,” in Proceedings of the Ninth International Congress of Egyptologists, ed. J.-C. Goyon and C. Cardin, Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta (Leuven: Peeters, 2007), 777–88. For Egyptian tombs without mention of a husband or wife, see Ann Macy Roth, “The Absent Spouse: Patterns and Taboos in Egyptian Tomb Decoration,” Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt 36 (1999): 37–53.
28. His family seem to have been low- to mid-level elites from Armant. If we hypothesize that Senenmut started his palace career around age twenty, serving in an administrative post in the royal treasury during the reign of Hatshepsut’s father, Thutmose I, then he would have been thirty-four at the accession of Thutmose II and almost forty when Thutmose III took the throne, when Hatshepsut was around sixteen.
29. None of Senenmut’s many statues are dated with certainty to the reign of Thutmose II. Most come from the joint reign of Thutmose III and Hatshepsut. See Dorman, “Early Reign of Thutmose III,” 63.
30. For more on the position of King’s Son of Kush, also known as the Viceroy, during the reign of Hatshepsut, see Spalinger, “Covetous Eyes South,” in Cline and O’Connor, Thutmose III: A New Biography, 344–69.
31. Useramen’s father had been vizier from Thutmose I onwards, and his son’s appointment as vizier by Hatshepsut is a testament to the family’s strength. Hatshepsut likely had no political choice. JJ Shirley, personal communication, 2014. For more on the officials who served during the reign of Hatshepsut and Thutmose III, particularly in the vizierate, see Bryan, “Administration in the Reign of Thutmose III.”
32. E. Dziobek, “Denkmäler des vezirs User-Amun.” Studien Zur Archäologie and Geschlchte Altägyptens 18 (Heidelberg: Heidelberger Orient-verlag, 1998). Userhat’s tomb decoration has much in common with Thutmose III’s own tomb decoration and may have been done later.
33. H. Carter, “A Tomb Prepared for the Queen Hatshepsuit,” Annales du Service des Antiquités de l’Égypte 16 (1917): 179–82.
34. For depictions of Nefrure as the God’s Wife of Amen, see Paneque, “Official Image of Hatshepsut,” 83–98.
Chapter Five: The Climb Toward Kingship
1. I have not mentioned Nitocris in this summary because sources for her are so problematic. This Egyptian woman may have ruled at the end of Dynasty 6, but there are no contemporary Egyptian sources about the queen, only a possible and disputed mention in the Turin Kinglist, a papyrus from the reign of Ramses II that preserves a canon of Egyptian rulers, which may actually refer to a male ruler; stories from Herodotus; and a mention in Manetho. For more about ancient Egyptian female leaders in general, see Bryan, “In Women Good and Bad Fortune Are on Earth.”
2. Troy, Patterns of Queenship, 2.
3. A broken statue of Sobeknefru is preserved in the Louvre (Louvre E 27135). See ibid., 30, and Elisabeth Delange, Catalogue des statues égyptiennes du Moyen Empire, 2060–1560 avant J.-C. (Paris: Musée du Louvre, 1987). Most of the head is missing, but it is still clear that the female king is wearing the traditional dress of a queen in combination with a nemes headdress and a king’s kilt over the female dress. It is disputed whether Sobeknefru was a sister of Amenemhat IV (and thus whether Amenemhat IV was even of royal blood at all), because she lacks the title King’s Sister; however, she does bear the title of King’s Daughter (of Amenemhat III). See Bryan, “In Women Good and Bad Fortune Are on Earth,” 29; Dodson and Hilton, Complete Royal Families, 95. For this history and the ensuing decline after the fall of the Twelfth Dynasty, see K. Ryholt, The Political Situation in Egypt During the Second Intermediate Period, c. 1800–1550 BC (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 1997).
4. Dorman, “Early Reign of Thutmose III,” 53.
5. The dating of Hatshepsut’s accession depends on an ostracon found buried in the fill in front of Senenmut’s tomb at Sheikh abd el-Gurna, Theban Tomb 71, when the tomb of his mother and father was sealed. The ostracon reads “Year 7, month 4 of sprouting, day 2,” and this is understood to have been the date when the tomb was closed. Inside the tomb were inscribed materials, including one marked with “the Good Goddess Maat-ka-Ra” testifying that by this point Hatshepsut had formally been named king. The Semna inscription, another text used to date the formal beginning of Hatshepsut’s reign, is problematic because it was recarved at least twice in antiquity. For a thorough discussion of the dating of Hatshepsut’s accession, see Dorman, Monuments of Senenmut.
6. For the translation, see Dorman, “Early Reign of Thutmose III,” 41.
7. The Ennead simply means “The Nine” and refers to the first generations of divinities after the first creation: Atum, Shu, and Tefnut; Geb and Nut; Osiris and Isis; Seth and Nephthys. These are the nine gods of the Helipolitian creation, since the god Atum created his First Time at Iunu, the city of the sun, called Heliopolis by the Greeks. For more, see Erik Hornung, Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt: The One and the Many (London: Routledge, 1983).
8. The Sehel text is published in Labib Habachi, “Two Graffiti at Sehēl from the Reign of Queen Hatshepsut,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 16, no. 2 (1957): 88–104. The translation follows his.
9. Dorman, “Early Reign of Thutmose III,” 48.
10. For this important block, now located in Luxor Museum, see H. Chevrier, “Rapport sur les Travaux de Karnak (1933–1934),” Annales du Service des Antiquités de l’Égypte 34 (1934): 172, plate 4; Abeer el-Shahawy, Luxor Museum: The Glory of Ancient Thebes (Cairo: Farid Atiya Press, 2005), 116–17; and Peter F. Dorman, “Hatshepsut: Princess to Queen to Co-Ruler,” in Roehrig, Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh, 88.
11. This limestone block was found in 1930 by the French archaeologist Henri Chevrier at Karnak, and it belongs to a chapel dismantled toward the end of her reign or after. It is now displayed in the Luxor Museum. See Chevrier, “Rapport sur les Travaux de Karnak (1933–1934),” plate 4. For a discussion of the image, see Karl Leser’s Karnak page on his website at http://maat-ka-ra.de/.
12. The translation is based on Warburton, Architecture, Power, and Religion, 231–32. The mention of “his majesty” is confusing and unclarified, and although Warburton sees this as referring to the god “Amen,” I am not convinced because the god is referenced later in the text. Also see Dorman, Monuments of Senenmut, 22. For a description and image of block 287 with the Luxor oracle, see Schnittger, Hatschepsut: Eine Frau als König von Ägypten, 42.
13. The translation is based on Warburton, Architecture, Power, and Religion, 232.
14. The translation is based on Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, 2:28.
15. This text appears on Hatshepsut’s Red Chapel and is in reference to the coronation. The translation is based on Warburton, Architecture, Power, and Religion, 229.
16. Ibid., 230.
17. For these scenes, see Franck Burgos and François Larché, La chapelle Rouge: Le sanctuaire de barque d’Hatshepsout, vol. 1 (Paris: Éditions Recherche sur les Civilisations, 2006). Her coronation is also depicted at her Deir el-Bahri Temple of Millions of Years as well as at Buhen Temple (now reconstructed at the National Museum of Sudan in Khartoum since the creation of Lake Nasser).
18. Although some might argue that this merging with Amen is meant to be sexual in nature, it is doubtful this is what is meant by this new prenomen. She melded her essence with his and took on his powers and abilities through that process of royal initiation.
19. The nebty name was the Two Mistresses name, and the writing shows the goddesses Nekhbet and Wadjyt. For more on the titulary of ancient Egyptian kings, see Peter A. Clayton, Chronicle of the Pharaohs: The Reign-by-Reign Record of the Rulers and Dynasties of Ancient Egypt (London: Thames and Hudson, 1994), and Jürgen von Beckerath, Handbuch der ägyptischen Königsnamen, 2nd ed. (Mainz am Rhein: Verlag Philipp von Zabern), 1999. For a discussion of the titulary of Hatshepsut, see Gay Robins, “The Names of Hatshepsut as King,” Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 85 (1999): 103–12.
20. Murnane, for example, argues that the oracular events promoted Hatshepsut’s claim to the throne by expressing Amen’s doubts concerning Thutmose III’s ability to rule (Ancient Egyptian Coregencies, 33–34).
21. These first obelisks were placed at East Karnak. Her second pair commemorated her Sed festival in year 16 and were placed in the Wadjyt hall of her father, Thutmose I, or in front of the fifth pylon. See Blyth, Karnak, 55. For a digital reconstruction of the obelisks in the Wadjyt hall, see the UCLA Digital Karnak website at http://dlib.etc.ucla.edu/projects/Karnak/feature/ObelisksOfWadjetHall.
22. The addition of the element of ka, or “soul,” does seem to move Thutmose III one step from the source of active creation, but why was this particular element added to the boy king’s name? Did the ka denote a masculine element that Hatshepsut lacked? Perhaps the change was orchestrated by an oracle of Amen to validate Hatshepsut as the leading king in a feminine-masculine pair. Or was the ka linked to Maatkare and therefore Hatshepsut’s place on the throne, thus making the claim that Thutmose III was dependent on her rule for his own? Hatshepsut never explains why the name was altered, but she obviously felt that it was necessary: Thutmose III’s kingship had to change to fit her rule.
23. No previous king documented his coronation so extensively. This was another one of those exclusionary and secret moments that Hatshepsut felt she had to publish; the reasons for this documentation are not stated, but it likely was done to justify her insecure kingship. Thutmose III would follow suit with such published imagery of his crowning, probably because the origins of his own kingship were also perilous. See Schnittger, Hatschepsut, 44–45.
24. Betsy M. Bryan, “The Temple of Mut: New Evidence on Hatshepsut’s Building Activity,” in Roehrig, Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh, 181–83.
25. The translation is based on Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, 2:26.
26. The translation follows James P. Allen, “The Role of Amun,” in Roehrig, Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh, 84.
27. For more on the mythological foundations of divine androgyny in connection with female rule, see Troy, Patterns of Queenship, 12–32.
28. For Amen and Amenet, see Sethe, Amun und die acht Urgötter; Assmann, Egyptian Solar Religion; and Richard H. Wilkinson, The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt (London: Thames and Hudson, 2003), 136–37.
29. The translation is based on Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, 2:26.
30. The passage is from Hatshepsut’s birth mythology. See Sethe, Urkunden der 18. Dynastie, Band 1, 248–50.
31. The first clear evidence for the Opet festival is from Hatshepsut’s reign, and some suggest it was during her rule that the festival actually began. See William J. Murnane, “Opetfest,” in Lexikon der Ägyptologie, vol. 4, ed. W. Helck and E. Otto (Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz, 1982), 574–79; John C. Darnell, “Opet Festival,” UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, 2010, http://escholarship.org/uc/item/4739r3fr; and Blyth, Karnak, 53. I, however, prefer to see in her reliefs the first open publication of the Opet Festival.
32. An alabaster kohl jar found at the Ramesseum includes Ahmes’s name with both Thutmose I and Thutmose II, indicating that she lived into the latter’s reign at least and probably longer. See J. E. Quibell, The Ramesseum (London: B. Quaritch, 1898).
33. This translation matches Bryan, “The Eighteenth Dynasty Before the Amarna Period,” 242.
34. Gabolde, Monuments décorés en bas relief, 164–79. The removal of Thutmose III’s names suggests that she may even have been plotting his ultimate removal, although there is no direct evidence of any such plans. If Hatshepsut ever conceived of such a coup, there is no confirmation of it or its failure.
35. These four types of social power are discussed in Michael Mann, The Sources of Social Power, vol. 1, A History of Power from the Beginning to A.D. 1760 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986).
Chapter Six: Keeping the Kingship
1. Blyth, Karnak, 60–62.
2. See Murnane, Ancient Egyptian Coregencies.
3. The same could be said of the later coregency of Neferneferuaten (probably formerly known as Nefertiti) with her husband Akhenaten and (probably later) her son Tutankhaten. See Aidan Dodson, Amarna Sunset: Nefertiti, Tutankhamun, Ay, Horemheb, and the Egyptian Counter-Reformation (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 2009), 33–52.
4. Although new coregents often began their own year count on appointment—so that one might see Year X of Regent A; Year Y of Regent B (Murnane, Ancient Egyptian Coregencies)—this seems not always to have been the case in the New Kingdom. Hatshepsut does have one date assigned just to her, without mention of Thutmose III, and it was fittingly found at Karnak, one of her main foundations of power. See Hornung, Krauss, and Warburton, Ancient Egyptian Chronology, 201.
5. According to Dorman, a “general avoidance of attaching a specific regnal date to Hatshepsut alone, noticeable even on the monuments for which she took primary responsibility, is part and parcel of the etiquette of coregency that Hatshepsut devised in order to bring historical reality into concord with her ideological claims” (“Early Reign of Thutmose III,” 54).
6. For the Punt inscriptions, see Kurt Sethe, Urkunden der 18. Dynastie, Band 2, ed. Georg Steindorff, Urkunden des ägyptischen Altertums 4 (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichssche Buchhandlung, 1906), 319–21.
7. Nehesy’s tomb was constructed at the northern necropolis of Saqqara. Bryan therefore suggests that he was carrying out the Punt mission under direct orders from a northern vizier, perhaps Neferweben, and not the southern vizier, Useramen (“Administration in the Reign of Thutmose III,” 77).
8. For more information about the land of Punt, see Louise Bradbury, “Reflections on Travelling to ‘God’s Land’ and Punt in the Middle Kingdom,” Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt 25 (1988): 127–56, Rolf Herzog, Punt, Abhandlungen des Deutsches Archäologischen Instituts Kairo, Ägyptische Reihe 6 (Glückstadt: Verlag J. J. Augustin, 1968); Kenneth Kitchen, “The Land of Punt,” in The Archaeology of Africa, ed. Thurstan Shaw et al. (London: Routledge, 1993); and Dimitri Meeks, “Locating Punt,” in Mysterious Lands, Encounters with Ancient Egypt 5, ed. David B. O’Connor and Stephen G. J. Quirke (London: University College London Press, Institute of Archaeology, 2003), 53–80. Officials connected to Hatshepsut’s Punt expedition placed great value on it, mentioning it in their statue and tomb inscriptions. Many promotions were made just after year 9. JJ Shirley, personal communication, 2014.
9. Sethe, Urkunden der 18. Dynastie, Band 2, 339–40. Also see Warburton, Architecture, Power, and Religion, 247.
10. War led to new sources of income; indeed, in the ancient world, getting rich was the chief reason to wage war. See Spalinger, “Covetous Eyes South,” in Cline and O’Connor, Thutmose III: A New Biography, 344–69; for the men enriched by military campaigns during the reign of Hatshepsut and Thutmose III, see Bryan, “Administration in the Reign of Thutmose III,” 101–7.
11. Puyemre’s may have only been “new” on his father’s side. His mother was a wet nurse to Thutmose II, and thus he grew up in the palace. Puyemre was married to Seniseneb, a Divine Adoratrice and daughter of Hapuseneb, the First High Priest of Amen. Both of these men were connected to the Thutmoside family, which allowed them to consolidate power within the Amen priesthood by giving offices to friends of the Thutmosides. See Bryan, “Administration in the Reign of Thutmose III,” 70, 109–10.
12. Bryan, “Administration in the Reign of Thutmose III,” 109–10.
13. His seal with this title is on page 111 of Roehrig, Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh.
14. Bryan, “Administration in the Reign of Thutmose III,” 98. However, new work suggests that Senimen was instead appointed as tutor by Thutmose II with Senenmut taking over as tutor after him. JJ Shirley, personal communication, 2014.
15. Roehrig, Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh, 121.
16. The statue is currently in the Cairo Museum (JdÉ 47278). See Dorman, Monuments of Senenmut, 124.
17. Bryan, “Administration in the Reign of Thutmose III,” 94.
18. Bryan suggests that the new description of the duties of the vizier written during the reign of Thutmose III may have been a reaction to Senenmut’s overreaching: “This last title (that is, judge of the gate in the entire land) suggests that Senenmut could usurp the authority of the vizier’s office” (ibid., 93–94).
19. Shaun Tougher, The Eunuch in Byzantine History and Society (London: Routledge, 2008).
20. This proscription gives us an idea of how important the nurse Satre was to Hatshepsut, because in this statue (in the Cairo Museum, JdÉ 56264), the older woman was able to show herself holding a figure of Hatshepsut as king sitting on her lap.
21. Indeed, an inscription on the back of one of these ostraca reads “a lean, hairy rat with prodigiously long whiskers”; see W. C. Hayes, The Scepter of Egypt, vol. 2 (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1959), 110. This description may refer to Senenmut, and perhaps he was a wiry, ratlike man who was overly obsequious to Hatshepsut. There are four such drawings of Senenmut’s face: three ostraca are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; the other example is drawn directly onto his limestone tomb wall in Theban Tomb 353.
22. Senenmut claims the earliest tutor statue, the earliest statue of someone holding a shrine, the first statue of someone holding a coiled surveyor’s rope, and the first statue of someone holding a votive emblem (in this case, Hatshepsut’s rebus name of a snake wearing a horned sun disk on ka arms). He also owned his own quartzite sarcophagus in the manner of the royal sarcophagi, and he was honored with his own devotional reliefs at Hatshepsut’s funerary temple. See Roehrig, Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh, 107–33.
23. Keller, “Statuary of Hatshepsut,” 117.
24. Senenmut had both of his parents buried in a chamber just in front of his own grand tomb chapel (Theban Tomb 71), a showplace that he was building in western Thebes for his high rank. He was able to purchase a painted coffin and gilded mummy mask for his mother, Hatnefer, probably in advance of her death. Senenmut also commissioned funerary papyri, canopic equipment, silver pitchers, a silver bowl, and a precious heart scarab set in a gold bezel for his mother. He made sure that she was carefully mummified with the highest-quality linens from Hatshepsut’s royal workshops, and he included funerary offerings of wine, beer, and foodstuffs, much of it marked with Hatshepsut’s name as king.
Senenmut even had his father, Ramose, reburied to accompany his mother in death. Senenmut had the unmummified corpse sent to the embalming house for treatment, even though his father had died more than a decade before. There it was rewrapped in fine linen. When ready for reburial, it was placed in a simple painted coffin without any gilding. The body of his father had not previously been embalmed for burial, which suggested that neither Senenmut nor his family had access to extra income for elite burial extravagances at the time of Ramose’s death. But now cash was not a problem for Senenmut: he made sure that his mother and father could dwell next to each other for eternity, their bodies imperishable. See Dorman, Monuments of Senenmut, 86–97, and The Tombs of Senenmut: The Architecture and Decoration of Tombs 71 and 353 (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1991), 168–73.
25. For the publication of the discovery of the tomb of Senenmut’s parents, Ramose and Hatnofer, see A. Lansing and W. Hayes, “The Egyptian Expedition 1935–1936,” Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 32 (January 1937, sec. 2): 5–39.
26. See Dorman, Tombs of Senenmut.
27. Betsy Bryan believes these architectural Osirian statues are inspired by similar statues of Hatshepsut’s father, Thutmose I, carved out of sandstone and installed at Karnak on the east bank of Thebes; see Bryan, “Eighteenth Dynasty Before the Amarna Period,” 241.
28. Egyptologists are still debating how to understand and define the Temple of Millions of Years. Such a funerary temple is differentiated from state temples like Karnak and Luxor by the fact that it was usually built by one king for his own functional cult and was meant to link his being and royal rule with the gods Osiris, Re, and Amen. For more on temples in ancient Egypt, see B. E. Shafer, ed, Temples of Ancient Egypt (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997), and M. Ullmann, “König für die Ewigkeit: die Häuser der Millionen von Jahren,” Ägypten und Altes Testament 51 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2002).
29. This festival is discussed in Elaine Sullivan, “Processional Routes and Festivals,” 2008, UCLA Digital Karnak, http://dlib.etc.ucla.edu/projects/Karnak/assets/media/resources/ProcessionalRoutesAndFestivals/guide.pdf.
30. It is possible that Hatshepsut’s funerary temple at Deir el-Bahri was begun for Thutmose II, as his Temple of Millions of Years, during the reign of her husband, but that she had it reassigned to herself. After all, she did not include a funerary temple of Thutmose II in her Red Chapel list, alongside the funerary temples of Thutmose I and III. See Zygmunt Wysocki, “The Temple of Queen Hatshepsut at Deir el Bahari: The Raising of the Structure in View of Architectural Studies,” Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts Abteilung Kairo 48 (1992): 234–54.
31. For the idea that these temples acted as stages for festival activity, see Jadwiga Lipínska, “The Temple of Thutmose III at Deir el-Bahari,” in Roehrig, Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh, 285–86.
32. For more on the Opet festival, see Darnell, “Opet Festival,” UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology. http://escholarship.org/uc/item/4739r3fr.
33. For this place, see R. A. Caminos and T. G. H. James, Gebel el Silsilah (London, 1963).
34. Hatshepsut built temples or shrines at Elephantine, Kom Ombo, Hierakonpolis (el-Kab), Gebel el-Silsila, Meir (Cusae), Batn el-Baqqara, Speos Artemidos, Hermopolis, Armant, Nubia, and the Sinai, according to Cathleen A. Keller, “The Joint Reign of Hatshepsut and Thutmose III,” in Roehrig, Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh, 97. For a survey of Hatshepsut’s monuments, see Karl Leser’s webpage at http://maat-ka-ra.de/.
35. This precise orientation has since been shifted by earthquakes, but the sun does still enter the sanctuary on the winter solstice. It just does not hit the statues anymore. See J. Karkowski, “The Decoration of the Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahari,” inQueen Hatshepsut and Her Temple 3500 Years Later, ed. Z. Szafrañskj (Cairo: Warsaw University Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology in Cairo, 2001): 99–157.
36. The translation of all sections of this extraordinary text is after James P. Allen, “The Speos Artemidos Inscription of Hatshepsut,” Bulletin of the Egyptological Seminar 16 (2002): 1–17. Warburton points out that Hatshepsut was likely using Middle Kingdom monarchs as her inspiration when she claimed she was only doing what the god wanted and commanded (Architecture, Power, and Religion, 128).
Chapter Seven: The King Becomes a Man
1. Spalinger, “Covetous Eyes South,” in Cline and O’Connor, Thutmose III: A New Biography, 344–69, esp. 354.
2. For example, see A. H. Gardiner, Egypt of the Pharaohs: An Introduction (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961), 189, and H. E. Winlock, “The Egyptian Expedition 1925–1927: The Museum’s Excavations at Thebes,” Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 23, no. 2 (1928): 52. For a discussion of such patriarchal scholarship, see Joyce Tyldesley, Hatchepsut: The Female Pharaoh (London: Viking, 1996), 137–40.
3. In year 12 we see evidence of another campaign to Kerma on a rock inscription at Tangur. See Davies, “Egypt and Nubia,” 52. Another campaign, which is undated but likely earlier, was led by Hatshepsut herself according to a biographical inscription at Sehel belonging to the royal chancellor Ty. Redford says there is reliable evidence to prove at least four campaigns during Hatshepsut’s rule and perhaps as many as six if the different campaigns mentioned in some Deir el-Bahri inscriptions are included (History and Chronology of the Eighteenth Dynasty, 62). According to another account by Overseer of the Treasury Djehuty in Theban Tomb 11, Hatshepsut accompanied her troops to Kush. Djehuty records that the queen engaged in the collection of booty personally. See Habachi, “Two Graffiti at Sehēl,” 88–104. But compare the more conservative view taken by Spalinger, “Covetous Eyes South,” in Cline and O’Connor, Thutmose III: A New Biography, 344–69.
4. O’Connor, “Thutmose III: An Enigmatic Pharaoh,” 6.
5. See Manfred Bietak, “Egypt and the Aegean: Cultural Convergence in a Thutmoside Palace at Avaris,” in Roehrig, Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh, 75–81.
6. For this idea of manifest destiny in Egyptian imperialism, see Bryan, “Administration in the Reign of Thutmose III,” 103.
7. Tyldesley notes that “the Thutmosides evidently had a family tendency towards shortness” (Hatchepsut: The Female Pharaoh, 125). Elliot G. Smith (The Royal Mummies, Catalogue général des antiquités égyptiennes du Musée du Caire, nos. 61051-61100[Cairo: Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale, 1912], 34) found the mummy of Thutmose III to be only 1.615 meters (5′3″), but some have argued that he was measured without his feet (Dennis C. Forbes, Tombs, Treasures, Mummies: Seven Great Discoveries of Egyptian Archaeology [Santa Rosa, CA: Kmt Communications, 1998], 631), indicating he was actually taller, maybe 5′6″. The most recent examination of Thutmose III’s mummy found it to be 175 centimeters (Z. Hawass, “Quest for the Mummy of Hatschepsut,”Kmt: A Modern Journal of Ancient Egypt 17, no. 2 (2006).
8. Roth points out that Hatshepsut is shown with a feminized male body (with breasts and narrow shoulders but no shirt or dress) only in the innermost sacred areas at Deir el-Bahri, in the sanctuaries of Amen and Hathor (“Models of Authority,” 13n2).
9. See Dorman’s summation in “The Early Reign of Thutmose III,” 52.
10. For the Egyptological study that lists all the known attestations of Sed festivals throughout history, see Erik Hornung and Elisabeth Staehelin, Studien zum Sedfest, Aegyptiaca Helvetica (Basel: Edition de Belles Lettres, 1974).
11. Another dating scheme might work for the jubilee; perhaps she celebrated her thirtieth year of life as thirty years of reign. No matter what, her priests were engaged in some serious numerology to justify the Sed. See Tyldesley, Hatchepsut: The Female Pharaoh, 110.
12. Some Egyptologists have suggested that she started her idealized reign with the death of Thutmose I, and thus this year 15 was really year 30, but the calculation only works if Thutmose II ruled for thirteen years or more (13 + 15 = 28). For discussion, see Jürgen von Beckerath, Chronologie des ägyptischen Neuen Reiches, HÄB 39 (Hildesheim: Gerstenberg, 1994), 111, and Dorman, “The Early Reign of Thutmose III,” 39–68, especially 60n2.
13. For information about and scenes from the Sed festival, see E. P. Uphill, “A Joint Sed-Festival of Thutmose III and Queen Hatshepsut,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 20, no. 4 (1961), and Hermann Kees, Der Opfertanz des Ägyptischen Königs (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1912).
14. One obelisk from this pair still stands, and I have included extensive translations from it already. For the inscriptions on the base and shaft, see Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, 2:25–29.
15. Dorman, Monuments of Senenmut, 129–30.
16. Laboury, “Royal Portrait and Ideology,” 274–75.
17. For a discussion of such scenes, see H. Brunner, Die Geburt des Gottkönigs: Studien zur Überlieferung eines altägyptischen Mythos (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1986). For a discussion online, go to the Second Portico of the Djeser-Djeseru section on Karl Leser’s website at http://maat-ka-ra.de/.
18. The translation is based on Warburton, Architecture, Power, and Religion, 229.
19. For recently uncovered fragments showing similar divine birth scenes from the mortuary temple of Senwosret III of the Middle Kingdom, see Dieter Arnold, “Neue architektonische Erkenntnisse von der Pyramide Sesostris III in Dashur,” Sokar: Geschichte und Archäologie Ägyptens 23, no. 2 (2011), and Adela Oppenheim, “The Early Life of Pharaoh: Divine Birth and Adolescence Scenes in the Causeway of Senwosret III at Dahshur,” in Abusir and Saqqara in the Year 2010, ed. Miroslav Bárta, Filip Coppens, and Jaromír Krejčí (Prague: Czech Institute of Egyptology, Faculty of Arts, Charles University, 2011).
20. Assmann, Egyptian Solar Religion (London: Kegan Paul International, 1995), 102–32, and Arielle P. Kozloff and Betsy M. Bryan, Egypt’s Dazzling Sun: Amenhotep III and His World (Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art; Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992), 96–97.
21. This translation is based on Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, vol. 2, 26.
22. Lana Troy, “Religion and Cult During the Time of Thutmose III,” in Cline and O’Connor, Thutmose III: A New Biography, 131, 138–39. Also see Jan Assmann, Der König als Sonnenpriester: Ein kosmographischer Begleittext zur kultischen Sonnenhymnik in thebanischen Tempeln und Gräbern, Ägyptologische Reihe Bd. 7 (Kairo: Abhandlungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts Kairo, 1970), 102–32.
23. The text is from Hatshepsut’s solar chapel at Deir el-Bahri. See J. Karkowski, The Temple of Hatshepsut: The Solar Complex (Warsaw, 2003). The translation is based on Assmann, Egyptian Solar Religion, 24.
24. For imagery, digital modeling, and a bibliography on the eighth pylon, see the UCLA Digital Karnak website at http://dlib.etc.ucla.edu/projects/Karnak/feature/PylonVIII.
25. For this site, see Oriental Institute Epigraphic Survey, ed., Medinet Habu, vol. 9, The Eighteenth Dynasty Temple, pt. 1, The Inner Sanctuaries, Oriental Institute Publications 136 (Chicago: Oriental Institute of Chicago, 2009).
26. There is evidence that such rituals already existed in the Middle Kingdom, but they do not consistently show up in Egyptian temple architecture until Ptolemaic and Roman periods. Hatshepsut included these rituals in texts at her funerary temple at Deir el-Bahri and at the Mut precinct at Karnak. They seem to be associated with Valley Festival activities. See Bryan, “Temple of Mut,” 182.
27. Betsy M. Bryan, “Hatshepsut and Cultic Revelries in the New Kingdom,” in Galán, Bryan, and Dorman, Theban Symposium.
28. In the Eighteenth Dynasty, kings had multiple wives, although their harems were likely relatively small, at least at the start of the dynasty and in comparison to later Ramesside harems. We know who some of their royal wives were from private monuments of their family members, nurses, tutors, and officials, as well as from funerary objects. Royal wives were usually not depicted in temples or on royal monuments, unless they were the most important queens. Likewise, few of the royal offspring of Eighteenth Dynasty kings are known; however, this was not the case for later kings, such as Ramses II in Dynasty 19, who depicted his many children in his Temples of Millions of Years. The depiction of Nefrure in Egypt’s temples alongside Hatshepsut after her ascension as king is thus telling of her increasing status. See Robins, Women in Ancient Egypt, 36.
29. There is a great deal of debate about whether Thutmose III and Nefrure were ever married at all. As we are unlikely to find evidence of their sexual relationship—such as texts documenting their offspring—we are left to look for instances of her name as a high-ranking queen. However, nearly every instance of Nefrure’s name was removed from the historical record after her death and replaced with the name of another queen of Thutmose III. Therefore, it is difficult to reconstruct their relationship. There is evidence that Nefrure appeared as God’s Wife of Amen with Thutmose III in year 22 or 23, only to be erased in favor of a woman named Satiah when Thutmose III began his sole reign. In other words, if Nefrure was the king’s Great Royal Wife, then she was removed from that office either because she died or because Thutmose III wanted her gone. See Dorman, Monuments of Senenmut.
30. Although Nefrure was often named as God’s Wife, on Hatshepsut’s later Red Chapel, depictions of the God’s Wife were left unnamed. Three scenes from the Red Chapel show a woman performing as God’s Wife, and we might assume that this girl was Nefrure during the reign of Hatshepsut. See Burgos and Larché, eds., La chapelle Rouge, vol. 1, blocks 140, 292.
31. The stela is currently in the Cairo Museum (JdÉ 38546). See Peter F. Dorman, “The Career of Senenmut,” in Roehrig, Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh, 108.
32. Arielle P. Kozloff, “The Artistic Production of the Reign of Thutmose III,” in Cline and O’Connor, Thutmose III: A New Biography, 297.
33. Given that most of Nefrure’s monumental inscriptions were recarved, Egyptologists have had to look for traces of her name to reconstruct her titles and thus her place in society as God’s Wife of Amen and Great Royal Wife. Some argue that Nefrure was never named King’s Wife at all. For instance, there is one stela that may depict Thutmose III and Nefrure together, and here she was marked as God’s Wife of Amen, not as Thutmose’s wife. This stela was usurped by a later wife, Satiah. It comes from the Ptah temple at Karnak, is now in the Cairo Museum (CG 34013), and dates from the early years of Thutmose III’s sole reign. Another stela that may have originally shown Nefrure was found in the funerary temple of Thutmose III at Sheikh abd el-Gurna (CG 34015); her name may have been erased for his mother, Isis (although this is contested by Piccione). For discussion of all these historical documents, see Troy, Patterns of Queenship, 164. For an image of the Cairo stela CG 34013, see Peter J. Brand, The Monuments of Seti I: Epigraphic, Historical, and Art Historical Analysis, Probleme Der Ägyptologie, 16 (Leiden: Brill, 2000), fig. 51. For discussion of the recutting of the Ptah temple stela, see P. A. Piccione, “The Women of Thutmose III in the Stelae of the Egyptian Museum,”Journal of the Society of the Study of Egyptian Antiquities 30 (2003): 91–100. This Ptah temple stela shows a woman labeled as the King’s Great Wife and the God’s Wife of Amen, and this figure could indeed have once been Nefrure. Robins, however, argues that while a sun disk is clearly visible, it is off center, even though this Re element of Nefrure’s name was always centered. Because of this, Robins claims that this was originally the name Merytre-Hatshepsut; she was also a wife of Thutmose III, and the sun disk in her name often appears off center. See Robins, “Review of Patterns of Queenship.”
Chapter Eight: The Setting Sun
1. For the timing of his change of throne name and its connection to the jubilee, see Uphill, “Joint Sed-Festival,” 250.
2. Made of alabaster, this shrine was built by Amenhotep I; its translucent qualities caught the lamplight. For a discussion of Hatshepsut’s new placement of this monument and Thutmose III’s later dismantlement, see Blyth, Karnak, 52–53. For a reconstruction, see the UCLA Digital Karnak website at http://dlib.etc.ucla.edu/projects/Karnak/feature/AmenhotepICalciteChapel. Hatshepsut seems to have had a penchant for picking the most sacred places in Thebes, dismantling the structures on-site, and erecting her own innovative edifices in their place. She was very confident about her architectural agenda.
3. The Red Chapel was found dismantled inside of Amenhotep III’s third pylon. That is why the original location of Hatshepsut’s masterpiece has been much debated. Some Egyptologists think that it was placed in the middle of the Palace of Truth, where the shrine of Philip Arrhidaeus is today; however, her structure seems too big to have actually fit in this space. If it was somehow jammed into her Palace of Truth, such placement would have severely limited the Red Chapel’s visibility. Newer Egyptological thinking places the Red Chapel in the Great Festival Court of Thutmose II, in front of the Palace of Truth, where Hatshepsut could better display her divine predestination and ritual activity to her people and where the structure could better function as a barque shrine with an entrance and an exit. See Franck Burgos and François Larché, eds., La chapelle Rouge: Le sanctuaire de barque d’Hatshepsout, vol. 2 (Paris: Éditions Recherche sur les Civilisations, 2008); Warburton, Architecture, Power, and Religion, 236; and Blyth, Karnak, 57. For a reconstruction of the Red Chapel in different possible locations, see the UCLA Digital Karnak website at http://dlib.etc.ucla.edu/projects/Karnak/feature/RedChapel.
4. For the Palace of Ma’at, see the UCLA Digital Karnak website at http://dlib.etc.ucla.edu/projects/Karnak/feature/PalaceOfMaat.
5. It was during Hatshepsut’s reign that we see a new emphasis on solarism and the cults of solar gods. She built solar altars for the first time in sandstone, a material evoking the sun. Bryan writes, “The piety and divine engenderment so consistently expressed by Hatshepsut was a source of inspiration to Amenhotep III. For it is this queen whom the later king imitated, even including a form of her divine birth reliefs and inscriptions in his new Luxor Temple. It was almost certainly her original plan to bring the southern temples of Thebes into a cultic cycle with Karnak that Amenhotep III explored and very nearly accomplished” (Kozloff and Bryan, Egypt’s Dazzling Sun, 96–97).
6. A speech of the god Amen recorded on Hatshepsut’s Red Chapel includes many ritual duties for the king, including: “Fill the estate, supply the altar. Instruct the wab priest regarding their tasks. Advance the laws. Perpetuate the regulations. Enrich the property. Increase that which existed previously. Expand the space of my treasuries. Build without neglecting sandstone or granite. Renew for my temple the statues in good quality limestone. Advance this work for me in the future. Control the monuments of the temples. Install every god according to his (own) regulations. Each one there exactly according to his means. Advance his primeval time for him. Advancing his laws is the joy of a god.” For the translation, see Troy, “Religion and Cult,” 134.
7. Old Kingdom and Middle Kingdom kings likely instituted cult activity for royal statues, but we have little direct representation of the practice in their temples.
8. Another block from the Red Chapel shows just such a priestess. It was carved with a woman’s figure labeled as the God’s Wife of Amen performing cult activity for the gods in the courtyard of the temple with attendants burning effigies of Egypt’s enemies upon a brazier of coals. She was meant to ritually roast these vile combatants alive. This female figure was not labeled as Nefrure, but if Hatshepsut’s Red Chapel was carved during the last five years of her reign and if Nefrure was still alive at this point, then the image was likely meant to have represented her. Why she is not named as such remains a vexing problem for Egyptologists. See Burgos and Larché, La chapelle Rouge, vol. 1: blocks 140, 292.
9. See Dorman, Monuments of Senenmut, 79, and Schnittger, Hatschepsut, 24. There is actually no direct evidence that Nefrure was Amenemhat’s mother; see Bryan, “Eighteenth Dynasty Before the Amarna Period,” 238. For the suggestion that Satiah was the prince’s mother, see Dodson and Hilton, Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt, 132.
10. For the argument that Nefrure was being groomed by her mother for the kingship, see Z. Szafrański, “Imiut in the ‘Chapel of Parents’ in the Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahari,” in 8. Ägyptologische Tempeltagung: Inter-connections Between Temples, ed. Monika Dolinska and Horst Beinlich, Königtum, Staat und Gesellschaft früher Hochkulturen 3 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2010). Szafrański uses art historical evidence to make his case. The female figure in question is on the south side of the upper terrace at Hatshepsut’s temple of Djeser Djeseru. She was recarved and relabeled as Hatshepsut’s mother, Ahmes, and Szafrański thinks the image originally represented Nefrure.
11. Troy, Patterns of Queenship, 141.
12. This stela from Serabit el-Khadim in the Sinai is now in Cairo’s Egyptian Museum (JdÉ 38546). See Dorman, “Royal Steward Senenmut,” 108.
13. Troy, Patterns of Queenship, 133–38.
14. Szafrański, “Imiut in the ‘Chapel of Parents.’ ”
15. When I say that Egyptologists only whisper about Hatshepsut’s possible murder, I mean that most do not want such unsubstantiated claims in print. Egyptologists today are loath to make the claim that either Hatshepsut or Nefrure may have been assassinated, probably because they are reacting to the unfounded and heavy-handed patriarchal arguments of early Egyptology (that Senenmut was Hatshepsut’s lover, for example, or that she was incapable of directing military campaigns—two claims for which there was never any real evidence), in addition to a healthy fear of appearing sensationalist in the manner of Bob Brier’s The Murder of Tutankhamen: A True Story (New York: Putnam, 1998). What Egyptologists put in print is often different from what they might say at the bar among friends. In keeping with such hypothetical claims, Warburton places his intimations about Nefrure’s murder (and even Hatshepsut’s) in a footnote (Architecture, Power, and Religion, 55–56n213.
16. Bryan, “Eighteenth Dynasty Before the Amarna Period,” 242.
17. About forty-two Theban tombs were commissioned by officials of Hatshepsut and Thutmose III, a virtual explosion of private tomb building. In all the previous reigns of the Eighteenth Dynasty combined, only ten tombs were completed in Thebes. See Kozloff, “Artistic Production of the Reign of Thutmose III,” 302.
18. For remarks on innovation during the reign of Hatshepsut, see Dorman, Monuments of Senenmut, 109.
19. For more discussion of the co-option of elites during the reign of Hatshepsut, see Bryan, “Administration in the Reign of Thutmose III,” 262, and Warburton, Architecture, Power, and Religion, 261–65.
20. Bryan, “Eighteenth Dynasty Before the Amarna Period,” 242.
21. Kozloff, “Artistic Production of the Reign of Thutmose III,” 310.
22. Hapuseneb probably predeceased Hatshepsut, because she was the only king mentioned in his tomb. Even late in his life, he decided not to include any text or image of Thutmose III. The next First High Priest of Amen was Menkheperreseneb, obviously from a family of Thutmose III supporters, given his name means “Menkheperre (Thutmose III) is healthy!” Bryan, “Administration in the Reign of Thutmose III,” 107–8.
23. Senenmut was given the honor of having his name and image displayed at Deir el-Bahri dozens of times, including in the Punt reliefs and in the images hidden behind the door leaves on the upper terrace and in the Hathor chapel. Besides his many statues commissioned to stand along the processional routes at Karnak, Senenmut also had himself represented at the Mut temple gateway, which was later removed in the same manner as his hidden images at Deir el-Bahri. He also had images and statues set up at Luxor Temple. See Dorman, Monuments of Senenmut.
24. Useramen’s tomb only mentions Thutmose III, and he served well into Thutmose III’s reign, suggesting that this honor may have been granted by Thutmose III, albeit following Hatshepsut’s lead with other officials. See Ziobek, E., “Denkmäler des Verziers User-Amen.”
25. However, some early New Kingdom monarchs did place their burial chambers a short distance away from their actual pyramids. The burial chamber of Ahmose I (first king of the Eighteenth Dynasty) in his pyramid at Abydos was over a kilometer away from his temple. Amenhotep I, the second king of the Eighteenth Dynasty, may have been the first one to place his burial chamber in a remote valley on the other side of a cliff, away from his funerary temple, but until his tomb is firmly identified, we cannot say for sure.
26. There is a great deal of disagreement about where Thutmose I was buried first and if KV 38 is his original tomb or not. Roehrig thinks KV 38 was indeed commissioned by the early Eighteenth Dynasty king. She also argues that KV 20 was originally made for Thutmose II but taken over by Hatshepsut, that KV 34 was constructed for Thutmose III, and that Hatshepsut added two side chambers to KV 20, with the intention to have herself buried with both her husband, Thutmose II, and her father, Thutmose I. Roehrig contends that the Amduat in her tomb was never completed. See Roehrig, “Two Tombs of Hatshepsut,” and John Romer, “The Tomb of Tuthmosis III,” Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts Abteilung Kairo 31 (1975). For a counterargument, see Schnittger, Hatschepsut, 59–60.
27. Hatshepsut’s Amduat text was not carved into the live rock but instead onto movable blocks. It has recently been demonstrated by Mauric-Barberio that the Amduat blocks in the tomb of Thutmose I (KV 38) and those in the tomb of Hatshepsut (KV 20) match and that all probably belong to Hatshepsut’s reign. Thus perhaps we should assign the innovation of including the Amduat in the royal tomb to Hatshepsut instead of her father; he is the one who can be credited with the radical decision to move the royal burial to the Valley of the Kings. F. Mauric-Barberio, “Le premier exemplaire du Livre de l’Amdouat,” Bulletin de l’Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale au Caire 101 (2001): 315–50. Warburton suggests that agents of Thutmose III moved some but not all of Hatshepsut’s Amduat blocks to the tomb of Thutmose I (KV 38) (Architecture, Power, and Religion, 205). Tyldesley suggests that the tomb was unfinished and that the blocks were lying on the floor abandoned by the builders (Hatchepsut: The Female Pharaoh, 123).
28. Peter Der Manuelian and Christian E. Loeben, “New Light on the Recarved Sarcophagus of Hatshepsut and Thutmose I in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston,” Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 79 (1993): 121–55.
29. For a description of the valley temple excavations, see Earl of Carnarvon and H. Carter, Five Years’ Explorations at Thebes: A Record of the Work Done 1907–1911 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1912).
30. From the Second Hour of the Amduat, characterized by mourning and great preparation after the sun god has settled into the underworld. The translation is based on David Warburton and Erik Hornung, The Egyptian Amduat: The Book of the Hidden Chamber (Zurich: Living Human Heritage, 2007), 52–57.
31. For information about ancient Egyptian funerary rituals, see Jan Assmann, Death and Salvation in Ancient Egypt, trans. David Lorton (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2005).
32. The later tomb of Tutankhamun provides the only comparison for Hatshepsut’s possible funerary goods. See Nicholas Reeves, The Complete Tutankhamun: The King, the Tomb, the Royal Treasure (London: Thames and Hudson, 1990). For a complete record of the excavation notes and photographs, see the Griffith Institute’s website on Tutankhamun’s tomb at http://www.griffith.ox.ac.uk/discoveringTut/.
33. The Book of Hours was often preserved on papyrus, and it was meant to give the dead power over circumstances in the netherworld. The text is broken up into hours, as in the Amduat. For more on this text, see Raymond O. Faulkner, “An Ancient Egyptian ‘Book of Hours,’ ” Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 40 (1954): 34–39.
34. Chapter 148 of the Book of the Dead is the “book for making the transfigured spirit excellent in the heart of Re, causing him to have power before Atum, magnifying him before the foremost of the West, enabling him to go out before the Ennead” and includes the Seven Celestial Cows (the Pleiades or Seven Sisters constellation that moved in the night sky and provided a means of counting the night hours). Also in Hatshepsut’s chapel are scenes of the Iunmutef priest—a figure who wears a leopard skin and the sidelock of youth, representative of the eldest son and heir—performing cult offerings and funerary ritual. The chapel walls preserve excerpts from the Pyramid Texts, the oldest known funerary texts from ancient Egypt, which provided protection and necessities to the dead in the next life. For all of these texts, see Marcelle Werbrouck, Le temple d’Hatshepsout à Deir el Bahari (Bruxelles: Fondation Égyptologique Reine Élisabeth, 1949).
35. There is no evidence for it, but Warburton suggests an abdication of power before her actual death: “She certainly did not relinquish power voluntarily at this point, but it is not clear that she died either. However, it should not be forgotten that with the death of her daughter, the possibility of a female dynasty was gone—and there is no reason to believe that her daughter died naturally. It is thus also possible that Hatshepsut did in fact die at this point—but not necessarily accidentally or of natural causes” (Architecture, Power, and Religion, 55–56n213).
36. Hawass, “Quest for Hatshepsut.” This mummy belonged to an old, very fat, diabetic woman whose teeth were so worn down that her age was estimated at between forty-six and sixty years. Many other circumstantial signs do not support the identification of KV 60A as Hatshepsut’s mummy; for example, not even the brain was removed during embalming. There is no reason to suggest that Hatshepsut received shoddy embalming just because her gender did not fit the office of kingship. If the Egyptians had wanted to harm her after death, they would have done a much more thorough job than poor embalming. Remnants of her burial suggest a traditional and high-cost affair. Furthermore, the estimated age at death of the KV 60A mummy is much older than historical documents allow for Hatshepsut.
37. Edouard Naville and Howard Carter, The Tomb of Haâtshopsîtû (London: A. Constable, 1906). Her anthropoid wooden coffin was also found in KV 4, the tomb of Ramses XI, which was used as a workshop when the royal mummies were being stripped of valuables and moved, indicating that her body remained untouched until the end of the New Kingdom. Other funerary objects of hers were found in the royal cache at Deir el-Bahri (Theban Tomb 320), including a canopic chest, a senet board, and the remains of a chair. For the movement of the royal mummies in the later New Kingdom, see Nicholas Reeves, Valley of the Kings: The Decline of a Royal Necropolis (London: Kegan Paul International, 1990).
38. For more on the shroud of Thutmose III, see Troy, “Religion and Cult,” 154.
39. S. W. Cross, “The Hydrology of the Valley of the Kings,” Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 94 (2008): 303–12.
40. But see Nicholas Reeves and Richard H. Wilkinson, The Complete Valley of the Kings: Tombs and Treasures of Egypt’s Greatest Pharaoh’s. (London: Thames and Hudson, 1996), 94–95. Many of Hatshepsut’s funerary objects were preserved, which suggests that her mummy is also preserved to us—we just haven’t definitively identified it.
41. Akhenaten’s mummy may have been destroyed after the failure of his radical religious changes. Or maybe it was moved back to Thebes as a corrective. For more on the aftermath of Akhenaten’s reign, see Dodson, Amarna Sunset.
42. Thutmose I’s tomb was likely also looted in antiquity; his coffin was reused by the priest-king Panedjem I in the Theban royal cache. But since the identification of the mummy of Thutmose I has recently been disproved, Hatshepsut’s father is still out there somewhere, waiting for discovery. The mummy of her mother, Ahmes, is still missing, too, and maybe Hatshepsut’s mummy is with them.
Chapter Nine: The King Is Dead; Long Live the King
1. The story of this campaign comes from Thutmose III’s annals, inscribed in the heart of Karnak Temple. I have adapted it from Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, 2:29–35.
2. The Great Green Sea is how the Egyptians referred to the Mediterranean Sea.
3. Redford, “Northern Wars of Thutmose III,” 330–31.
4. A stela from Armant indicates that Thutmose III led at least two campaigns in Syria-Palestine during the coregency with Hatshepsut. According to O’Connor, his victories imply extensive military campaign experience (“Thutmose III: An Enigmatic Pharaoh,” 28).
5. Because ancient armies were self-sufficient, living off the land with spoils taken from the conquered, campaigns usually took place in late spring and summer. See Redford, “Northern Wars of Thutmose III,” 328–29.
6. P. T. Nicholson and J. A. Henderson, “Glass,” in Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technology, ed. P. T. Nicholson and I. Shaw (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
7. Laboury, “Royal Portrait and Ideology,” 271.
8. Laboury argues that “this policy—personal assertion, deep respect for the predecessors and great devotion toward Amun, the god who gives rightful kingship—suggest(s) that the ruler was in need of legitimation after a long partition of his power with Hatshepsut, since they precisely constitute ways to justify claims to the throne” (ibid., 271).
9. See Christian E. Loeben, Beobachtungen zu Kontext und Funktion königlicher Statuen im Amun-Tempel von Karnak (Leipzig: Wodtke und Stegbauer, 2001). Also see the page on the colossal statues at the eighth pylon on Leser, “Maat-ka-Ra Hatshepsut,” website at http://maat-ka-ra.de/.
10. Blyth, Karnak, 68–77.
11. The Akhmenu temple was begun soon after Thutmose’s sole reign started. In “Royal Portrait and Ideology,” 268–70, Laboury argues that the statues there are very similar to late portraits of Hatshepsut, but with slight differences, including a more masculine body, a deeper depression under the eye, lower cheekbones, a nose with a rounded point, and a chin with a different shape from the side. Laboury sees the Akhmenu statues of Thutmose III, especially CG 42053, as the real face of Thutmose III and most similar to how the young monarch appeared.
12. Two-dimensional images of sixty-two seated statues are shown, and it is possible that a real, three-dimensional statue group was present in Thutmose I’s hypostyle hall between the fourth and fifth pylons, where Thutmose III would have made offerings to his ancestor kings as a respectful heir should. The temple would also have kept portable versions of these statues to bring into the Akhmenu on feast days. See O’Connor, “Thutmose III: An Enigmatic Pharaoh,” 19–20, and Redford, “Northern Wars of Thutmose III,” 341.
13. For the names preserved, see the website of Peter Lundström, “Karnak King List,” http://xorpid.com/karnak-king-list. For a formal publication of the list, see A. C. Prisse d’Avennes, Monuments égyptiens (Paris, 1847), plate 1.
14. For the timing of the Red Chapel dismantling and subsequent defacing, see Dorman, Monuments of Senenmut.
15. The granite sanctuary of Thutmose III exists only in fragments, but Philip Arrhidaeus’s sanctuary is a copy in dimension and subject matter. See Blyth, Karnak, 78–83.
16. Sethe, Urkunden der 18. Dynastie, Band 1, 155–76. For more on this important text, see Anthony Spalinger, “Drama in History: Exemplars from Mid Dynasty XVIII,” Studien zur Altägyptischen Kultur 24 (1997): 269–300. Spalinger argues that the stress on divine nomination indicates some weakness to the claim to the throne by Thutmose III. Those behind the decision to crown Thutmose III thus used an older Middle Kingdom text legitimizing the young Senwosret I (preserved on the Berlin Leather Roll, Berlin 3029, a leather sheet with a copy of Senwosret I’s building program, probably copied from one of his own temples, either in the Middle Kingdom or during the early Eighteenth Dynasty) as a source for Thutmose’s innovative oracle text. Senwosret I was also said to be chosen by the gods as king and was likewise called a puppy, in reference to his youth. Spalinger maintains that in the reign of Thutmose III we see a new and real self-consciousness of kingship and succession that was not there before: only the king-to-be can understand the gods’ revelation and what it means, and the king had to be chosen by the gods, rather than being god incarnate, himself. For further discussion, see also Laskowski, “Monumental Architecture and the Royal Building Program of Thutmose III,” 183–237, 219–20.
17. For example, Laboury argues that the building program of Thutmose III “reveals a certain animosity between the former coregents” (“Royal Portrait and Ideology,” 271).
18. The dating of the death of Nefrure to a time before year 16 is based entirely, if indirectly, on an ostracon from Senenmut’s tomb at Deir el-Bahri, but scholars now recognize evidence that Nefrure lived beyond her mother. See Dorman, Monuments of Senenmut, 77–78. Some evidence indicates that Nefrure lived many years past regnal year 16 and perhaps even past her mother’s death in year 22: (1) a previously mentioned stela from the Ptah temple at Karnak (CG 34013) showing Thutmose III with the God’s Wife of Amen Nefrure recut as Satiah; (2) a stela from the funerary temple of Thutmose III (CG 34105) showing the king offering to Amen with his queen, likely originally Nefrure but recut as Thutmose III’s mother, Isis, who is called Great King’s Wife and Mistress of Upper and Lower Egypt. The tomb of Nefrure was probably located at Wadi Sikkat Taka ez-Zeida, where Hatshepsut’s tomb had been prepared when she was queen, because Nefrure’s name is carved into one of the boulders at the site. Howard Carter, “A Tomb Prepared for Queen Hatshepsuit and Other Recent Discoveries at Thebes,” Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 4, no. 2/3 (1917): 107–18.
19. Given the reoccurring problems of succession, kings increased their harem throughout the New Kingdom. See Bryan, “In Women Good and Bad Fortune Are on Earth,” 38–39.
20. Robins wonders what the king did with all these women, particularly the dozens of women who accompanied the foreign princesses as part of their entourage. She suspects that many of the wives living at the palace never saw the king; they were kept busy producing high-quality goods like fine linen cloth. In many ways, the harem was actually a workshop for high-status goods. See Robins, Women in Ancient Egypt, 39–41, and Roth, “Harem,” UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology.
21. O’Connor, “Thutmose III: An Enigmatic Pharaoh,” 27.
22. Bryan, “Eighteenth Dynasty Before the Amarna Period,” 248.
23. An outer wall of Thutmose III’s Akhmenu at Karnak bears an inscription dating to year 23 that records the installation of the eldest King’s Son, Amenemhat, as Overseer of Cattle. There is no other evidence of this prince’s existence. Dorman suggests Nefrure was alive in year 23 as God’s Wife of Amen and King’s Great Wife, and was likely the mother of this eldest King’s Son. See Dorman, Monuments of Senenmut, 78–79.
24. See Dodson and Hilton, Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt, 131–32.
25. Most royal children left no record of their existence, but for evidence of Eighteenth Dynasty princesses recorded on Twenty-First Dynasty mummy labels after their removal from their original tombs and subsequent reburial, see A. Dodson and J. J. Janssen, “A Theban Tomb and Its Tenants,” Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 75 (1989): 125–38.
26. Laboury, “Royal Portrait and Ideology,” 261.
27. Dorman, Monuments of Senenmut, 173–74.
28. Ibid., 137, 177–78. The evidence that Senenmut lived into the sole reign of Thutmose III is based on a number of his monuments that can be dated after the death of Hatshepsut. One statue found by a Polish expedition in situ at Djeser Akhet (Cairo Museum statue CG 42117) names only Nefrure and Thutmose III. We also have evidence of another Chief Steward of Amen, a man named Roau, who was a contemporary of Senenmut, and it seems likely that Senenmut lost this influential position to this man. On one of his Djeser Akhet statues, the inscription states that the original location was a temple called Kha Akhet rather than Djeser Akhet, indicating that the statue was not originally placed in Thutmose III’s temple but somewhere else. No matter what, Senenmut did not die in year 18 or 19, as previously assumed. Also see Keller’s discussion of Senenmut’s statue with a Hathor emblem in Roehrig’s Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh, 126–27.
29. Dorman, Monuments of Senenmut, 178–81.
30. Ibid., 158–64. Dorman convincingly argues that it was petty rivalries and personal attacks that sealed the fate of Senenmut’s monuments.
31. Translation from Karl Leser’s page on Senenmut: http://maat-ka-ra.de/.
32. E. Dziobek, “Denkmäler des Vezirs User-Amun,” Studien zur Archäologie und Geschichte Altägyptens 18 (Heidelberg: Heidelberger Orientverlag, 1998), 144–48.
33. Bryan, “Administration in the Reign of Thutmose III,” 70.
34. In the later reign of Thutmose III and later in the Eighteenth Dynasty, other officials suffered the same fate as Senenmut, including the vizier Rekhmire, the scribe and royal physician Nebamen, the royal steward Surer, and the queen’s steward Kheruef.
35. It is difficult to connect the destruction of Senenmut’s monuments directly to Hatshepsut and her aberrant rule. For example, Senenmut’s monuments weren’t defaced in the same way or for the same reason as Hatshepsut’s and vice versa. On only three of his statues were both Senenmut’s and Hatshepsut’s names chiseled away, and the removal is inconsistent in any case. On some of his statues, all of Senenmut’s names have been removed, while Hatshepsut’s remain. See Keller in Roehrig, Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh, 126.
Here is how Peter Dorman reconstructs the destruction of Senenmut’s names and images: When Senenmut died, his tomb chamber was sealed and the sarcophagus was left or deposited in the axial corridor of TT 71. A short time after, TT 353 was broken into and defaced. Before Hatshepsut’s proscription, Senenmut’s name was hacked out in TT 71. Around the same time, at least four of his statues, most of which were dedicated at Armant, were also attacked. Around this time, his sarcophagus was destroyed. When Thutmose III attacked the memory of Hatshepsut, Senenmut’s names and images were removed from Hatshepsut’s temple of Deir el-Bahri. However, many of Senenmut’s statues remained unharmed and on display, as later Ramesside restoration proves. Other Karnak statues show damage but were kept on display as late as Ptolemaic times, as their inclusion in the Karnak cachette suggests (Monuments of Senenmut, 178–81).
Chapter Ten: Lost Legacy
1. Again, this is not to support the so-called heiress theory (see Robins, “Critical Examination,” 67–77), but just to stress that maternal bloodline was an important factor in the selection of the next king during the early Eighteenth Dynasty.
2. This later date for the destruction of Hatshepsut’s monuments was first established by C. F. Nims, “The Date of the Dishonoring of Hatshepsut,” Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde 93 (1966): 97–100. Also see Blyth, Karnak, 51–52, and Dorman, Monuments of Senenmut.
3. See Dorman, Monuments of Senenmut, plates 2–4.
4. This part of Karnak is called the Palace of Ma’at. Much of the proscription in the heart of Karnak happened when Thutmose III erected his granite barque shrine in year 45. See the UCLA Digital Karnak website on the Ma’at suite at http://dlib.etc.ucla.edu/projects/Karnak/feature/PalaceOfMaat.
5. The defacement usually included hacking with a broad chisel first, then chiseling with a finer tool, and finally polishing the stone surface for later recarving. In Hatshepsut’s Palace of Truth, the finer chiseling is unfinished and nowhere has the surface been polished, as if the workmen stopped in the middle of the proscription process. See Dorman, Monuments of Senenmut, 63, and Ann Macy Roth, “Erasing a Reign,” in Roehrig, Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh, 277–81.
6. O’Connor, “Thutmose III: An Enigmatic Pharaoh,” 28.
7. Blyth, Karnak, 81–84. It is not clear who walled in the lower part of Hatshepsut’s obelisks here, saving them from damage.
8. See the removed figure of Hatshepsut from the northern obelisk of her first pair placed at eastern Karnak, which is now in the garden at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. For images, see the obelisk page on Karl Leser’s website at http://maat-ka-ra.de/.
9. See Blyth, Karnak, 84–86, and Dorman, Monuments of Senenmut, 65.
10. Dorman, Monuments of Senenmut, 65.
11. For the painstaking work done by the Metropolitan Museum of Art to reconstruct these statues, see Hayes, Scepter of Egypt, 90–102.
12. Roehrig, Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh, 103.
13. Dorman, Monuments of Senenmut, 64.
14. Nims, “Date of the Dishonoring of Hatshepsut,” 97–100.
15. Roth, “Erasing a Reign,” 281.
16. Bryan writes, “Thus the same motivation that would have encouraged support for Hatshepsut’s sovereignty—protection of the dynastic line—also supported her dishonoring. The royal ancestry was protected carefully by replacing Hatshepsut’s name with those of Thutmose III, Thutmose I, and even Thutmose II” (“In Women Good and Bad Fortune Are on Earth,” 34).
17. Maybe there were other sons of Thutmose III with better connections to Hatshepsut’s family who were being passed over. We have no idea if Nefrure was alive during the campaign of destruction against her mother, but members of Hatshepsut’s family, descended from Thutmose I and his queen, Ahmes, almost certainly were. Laboury creates an interesting argument for two rival dynastic lines. He says that Thutmose I had children from at least two different beds: Thutmose II was a son of Mutnofret while Hatshepsut was a daughter of Ahmes. When Thutmose I died, the kingship went to the branch of the family in which a son was still alive—namely, Mutnofret’s side. But with the premature death of the latter and the youth of Thutmose III, the other branch of the family created access to the throne through Hatshepsut. To Laboury, the fact that both Thutmose III and Hatshepsut referred only to their own family branches on their monuments supports the idea of a royal family divided: a danger to a very young crown prince, the future Amenhotep II (“Royal Portrait and Ideology,” 266–67).
18. Prince Siamen is known from a statue of the treasurer Sennefer, who lived under Hatshepsut. See Dodson and Hilton, Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt, 132–33.
19. Roehrig, “Eighteenth Dynasty Titles,” 111–98, 336–37, 342, and Laboury, “Royal Portrait and Ideology,” 265.
20. Roth, “Erasing a Reign,” 281. Hatshepsut needed to be removed only to pave the way for the coregency and sole kingship of Thutmose III’s son. After that happened smoothly, all interest in erasing her stopped. Indeed, the names and images of Hatshepsut were not damaged by Thutmose IV (son of Amenhotep II), Amenhotep III, or Akhenaten, the latter so well known for his zealous interest in destroying the names and images of the god Amen. However, Hatshepsut may have been judged harshly by the Ramesside kings because she is missing from the Abydos king list of Seti I.
21. As the Egyptologist Peter Dorman argues, “The need for the proscription seems to have arisen toward the end of his reign and to have vanished shortly after Amenhotep II became co-ruler, two years before Thutmose III’s death” (Monuments of Senenmut, 269).
22. Hatshepsut had done much the same when she had the names and images of her husband, Thutmose II, removed from Egypt’s sacred temples. She had obliterated the images of her own brother to position herself as her father’s heir and eldest child. The existence of Thutmose II on Egypt’s monuments put the success of her own claims to the throne in jeopardy. Thutmose III was just using the same tactic: removing Hatshepsut from Egypt’s temples to create a smooth and straight dynastic path for his son Amenhotep.
23. Laboury, “Royal Portrait and Ideology,” 264–65.
24. The next officeholder was Tiaa, the mother of Thutmose IV.
25. Robins, Women in Ancient Egypt, 150. Merytre-Hatshepsut had no royal blood herself and her receipt of the position was unprecedented. The machinations surrounding appointments to this priestess post are interesting because the accession of Amenhotep II resembles a change in dynasty rather than a linear succession: a king from a new dynasty must quickly assign a new God’s Wife of Amen in direct relation to the king. Amenhotep II chose his own mother for the post.
26. Bryan, “In Women Good and Bad Fortune Are on Earth,” 40.
27. For Hatshepsut’s place in Manetho’s histories, see W. Waddell, Manetho (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: W. Heinemann, 1948), 101–19.
28. Betsy M. Bryan, “Antecedents to Amenhotep III,” in Amenhotep III: Perspectives on His Reign, ed. David O’Connor and Eric H. Cline (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997), 32.
29. Bret Hinsch, Women in Early Imperial China, Asian Voices (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002).
30. Bryan, “In Women Good and Bad Fortune Are on Earth,” 28.
31. Ibid., 29–30.