Notes |
- From
http://www.neferchichi.com/hatshepsut.html
at
Neferchichi's Tomb, Pharaohs
http://www.neferchichi.com/pharaohs.html
Hatshepsut
Birth name: Hatshepsut ("Foremost of the Noble Ladies")
Throne name: Maatkare ("Truth is the Soul of Re")
Rule: 1498 - 1483 BC (queen of the 4th king of the 18th dynasty; regentof the 5th king; self-declared pharaoh after that! New Kingdom)
Noteworthy relatives: Tuthmosis I (father), Tuthmosis II(half-brother/husband), Tuthmosis III (step-son)
Hatshepsut and her two brothers were the children of the great pharaohTuthmosis I and his main queen Ahmose. Her brothers were in line toinherit their father's throne, but they missed their chance when theydied before he did. Hatshepsut was his only child of "pure" royal blood,but wouldn't inherit the throne because she wasn't male. Instead, it wentto her half-brother Tuthmosis II, the son of Tuthmosis I and a lesserqueen. Tuthmosis II took her as his "great royal wife" to strengthen hisconnection to the throne. They had a daughter (Neferure) but no sons,although Tuthmosis II did have a son (Tuthmosis III) with a harem girl.
Tuthmosis II was sickly and fragile, totally unlike his father. When hedied, his son Tuthmosis III inherited the throne as a very young child.Because he was so young, Queen Hatshepsut acted as his regent. A regentis a person who rules for a child until the child is old enough to takeover.
After about two years of "helping" him, Hatshepsut made a bold move. Shedeclared herself pharaoh- so she was now the king, not the queen! Thisput Tuthmosis III out of the picture, so we don't know much about how hespent his childhood, although he did join the army as a young man.
Even though ancient Egyptian women had more rights than women in othercultures at the time, the title of pharaoh had always been reserved for aman. Hatshepsut played along by having herself portrayed with a falsebeard, a male body, and a king's headdress in all statues, paintings, andcarvings. Some writings even refer to her as a "him"! How could a womanin ancient times get away with such a radical move? Simple: it wasallowed because she did an excellent job. She was a bold leader whobrought peace and economic success to Egypt.
Pharaohs before Hatshepsut boasted about their military adventures byhaving them carved and painted all over the place. Since she had neverbeen personally involved in any wars, she chose to brag about theexpedition she sent to Punt, a far-off land to the south. Engravings onone of the walls in her temple at Deir el-Bahari show huge ships bringingback lots of African treasures: ivory, gold, live myrrh trees, ebony,exotic animals, spices, resins, gums, and wood.
Hatshepsut commissioned many building projects. She restored temples thatwere damaged when the Hyksos invaded Egypt in the Second IntermediatePeriod. She added on to the Temple of Amun and erected two gold-tippedobelisks to commemorate her greatness. At Deir el-Bahari, she built ahuge mortuary temple (a place where she could be worshiped after herdeath) at the base of the huge cliffs.
When she was the Queen of Tuthmosis II, Hatshepsut had a tomb built over200 feet up the side of a cliff. She never used it, opting instead tojoin her father Tuthmosis I in his tomb, KV20 ("the 20th tomb in theValley of the Kings") which faced her mortuary temple. Hatshepsut orderedfurther excavation to enlarge the tomb in order to fit them both. WhenHoward Carter (the guy who found King Tut's tomb) discovered KV20 in1903, it had already been robbed. He found some broken pieces of pottery,fragments of furniture, and bits of burnt wood. The burial chambercontained two yellow quartzite sarcophagi: one for Hatshepsut, and theother for her dad. But both mummies were missing. Tuthmosis I was finallyfound in a secret burial place in 1881, safely tucked away from tombrobbers along with 39 other hidden royal mummies. Hatshepsut's mummy wasnever found.
Tuthmosis III rightfully became pharaoh after Hatshepsut died in 1483 BC.Since her mummy is missing, no one knows how she died, but many speculatethat Tuthmosis III may have had a part in her death. He hated her so muchfor swiping his position that he ordered her monuments destroyed, herstatues smashed, and her name and image scratched out wherever itappeared. Ancient Egyptians had a strong belief in the power of images.By destroying her statues and wiping out her name, he was both erasingthe memory of her life and also canceling her existence in the afterlife!
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