The Woman Who Would Be King
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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 o
f 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 Egy
ptian 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.