Hatshepsut: Daughter of Amun

by Moyra Caldecott

  Her tutor sensed her abstraction and warned her that it could be dangerous to enter the caverns in any state other than complete preparedness. He told her horrific tales of men who had failed to face up to what they found in the caverns and had emerged at the end as gibbering idiots never to recover. He suggested that she put off the journey until she was in a better frame of mind.

  “No,” she said at once. “No!"

  Was it beginning again, the tyranny of the flesh, the betrayal of the sacred by the sacrilegious?

  At sunset she entered the first of the dark subterranean chambers. The door was unsealed, and then resealed behind her—this time not with a light and easily broken clay seal, but with molten metal which was poured from a crucible and set solid. There could be no retreat. If she died, no one would know until twelve days and twelve nights had passed and she did not emerge at the other end. She was already hungry, but she had been told that this would pass. In certain caverns there would be bread and beer—of which she must eat and drink sparingly, no more than she needed to keep her body alive.

  She listened to the footsteps of her instructor climbing the stone steps outside the first of the caverns and heard the clang of the door at the top. Now she was totally alone, in complete silence, and in a darkness so absolute that blindness might have seemed sight in comparison. Her tutor had warned her about this. He had taken her through the texts a hundred times. She knew what to expect—but she knew also that after this first terror, this initial realisation that she was entombed and that there was no way out except by being reborn, everything would be unexpected. Each of the caverns was a hollow cube of stone, with no feature but a door by which to enter and a door by which to leave. What she would encounter had not been placed there by the priest of Ra, but by the god himself. What she would have to face would not necessarily be what another person would have to face. Each was an individual confrontation, unique to the soul of the person undertaking the journey. There were certain ritual words to be said—a certain loose structure of events—but all this could be abandoned if the gods so chose.

  In order to steady her nerves she spoke the words she had learned so carefully:

  I have come to thee, Unen-Nefer—thou who dost exist eternally. I have come to thee, gods of the caverns, who guide the souls, who judge, who distinguish truth from falsehood.[13]

  [13—“I have come to thee, Unen-Nefer...” from A. Piankoff and H. Jackquet-Gordon, The Wandering of the Soul, Bollingen Series XL:16, Princeton, 1974. Also from Spell 127, Book of the Dead.]

  The darkness began to lift and it seemed to Anhai she was standing before three luminous figures, two male and one female, each holding the long staff that symbolised their power to transmit energy from one realm to another. Their eyes were cold fire and they did not greet her.

  She took a step forward as her tutor had instructed and bowed before them.

  “My physical body is mine,” she intoned, “my ka body is mine, my ba soul is mine, my akh spirit living in eternity is mine, my shadow, my name, my heart —all are mine. My intelligence, my willpower.” She named the many aspects of herself the Egyptians believed carried their own separate energies. “But all are in darkness without grace. Grant me access to Ra's light, O Guardians of the Way."[14]

  [14—The ancient Egyptians had names for many different aspects or parts of the individual that separated out after death. “Ka” was a form that we today might call the “astral” body, the “ba” one stage more removed from the physical, the “soul” of the individual. The “akh” or “khu” was more abstract still, the eternal essence of the spirit, the highest form of being. To the ancient Egyptians, the “name", the “shadow", the “intelligence", the “heart", the “power of will”—all had their own energy and were, in a mysterious sense we don't quite understand, capable of being separate entities after death.]

  "Why should we grant you access? Why should we let you pass?"

  Their voices were hollow and she knew they had no warmth of feeling towards her. She was a stranger who had to prove herself to strangers.

  “Because in my heart of hearts I am humble before thee. I am a true seeker and pilgrim. I would have no life but that which I seek here. I am nothing without the light of my Lord."

  Suddenly one of the male beings raised his sacred staff and pointed at her, and she reeled back with the pain that shot through her.

  "You lie, and your heart does not know truth. You long for pleasures we cannot provide."

  She was crouching on the ground, holding her chest where she had taken the full force of his wrath.

  “I confess it,” she whispered. “I know that I am not pure of heart—but I seek to be. Without light, how will I ever overcome that which is dark in me? How am I to be reborn with the coming of a new day?"

  The female being stepped forward.

  "I will guide you, daughter—but you must turn around. That which you must face is behind you."

  “I want to go forward, not back!” she cried. Had she not suffered enough by clinging to the past? Had she not suffered enough regret?

  But the three advanced on her menacingly and she was driven back. She could feel their stern determination and she turned to run, thinking that perhaps by some miracle she could open the door behind her and escape.

  But there was no lock, no handle, no way of opening it from this side. She beat at it, shouting for her tutor, crying that she had made a mistake and he was right: she was not ready for the test. But she knew he could not hear her.

  In despair she fell to her knees and lay crumpled against the door, sobbing.

  The three figures were close behind her. The second male being lifted his staff and lightly tapped the door. Immediately it fell open and she tumbled through it.

  She looked up in delight, thinking that they had taken pity on her, and expected to see the flight of steps she had come down with her tutor. But there were no steps. She seemed to be in another chamber, identical to the last. She looked around, startled, and found that the door had shut behind her and she was alone again.

  She felt her way round the walls of the chamber, puzzled that she should find herself in another cavern when she was so sure she had come through the door that led outwards to the stairs.

  She spent a long time whimpering and feeling the walls and exploring—still hoping that somehow she would find the way out. There were two doors, as there had been in the first chamber, but neither apparently had any means of being opened.

  At last she gave up hope of escape and sat down in the middle of the darkness with her head on her knees. “So be it!” she thought. “If I have to go through with it, the sooner I start the sooner I'll finish."

  At that moment she heard a faint sound and lifted her head. Towering above her were three figures—two male and one female as before—but she knew these were not the same beings that she had already encountered.

  “I have come,” she said, chastened and weary, rising to her feet, “to face what is behind me."

  These ones were dressed in the robes of her own land and had faces that seemed familiar and yet were not.

  Event by event they took her through her past life before she had come to Khemet. She lived again the agony of her mother's death, knowing that she had been responsible for it. She experienced the pain of losing the man she loved and knowing that he would never be hers again. She felt shame at her involvement with the black magic that had almost brought about the destruction of the great temple of which her mother and father were High Priests. One by one the mistakes of her past and their consequences in the lives of others were shown to her. One by one she learned to face the responsibility for them.

  She passed through door after door and no longer knew whether she was progressing or going backwards. In each chamber three figures confronted her: one accusing and punishing her; one teaching and encouraging her; one rewarding her by opening the next door when she finally understood what she was meant to understand.

  After she h
ad passed through seven of the caverns in this way, she stood on the threshold of the eighth and knew that, painful as it had been, she had won through. It was as though the ghosts of old guilts had been laid and she was free to start a new life in a new way. She had not expected to have to face her past like that. In coming to Khemet, so far from her own land, she had thought to escape it. Her tutor had not warned her. Perhaps he had not known. Perhaps he had led so blameless a life that there had been no dark shadows for him to exorcise when he entered the caverns. But was there anyone who entered who had not something to exorcise? Surely even he...? Perhaps he had known but had not told her because the very unexpectedness of the confrontation had helped its effectiveness.

  She took a deep breath. In the eighth chamber there was the first of the food and drink. She no longer felt hungry but she knew she had to eat and drink something if she wanted to survive. And she did want to survive!

  In the eighth cavern she encountered numerous beings, and each had a question for her about the teachings she had been given in the temple. If she answered with the words she had been given by her tutor, she was chastised. If she answered in her own words and showed that she had understood the meaning behind the teaching, she was accepted and allowed to move on. There were beings who carried others on their shoulders, thus showing the dependence of the human realm upon the spirit realm. There were others who were recumbent, face down, their hands upon their brows, rendering humble homage to the divine. Yet others carried offerings.

  In the ninth cavern she faced mummiform beings standing amongst a forest of hissing serpents rearing on the points of their tails. She faced bulls. She faced Anubis, Lord of the Necropolis. She passed through danger and conquered fear of death. She understood the fertility of her body was only a shadow of the fertility of her spirit. Nothing would be lost in death, all gained.

  In the tenth cavern she met those who belong to the Light—those who grant light in the midst of darkness. A woman poured pure water from a tall, narrow vase over her head and she knew she was purified. She could feel the renewal beginning, the joy, the glory. She had been opposed, but now she was being accepted. She had opposed, but now she accepted.

  In the eleventh cavern she walked among the Watchers and the Summoners, listening in silence to the great invocation of those who were already enlightened.

  A herald strode before her, driving away any that would stand in her path. A coiled cobra with a woman's head granted her power, and a standing mummiform figure with a ferocious face reminded her one last time that to reach the light one had to endure the darkness.

  At last she was in the twelfth chamber, and she trembled at the beauty of it. It was as though she stood on the shore of a great sea and was waiting for the sunrise, knowing that it would come and that when it came it would draw all things into the light—her soul with it; for she was now “justified", and capable of embracing all the manifestations of the divine—and worshipping with understanding.

  She passed the final door and she saw the steps leading upwards and a blaze of light coming down from above.

  On her hands and knees she crawled up the stairs, so physically weak that she could hardly stand, but spiritually stronger than she had ever been.

  Against the light there was a silhouette. It would be the tutor reaching out his hands to her, rejoicing that she had emerged at last like a butterfly from the cocoon.

  She could not see his face, but when he took her in his arms she realised it was Hapuseneb and not her tutor. He had been waiting.

  * * *

  Chapter 9

  One day Hatshepsut returned to the area of Suan, where she had been so idyllically happy with Senmut on the expedition to choose the granite for her first obelisks, but in very different circumstances. In spite of her desire for peace, an incident in Nubia—the massacre of two high Egyptian officials and the small community that served the lonely outpost—demanded a show of military might. As commander of her soldiers she found herself on Sehel Island, south of Suan, waiting to plunge into battle.

  Sehel Island was a place of prayers ... the threshold of the Unknown. Around it the white waters of the first cataract swirled. Beyond it the civilisation of Egypt gave way to the barbarian lands of Nubia and Kush.

  Hatshepsut, in full military dress, stood beside one of her men as he carved the words of her supplication to the gods into a huge rounded boulder. This was her first battle and she was at once deadly afraid and very excited. It was as though her senses were heightened in a way not unlike the way they were in the temple when she was close to her god. Was it the closeness of death that gave this edge to her perceptions? It seemed to her the words were already in the rock and the man with the chisel was uncovering them rather than incising them. She felt, as she had felt several times before, that prayer was a tuning-in to what was already there.

  She looked around her. In the flat and dusty bowl at the centre of the island, many of her own men were relaxing before what they knew was going to be a gruelling campaign. The rocky, mountainous regions of Nubia were not easy fighting terrain and, although they were confident that the might of Egypt would prevail, as always, not all of them would return. Some were standing before the various prayer boulders, thinking their own thoughts, saying their own prayers. If they had been able to read, the history of their people would have unfolded for them from the inscriptions on those rocks. Since predynastic times this had been a holy island, and captains and commanders, pharaohs and priests, had set their mark upon it, as alert to danger as a dog eating at a lion's kill. These were not the elaborate boastings of men out of harm's way, looking back on and exaggerating their military exploits. These were cries from the heart of men before they knew what was to become of them in that dark and alien country, the Unknown. A thousand years ago, or five thousand; a thousand years into the future, or five thousand—people had felt and would still feel the need for supernatural help, and pray for it.

  Hatshepsut's eye fell on a prayer carved so long ago that an ancient earthquake had split the rock in two pieces—the prayer with it. She knelt beside it, tracing with her finger the little figures scratched on the surface representing a language so archaic she could barely decipher it. “Anhai, daughter of Imhotep...” she thought she read, but the rest she lost. She was thrilled with excitement. She must tell Senmut. His almost obsessive interest in the ancient sage was well known to her. She wondered if he had ever heard of a daughter.

  As she reached the end of the inscription she began to feel strange—and knew that she had touched something that still carried a living charge of magic. What was the story behind it? The ancient hieroglyphs gave her no clue. Perhaps something that had happened in this place, at this rock, had left a trace there for someone sensitive enough to pick it up. She looked round, and it seemed to her everything had eerily changed. Her soldiers were gone and the island was deserted. Most of the rocks were now bare of inscriptions. And then she saw that she was not alone, after all. It seemed to her that on one of the high boulders at the top of the steepest jumble of rocks, a man stood watching the river below him intently.

  He was totally still, as though suspended in time—and as she stared at him he seemed to become momentarily more solid. He was tall and well built, young and strong. He was clad in a pleated white garment of archaic style. Suddenly he raised his arm as though acknowledging or greeting someone below him on the river.

  As he did so, he disappeared—but whether he had leapt from the rock or had vanished into thin air, she could not tell.

  She ran to the east of the island to see what he had been watching. Hundreds and thousands of flowers were washing up against the shore, carried there by the ripples from a boat that was even now disappearing round the headland. Before it did, however, she caught a glimpse of a young woman standing upright in the boat, dressed in a garment of fine gold, scattering blue cornflowers.

  Hatshepsut scrambled over the rocks to see further, but the boat had already passed out of sight, leavi
ng its trail of flowers.

  She searched the island, but saw no more of the man or the young woman. Frustrated, she returned to the rock she had been studying, convinced that the vision had sprung from something connected with that rock.

  As she reached it and touched it once more, she heard a shout and, spinning round, saw that all the men were ready to move out. She was back in the present.

  “I'll be back,” she whispered to the silent boulder, and straightened up ready to face her men.

  * * * *

  She climbed until she stood high on a boulder above their heads. Against the rock her flesh looked very vulnerable. She wore the military kilt, the dagger at the belt, and on her head the commander's cap. Her thin but wiry arm raised a spear above her head and shook it fiercely. Her voice seemed louder, stronger than a woman's. Hardly a man there even remembered she was a woman. They saw Pharaoh—descendant of a line of conqueror kings. They saw Pharaoh—the punitive right arm of Amun-Ra raised against the rebellious Kush.

  Though most of Nubia accepted Egyptian rule because it could not do otherwise, there was an underground swell of hate and disaffection waiting all the time for the moment to break free. Successive pharaohs had mounted raids into the country, determined to quell the slightest sign of rebellion, carrying out their missions usually with the utmost efficiency and ferocity. Many a temple wall was decorated with the boasting description of a Nubian campaign, and the lines of bound and hopeless prisoners en route to a life of slavery was a familiar sight in Egypt. A great deal of Egypt's wealth came from Nubia and it was not about to give it up.