Hatshepsut: Daughter of Amun

by Moyra Caldecott

  One broke free and ran out of the room; the other took blow after blow, twisting and turning in trying to break the Pharaoh's grip. Hatshepsut fell off the bed, and the two women were rolling on the floor when the physician at last came rushing in. He took one look at the scene and took something out of the box he was carrying. He held it for a moment in the flame of the brazier and then waved it, smoking, back and forth over their heads.

  At last, spent and exhausted, Hatshepsut fell back.

  Fresh clothes and bed linen were brought. Cool, perfumed water washed away the tears and sweat. Medicines were sipped, and finally the great lady fell asleep, curled on her side, without a headrest, like a child.

  * * *

  Chapter 12

  When Senmut, Anhai and Neferure returned from Suan and Sehel Island they found a shadow on Hatshepsut's face that had not been there before.

  Senmut was called before the assembled officials of her administration to give his report on the cutting out of the two giant obelisks she had ordered, the second, and larger, pair she planned to erect to her god in his temple at Ipet-Esut. Senmut reported that the fleet of little boats was ready to start the towing and the rollers were already in place for rolling the granite monoliths down the quayside and on to the huge barges that would bear them north to Amun's city. By the time the rising waters of the Nile had gathered enough force for the operation, the obelisks would be in place, securely lashed down on the barges, and the ceremonies to obtain the god's protection completed.

  The work had been rushed and the men were exhausted. Slaves and freemen, skilled and unskilled, had been driven almost beyond endurance to finish the project in time for the inundation. No obelisks had ever been cut so quickly. No obelisks had ever been so tall and heavy.

  The first two had been erected many years before as a visible sign of her vow to promote Amun-Ra above all other gods. These two were a kind of confirmation that it had been done and that she should reap her reward in the “myriad of years” by living forever at the side of her god, no matter what other mistakes she had made.

  She herself composed the inscriptions that were to be carved into the sides and on the pyramid at the apex. On one she would inscribe:

  She made a monument for her father Amun—two obelisks of enduring granite from the south, their upper parts, being of electrum of the best of all lands, seen on the two sides of the river. Their rays flood the two lands when the sun-disk rises between them at its appearance on the horizon of heaven. I have done this with a loving heart for my father Amun after I entered unto his secret image. I slept not and I turned not from what he ordered until it was complete. I have paid attention to the city of the Lord of the Universe—for this city is the horizon of heaven upon earth, the place of ascent and the sacred Eye of the Lord.

  I was sitting in the palace and I remembered the One who created me: my heart directed me to make for him two obelisks of electrum, that their pyramids might mingle with the sky from the pillared hall between the great pylons of my earthly father, Aa-kheper-ka-Ra. Each would be of one block of enduring granite without joint or flaw. My majesty began work on them in Year 15, second month of winter, day 1, making swift time in cutting them from the mountain.

  I acted in this way with love and respect as a king does for his god. Let no man say it is boasting when I say that I have used the finest quality of gilded electrum measured by the sack like grain. Let them rather say: “How like her it is, she who is truthful to her father.” The god Amun, Lord of the Thrones of the Two Lands, knows it in me that I am his daughter in very truth, who glorifies him.

  On the other she would inscribe:

  I am the beloved of His Majesty, Amun-Ra, who placed the kingship of Khemet, the deserts and all foreign lands under my sandals. My southern border is at the region of Punt ... My eastern border at the marshes of Asia ... My western border at the edge of the horizon ... From all these places I have brought gifts for my Lord: incense from Punt, turquoise from Sinai, tribute from Libya.[19]

  [19—The texts from Hatshepsut's obelisks from Ancient Records, vol. 2, and from Labib Habachi, The Obelisks of Egypt, Dent, 1978.]

  Since her illness after the abortion she had had a feeling of urgency, as though time were running out for her. When Senmut brought the news that the obelisks were ready for the journey—but that the river was slower to rise this year than in other years—she was alarmed. She wanted them to be raised. She wanted them carved and in place, gleaming in the sun. She wanted to be back in Amun-Ra's favour again. She wanted to be his chosen one, no matter what it cost.

  She ordered sacrifices to Hapi, the Nile god, to be increased throughout the Two Lands. Osiris, the god of regeneration and fertility; Amun, the breath of life; Ra, the giver of light; Hathor, the mother—each and every aspect of the Great Mystery Whose Name Was Unknown, was to be petitioned and bribed. She herself would make a secret sacrifice—a vow that would change her life. She lay face down in the sanctuary of Amun and vowed she would take no man to her bed again if Amun would but restore her to his favour.

  The great god made no immediate sign, but Hatshepsut left the temple feeling that she had done all she could to placate him, and if he did not accept her sacrifice she did not know what more she could do.

  She sent for Senmut and Anhai together.

  Both entered the small audience chamber, the walls painted almost entirely with lotus flowers and water scenes. A pool in the centre of the floor, catching the light from a rectangular gap in the ceiling, contained living fish swimming among living blue lotus flowers. As in her temple, the eternal image was mirrored from the temporal. They bowed low before her chair of ebony and gold. Senmut tried to catch her eye for a personal message, but she carefully avoided looking at him. Her face was as masklike as it was for public occasions and he could read nothing there of the woman's love for him or whether she had missed him or not. He noted that she was thinner than when he had last seen her, and the body that had always looked as though it was taut and poised for action now had a certain slackness about it.

  She drew Anhai forward with a gesture of her hand, and indicated that she should stand and tell her tale.

  She listened without comment to the whole story.

  When it was done she said only: “And where do you envisage this healing sanctuary?"

  Anhai hesitated. She knew where she wanted it to be, but whether Hatshepsut would grant her such an important piece of land and build what she wanted on it, she hardly dared hope. Should she ask outright, she wondered, or leave it to the Pharaoh to suggest the best and most obvious place.

  “I'm not sure, Majesty,” she said diffidently.

  Hatshepsut looked at her thoughtfully, and then at Senmut. She would not go to bed with Senmut again, but that did not mean she wanted to hand him over to someone else. This young woman had a vibrancy and an energy she remembered she herself had had in her youth, in fact she herself had had until very recently. She would build her sanctuary, but it must be far from Waset, far from Senmut. But where? If she put it too far in the desert, those who were seeking healing would never be able to visit it. Perhaps an island where her spies could monitor who crossed over to it, and how often. Sehel Island. That would be the perfect place, the place where Imhotep himself had crossed over from the Other Realms to speak with his daughter.

  “It shall be on Sehel Island,” she said decisively.

  Anhai smiled, and bowed her head.

  “Djehuti and Imhotep should be the patron gods of the sanctuary, Majesty,” Senmut broke in.

  “And Hathor,” Anhai said quietly.

  “And Hathor,” Hatshepsut agreed. For a moment the old fire flickered in her eyes as they met those of Senmut. The memory of Per-Hathor was in both their hearts, but Hatshepsut could not afford to let it linger there.

  “The location has the blessing of Maat,” she said formally. “I can feel it is part of the divine intention. I will give you all the support you need, Anhai, daughter of Imhotep."


  Anhai bowed to the ground.

  “I am grateful, Majesty."

  When she rose she could see Senmut was frowning. He couldn't understand why Hatshepsut was being so cold towards him. Why was he out of favour? Was it something he had done or not done, or was it just one of her unaccountable moods? As the strain of holding the Two Lands under her control increased, she was becoming more and more unpredictable. More than ever she needed her friends, yet she was in danger of driving them away with her moodiness.

  He was still frowning when he left, dismissed at the same time as Anhai, without a personal word or a further glance.

  * * * *

  Neferure returned to Waset eager to see Amenemheb again, only to find that he was in the north, at Men-nefer. She was determined to visit him, but it would not be easy to do so without making her mother suspicious. It had always seemed to her that nothing could be hidden from Hatshepsut. That golden cobra on her forehead had eyes that could see through walls and mountains, over deserts and oceans. She wouldn't be surprised if her mother could see directly into the Duat and knew all that was to be and all that had already been since the beginning of time.

  She did not know to whom to turn to for help. Men-kheper-Ra was a possible future husband and could not be approached about his friend. She could not travel about the country just as she pleased. Wherever she went, an entourage went too. Those few moments she had had sitting in the shade on Sehel Island numbered among the very few she had had to herself at any time in her life.

  And then she thought of Anhai—a stranger, a foreigner. What were the politics of Khemet to her? She was young, though not as young as Neferure. The princess had seen the way Anhai had looked at Hapuseneb. She would surely understand.

  Anhai had scarcely returned to her duties at the Temple of Hathor when she was summoned to the private chamber of the princess. Anhai regarded the girl as sweet and pretty and very, very young. When she looked at her she saw herself at that age, wilful and full of smouldering impatience to be counted as grown-up, and prepared to do anything to further her own wishes, however much it harmed others. But Neferure did not have as strong a personality as Anhai, and perhaps she would not wreak as much havoc.

  Neferure did not come to the point right away.

  She called for the servants to bring cool drinks and sweet-meats and reminisced about the Sopdt ceremony at Suan. She asked if Anhai was happy now that she was back in Waset.

  “I hear you'll be going back to Sehel Island soon,” she said. “Won't you find it very dull down there so far from everyone?"

  “I expect I'll soon have company. There are always people who need healing."

  “But sick people!” Neferure said, wrinkling up her nose.

  Anhai smiled. She might once have felt the same.

  “I wondered if you would like to accompany me to Men-nefer before you go?” Neferure asked.

  At her home in Haylken, Deva/Anhai had used psychic means to manifest material luxuries and had caused a great deal of suffering. Now she would use psychic and spiritual means to transform fear into confidence, sorrow into joy, sickness into health. It was as though she had been playing at life all those years before, and had only just discovered who she really was and what she wanted and needed for the fulfilment of her destiny. But there was one thing that still troubled her: her relationship with Hapuseneb. He was at this moment at Men-nefer. Was she being given a chance to tie up this loose thread before she started to weave the new pattern?

  “Why do you ask that, my lady?” she asked quietly.

  Neferure flushed slightly. “I would like to go myself,” she said, “but I cannot travel without good reason."

  “What reason would I have to go, my lady? I too have my duties here at Waset, and much to do to prepare for my healing sanctuary on Sehel Island."

  “It is said that Imhotep is the son of Ptah, and Men-nefer is Ptah's home. Would it not be important for you to go there before you make any decisions about your sanctuary?"

  Anhai smiled. Yes, she had heard that legend. But Imhotep had been her father in that ancient former life, flesh and blood like herself. He was no god or son of a god. But behind all legends there are unexpected hidden truths. Perhaps to know more about Imhotep she should know more about Ptah.

  “Have we not become good friends since our journey to the south?” Neferure appealed. “Have you not fired me with a longing to learn all about the Mysteries of Ptah?"

  “My lady, forgive me, but you wouldn't be asking me this if you had your mother's approval to visit Men-nefer."

  Neferure pouted. She toyed with defiance for a moment, wondering if she should not demand, as princess, that the commoner, Anhai, should obey her. But she came down at last on the side of friendly appeal. She told Anhai of her love for Amenemheb and how much she wanted to see him again before she was married off to someone her mother chose for political reasons.

  “He is a fine man,” she insisted. “He has noble blood and will be general of all the army one day."

  “Then surely your mother would approve of your seeing him? She might even approve of your marrying him."

  Neferure shook her head.

  “Have you asked her?"

  “You know my mother,” Neferure said, suddenly bitterly. “She is Pharaoh. She sees only what is good for the country, not what is good for her daughter. Men-kheper-Ra is the co-regent and not Amenemheb."

  “But..."

  “She sent me south with you and Senmut so that I would be parted from him."

  Anhai looked troubled. She had sympathy for the girl, but she had a lot to lose if Hatshepsut should be angry with her.

  “If I asked permission to take you with me to the Temple of Ptah because you wanted to study some of the teachings, would you study them?"

  Neferure hesitated.

  “I could not take you unless you were genuinely interested in the teachings."

  “I'll do anything you say,” Neferure agreed hastily.

  Anhai knew she was stepping on to a slippery path and feared the consequences, but Neferure's big eyes were so appealing and she knew how desperately strong the pull of desire could be. “When I get there I'll hand the whole problem over to Hapuseneb,” she thought. “He'll know what to do for the best."

  * * * *

  Hapuseneb had spent more time than he wished at Men-nefer. He missed Anhai and he missed the stimulating, surprising company of Hatshepsut. There was always something going on at Waset, though in a sense itwas only a small provincial town compared to the administrative capital of the Two Lands, Men-nefer.

  He lived in great luxury, in a big house set in a large garden well away from the narrow dusty streets and teeming government buildings. He had affection for his wife and children, but saw little of them. Most of his time was spent going through reports and issuing orders. People found a number of ingenious ways to get out of paying the tithes due to the Temple, and he needed his experience as a vizier to outwit them. Sometimes he longed to be what his title claimed for him: “First Servant of God in the House of Amun", and leave the haggling over properties and dues to others. But then, when he spent more than a few days in the Temple environs and was drawn into the unchanging routine of preparation and purification, of sacrifice and supplication, of ritual clothing and unclothing, he was bored.

  The transcendent experience he had had at the summer solstice in the Temple of the Sun was not repeated and, as time passed, he began to doubt more and more that it had ever happened. He stood before the statue of Amun-Ra and looked into the unmoving eyes of lapis lazuli and prayed that he would hear the god speak to him, as Hatshepsut claimed he did to her. But nothing happened. Anhai had told him that he was being unreasonable. “The statue will not speak with stone lips,” she had said. “It is in your heart that you will hear his voice."

  “But I hear many voices in my heart,” he had complained. “How am I to know if it is genuinely the god or not?"

  “You will know,” she had said confidently. />
  Hapuseneb sat beside the pool in the courtyard of his house and pondered the sacred epithets about Amun-Ra.

  Hidden of aspect, Mysterious of form. He who protects all other gods with his shadow. Creator and Procreator. Kem-atef: the serpent who sloughs his skin: who has no beginning and no end. He who abides in all things. Who was in the infinity, the nothingness, the nowhere and the dark. He who was born of the self-laid golden egg, and is now in the infinity, the all, the everywhere and the light.[20]

  [20—“Hidden of aspect, mysterious of form...” from George Hart, A Dictionary of Egyptian Gods and Goddesses, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986, p.5. The passage beginning “...in the infinity, the nothingness, the nowhere...” from Spell 76, Coffin Texts, quoted by R. T. Rundle Clark, in Myth and Symbol.]

  At that moment a young serving lad appeared, walking slowly around the pool, and presented him with a leaf from a persea tree. Hapuseneb smiled. The leaf was a message that had been prearranged with Anhai; when either of them needed the other, a persea leaf would be sent. The tree was sacred to the god Djehuti, for on its leaves he wrote the names of the pharaohs to last for a myriad of years. There were two planted at the entrance gate to Hatshepsut's temple, Djeser Djeseru, and it was thought that in the Duat, the Tree of Life was a mystical form of the persea tree here on earth.

  “Who gave you this?” he asked the lad.

  “A woman in the clothes of a chantress of Hathor, my lord, standing at the gate."

  “Is she still at the gate?"

  “No, my lord. She told me she had business with the god Ptah."

  Hapuseneb indicated that the boy was dismissed, and sat for a while after he had left, quietly thinking.

  Then he stood up and made his way unhurriedly to where high whitewashed walls enclosed the ancient Temple of Ptah. He greeted the Gate Keepers with the words that would allow him entrance to the holy precincts. He was well known in the city and a frequent visitor to the temple, and the guards hardly waited for him to finish before they stepped back to admit him.