Hatshepsut: Daughter of Amun

by Moyra Caldecott

  Was Senmut mad, or possessed?

  His long sojourn in the desert had been the beginning. Had he been called there by the dark and subtle desert god Set? Had he been taken over, influenced in some way, to destroy her? Had her enemies cast spells?

  The sun was setting and she could hear the hum of prayers from everywhere in the city. The dark was coming and everyone was afraid. They were praying for the return of Ra. The mountains where the body of her earth-father, Aa-kheper-ka-Ra, lay, were already black, silhouetted against an increasingly crimson sky. How inexorably the dark came!

  She shivered. Somehow the joy, the excitement of being Pharaoh was not as great as it used to be. She felt in her bones the best years were over and she was being drawn down, sucked down, into the night.

  The whole sky was suffused in a red glow, and silence had fallen, as though all the praying had stopped and the world was waiting for something momentous to happen.

  * * * *

  It was Hapuseneb's suggestion that he, as First Prophet of Amun-Ra, should be the one to pronounce sentence on Senmut. He pointed out that as it was the sanctuary of Amun-Ra that had been desecrated and her in her role as Great God's Wife who had been insulted, it was only fitting that as defender of her and her god he should take on the responsibility.

  In former years Hatshepsut would not have even considered the suggestion. To step down as judge in favour of one of her officials would have been unthinkable. But Hatshepsut was not as clear-thinking as she used to be. She could not bring herself to face Senmut. She could not bring herself to condemn him. She turned her face to the wall and Hapuseneb took her place.

  The High Priest of Amun-Ra showed no mercy. To keep his power intact he could not allow anyone, however important, to storm uninvited into the sacred precincts and insult his god and his king. Senmut was condemned to death.

  * * * *

  “She will come to me,” Senmut thought. “She will have to make a show of punishing me, but she will forgive me.” At least he was not in a dark and stinking cell, but in his own chambers, albeit heavily guarded.

  A bird was sitting on a palm frond out in the garden, the sun behind it throwing its shadow on his wall, high up near the ceiling. He stood on the chest made of ebony heavily inlaid with ivory, a priceless gift from Hatshepsut, and reached up to the bird's shadow until it lay on his hand. For the first time a chill touched his heart. What if she did not come? What if the execution was carried out? The bird in the tree was moving; it was warm and vital, soft and feathery and full of song, but he could feel nothing on his hand except a coldness where the bird's shadow prevented the beam of sunlight reaching his flesh.

  He climbed down hastily and sat on the edge of his bed with his head in his hands. What had he done and why had he done it? It was not only personal pique and spite; somewhere deep inside him he knew that something had gone wrong, not only with their own relationship but with her relationship to her country and her god. If she came to him he would tell her that. He would tell her he had not done what he had done for jealousy, but as a gesture to save her, to shock her into looking at herself and her actions more closely.

  He stood up and paced the chamber. But the jealousy was there—a dull ache. What right had he to point the finger at her? What right, after all the mistakes he had made? She would do anything for worldly power, and he the same for intellectual power. Two of a kind, he thought. No wonder they understood and loved each other so much.

  He heard steps in the corridor outside and spun round, expectantly watching the door. She had come! He knew she would. He would say nothing. There would be no need.

  The door was unbarred. He heard the clink of the guards’ spear-shafts as they stamped their salute on the floor.

  The door swung open.

  It was not Hatshepsut.

  It was his executioner.

  * * * *

  Senmut was buried without ceremony, not in his official tomb that had been prepared high in the desert cliffs above the tomb of his humble parents, but in some obscure and undistinguished pit. No prayer-spells guided him through the Duat. No images of food were provided to feed him through eternity. He was on his own to find his way, or be lost. Most of his statues were ritually defaced, his nose and mouth smashed in so that he could not draw the breath of life or continue to communicate with those still earth-living after his death. Hapuseneb was prepared to have all mention of him erased from every record so that he not only would not exist in the future, but would apparently never have existed.

  Senmut's friends managed secretly to preserve enough mention of him, enough intact images of him, so that he would not suffer this fate. Hatshepsut herself, shocked by how extreme Hapuseneb's punishment had been, called a halt to the erasures before they were complete.

  * * * *

  As soon as Senmut's fall from grace was known, Hatshepsut was told about the personal tomb he had been tunnelling under her mortuary temple. She went at once to visit it.

  The entrance was well outside the sacred ground of the temple, but the tunnel was dug under the perimeter wall and his tomb chamber carved out as close as he could get it to the axis line that ran from Hatshepsut's own tomb, through Amun's sanctuary, through the temple and along the avenue of sphinxes that led with such direct intention towards Ipet-Esut and the exact place where Hatshepsut had erected her two giant obelisks.

  The Pharaoh stood alone in the first chamber among the piles of chippings not yet cleared away from the excavation of two further and unfinished chambers. She gazed at the complex astronomical ceiling.

  He had not been content to have the usual vague representations of the stars by the thousand, but had drawn on his knowledge of the ancient star charts he had studied at Men-nefer to produce a great panorama of the moving heavens, part literal, part mythological, in every section of which his respect for Hatshepsut was clearly visible. A representation of her secret spirit name, several times repeated, showed her as a major protagonist in the great drama of challenge and conflict acted out eternally between good and evil, order and chaos, creation and destruction.

  He might have suffered moments of serious doubt in his life and he might not always have respected the gods as deeply and consistently as he should, but here it was clear that he had come to terms with a truth that could not be expressed in isolated images; it needed a dramatic and sweeping presentation of motion and dynamic interaction—a truth that gleamed for a moment as she stared at the ceiling, but was almost immediately lost because her mind was too small to grasp it.

  Beneath it he had written:

  Having penetrated besides all the writings of the divine prophets, I was ignorant of nothing that has happened since the beginning of time.[23]

  [23—“Having penetrated besides...” Senmut's tomb inscription quoted by John Anthony West in Travellers’ Key to Ancient Egypt, Knopf, New York, 1985, p.343.]

  She lowered the torch and sighed. In a lesser man that would have been an arrogant boast, in Senmut it was a statement of fact. She would miss him.

  Companion greatly beloved, Keeper of the palace, Keeper of the heart of the King, making content the Lady of both lands, making all things come to pass for the spirit of her Majesty.

  Soon after that she forced herself to visit Amun's sanctuary. Since “the incident” she had avoided it, and all the purification ceremonies had been undertaken by Hapuseneb.

  She bowed low before her god.

  “My Lord, my Father,” she said humbly. “Forgive him. It was I who drove him to it. Forgive me. Let me see him again. Let him live again. Let us meet in the Millions of Years."

  There was no answer.

  She looked up.

  The statue with the blue eyes of sacred stone stood rigid and upright in his golden barque like a painted doll.

  She heard a movement behind her and spun round.

  It was Hapuseneb. How long had he been there? Had he heard her prayer?

  His face was impassive—a priest's face.

 
; She rose and stood aside while the High Priest moved forward and shook the smoke of aromatic incense over her and over the god's statue—the same incense that Senmut had brought her from “the god's land", the land of Punt.

  * * *

  Chapter 15

  Anhai gathered her community of healers around her on the island. She covered the sandy surface with rich black earth and irrigated it until it burgeoned and bloomed.

  Hatshepsut herself paid it a visit, bringing with her as a gift a young frankincense tree. This became the centrepiece of a circular maze garden. Healing herbs flourished in its shade, and hardy flowering shrubs constituted a colourful wall around the outside. Those who sought healing on the island could walk slowly during the cool hours of dawn on the labyrinthine paths in this garden, winding in and out until they reached the sacred tree, where they rested, their backs leaning against it, drawing strength, as it drew strength, from the earth in which it was rooted and from the sun that poured down beneficent rays on its crown.

  When Hatshepsut first took Hapuseneb as her lover, the ghost that had been troubling her all but disappeared. Whether it was the solid, down-to-earth nature of Hapuseneb or the sheer formidable strength of his personality that kept the spectre at bay, she could not say, but night after night, curled in his arms, she had a respite from its icy and accusing stare.

  But now, lying alone, unsleeping, staring at the ceiling, a small night-light burning beside her bed, she knew the phantom had returned. She faced the wall, but knowing he was there and not being able to see him frightened her so much she turned to confront him.

  As though his dark soul had fed on this latest horror, he seemed larger than before, darker, his eyes more penetrating, his hatred more intense. He did not have Senmut at his side, as he had had Neferure on the night of her death, but she knew he was gloating over her suffering; over her regret.

  She picked up a little alabaster bowl from the table beside her bed and threw it at him with all her might. It passed right through him. He laughed—and moved nearer.

  She threw another object and another. But each time the object passed through him he seemed to grow larger and move nearer, until he was towering over her and she was ice-cold with terror.

  He leant down towards her. She tried to pull away. She tried to leave the bed and run from the room, but she found her limbs would not obey her. It was as though her own body had deserted her. She tried to call for the help of her father Amun-Ra, but a hard shell seemed to be around her heart, preventing any out-reaching towards the divine realms—a carapace of fear and guilt and hate, but most of all, despair.

  “I am finished,” she thought, almost with resignation. To continue a life without Senmut, without her dream for Neferure, without her self-respect and without her relationship with Amun-Ra...

  She dreaded the spectre's icy touch, yet almost welcomed it. What would it be like, death?

  But she did not die.

  Suddenly he was gone. She was alone.

  She pulled herself together sufficiently to consult her physician—the only one, apart from the two women who had helped her that fatal day, she told about the haunting.

  The physician advised certain spells of exorcism and Hatshepsut carried out his instructions to the letter. But it did no good.

  Even when she could not see him, she felt the phantom's presence. It was then she decided to go to Sehel Island and see what the daughter of Imhotep could do.

  * * * *

  In some chambers of the healing sanctuary there were statues of the gods Imhotep, Djehuti and Hathor, each with a little hollow carved out of the stone at its feet. Sacred water was poured over them, to absorb the energy of the god who inhabited the statue, and this was administered to the patients when necessary.

  When Hatshepsut arrived for her healing, the first thing that Anhai did was to give her a drink of the potent liquid energised by all three of the sanctuary gods, and then she led her to a small sacred pool. There, secluded behind rocks and a reed screen, Anhai and the great Pharaoh immersed themselves completely, symbolically washing off any contamination that might be clinging to them from their worldly lives. Emerging as though fresh from the waters of the womb, they made their way along a path lined with young sycamore saplings sacred to Hathor, to the buildings of the healing sanctuary.[24]

  [24—Water that has been poured over divine statues and subsequently used for healing is mentioned in C. Jacq, Egyptian Magic, Aris & Phillips, 1985.]

  The next step was to lay Hatshepsut to rest on a couch beside a small central table in the first chamber of healing: the dream chamber.

  She had been given a light meal of carefully chosen ingredients and was feeling physically comfortable, but a little apprehensive. She had heard Anhai's methods left no secrets in the heart. On the other hand, she knew she might lose the precious double crown if she did not return to her full strength and vigour. She was no longer sure her will was strong enough to sustain the protective psychic shield around her that was so essential to a ruling monarch. She had even grown to doubt her own links with divinity.

  The table beside the couch was of olive wood. It had four legs and beneath it four bricks were placed one above the other, each inscribed with two names: Amun and Mut, Ptah and Sekhmet, Horus and Hathor, Djehuti and Seshat—the male/female aspects of four potent spirit forces.[25]

  [25—Table with four bricks etc. from Egyptian Magic.]

  In front of the table was a silver censer in which burned olive wood charcoal and little balls of mixed goose fat and myrrh. Over the table was a fine white linen cloth covering certain objects Anhai did not permit Hatshepsut to see.

  Anhai lit the censer carefully, whispering a prayer for the protection of herself and the Pharaoh as she did so.

  She assured herself that Hatshepsut was lying comfortably, composed for sleep, and then she left her alone.

  Hatshepsut wondered what dreams would come to her that night. Anhai was a strong but calming presence. She had confidence in her. For the first time in a long while she did not dread going to sleep. If anyone could drive the dark shadows away it would be this young woman.

  At first she could not sleep because she was curious to know what lay under the cloth on the table. But itwas clear Anhai did not want her to touch anything in the room or move from the couch, so she tried to restrain herself. At last, the darkness, her own weariness and the strange, hypnotic scent of the olive, myrrh and goose fat had its effect and she drifted off to sleep.

  She found herself on a river in a boat, floating with the current towards the great ocean. Everything was fair and fine. Distant mountains, pink in the sun-haze, slid past; palm trees, cornfields, mud-brick houses ... It was her land as she had seen it all her life. The only thing that was different was that she did not seem to be the Pharaoh, but an ordinary woman.

  The river became narrower, the boat bobbing dangerously as it passed swiftly between high and rocky cliffs. She clung to the sides and looked apprehensively around her. The cliffs cut out the sunlight and it was chilly in the shadows. She wished she had oars so that she would have some control over the boat.

  At last she burst out of the narrow constricting channel into the sunlight. The river broadened and calmed. Now there were no familiar habitations on either side, but from time to time there were tall, more than life-size figures standing on the banks and watching her. She believed them to be the gods.

  Jagged rocks now appeared in the river. The water was no longer as smooth and benign as it had been before the narrowing of the cliff passage. She was in danger of being wrecked. “Why don't they help me?” she thought almost angrily. But she could not bring herself to call out to them for help.

  She searched about in the bottom of the boat to see if there was anything she could use as an oar, but the craft was bare and empty. Something knocked against the side, and when she looked up she saw it was a piece of palm wood. She tried to catch it but the swift water had already carried it past. But if there had been one
piece of driftwood, there was a good chance there would be others. She watched intently for her opportunity.

  At last she found a plank, presumably broken off from a wrecked boat, and managed to alter her course sufficiently to avoid an enormous rock that suddenly loomed up ahead.

  “You see,” she said triumphantly to the impassive figures still watching her from the bank, “I don't need your help after all."

  But in looking up to make her point, she found that they were nearer than before and she could see them more clearly. Her heart missed a beat as she realised they were not the gods after all, but duplicated versions of her familiar spectre.

  She hit an impediment just under the surface with a sickening thud. Her frail craft splintered into a hundred pieces instantly and she was flung into the turbulent white water of a series of rapids that passed through a second narrow channel between cliffs.

  Now she was fighting for her life as she was tossed and buffeted, dragged and thrust in the powerful coils of the river. She thought for a moment that she saw the malevolent eyes of the serpent Apep, the enemy of existence, waiting to swallow her into the endless void of its repulsive stomach, and fought with even greater determination to stay alive. Around her, strings of silver bubbles swirled; muscular ropes of liquid energy wound around her neck and almost choked her. The river roared and the boulders rolling along its inhospitable bed rumbled ominously.

  Fearfully she looked up and felt that the solid black sides of the gorge were leaning over her as “he” had leant over her the night of Senmut's death.

  She screamed and woke, sweating, in the dream chamber on Sehel Island, the charcoal almost burned away in the censer. Merciful light was pouring through the high windows.

  The door opened and Anhai was beside her at once.

  Later, when she was calmer, Anhai crossed the room and extinguished the last glowing embers of the charcoal. She lifted the white cloth and folded it neatly. From beneath it she took three pebbles, which she then presented to the woman on the couch.