Scholarly feuds are a lot of fun for laymen, and even for the scholarly world itself, with the possible exception of the combatants. The spectacle of two dignified and learned gentlemen belaboring one another over a misplaced verb form or a piece of broken pottery, with adjectives which should be restricted to political debates, is inherently ridiculous and consequently entertaining. In point of fact there is nothing more absurd about the subjects of “Gelehrtenduelle” than about the causes of many wars, when one considers the stakes involved; but the tragedy of warfare, which removes any possibility of humor unless it be of a macabre variety, is missing in the academic battles. They rarely descend to violence, except that of a verbal nature.
One of the most hard-fought skirmishes on the battlefields of academe was waged around the turn of the last century on the Hatshepsut question. Let not the unwary reader be misled as to the nature of the question. The problem in Egyptological minds was not why Hatshepsut did what she did, or how she got away with it; it was basically a problem of what happened, and when. The historical sequence which I have given above is now the accepted view, but it was not arrived at without a good deal of Sturm und Drang. I mention it primarily because it is a good example of how illogical a scholar can be when he becomes enamoured of a theory. Besides, there’s a funny story connected with it.
The protagonists in the battle were Kurt Sethe on the one hand and Edouard Naville on the other. Sethe was one of the best Egyptologists Germany ever produced, which is saying a good deal. In appearance Sethe was the popular stereotype of a scholar—small in size and solemn of manner, though capable of deep and genuine warmth toward his close friends. The Swiss Naville was Sethe’s antithesis, being a big, burly man with a jovial personality. Beneath the joviality, however, was a stubbornness which his opponents might reasonably have termed “bullhead-edness.” When the solemn German and the bullheaded Swiss met in conflict, they met head-on.
Sethe’s interpretation of the facts was based on the assumption that when King A’s name is erased from an inscription and replaced by the name of King B then King B must have followed King A. This sounds reasonable. But when Sethe applied the rule to the succession of the Thutmosid kings, he came up with the following sequence:
1. Thutmose I
2. Thutmose III
3. Thutmose III and Hatshepsut ruling jointly
4. Thutmose III ruling alone after having deposed Hatshepsut.
5. Thutmose I and Thutmose II as corulers, having displaced Thutmose III by a coup d’etat
6. Thutmose II ruling alone after the death of Thutmose I
7. Hatshepsut and Thutmose III again—coup d’etat.
8. Thutmose III alone after the death of Hatshepsut
Obviously this proposal had its difficulties. Naville fell upon them with cries of contempt. So heated did the debate become that in 1902, when Sethe and Naville were both camped out at Luxor for the winter season, they were not on speaking terms with each other. Then a domestic catastrophe befell the Naville camp—the kitchen, complete with cook, collapsed into a tomb pit—and Madame Naville was for calling the whole thing off. Sethe, hearing of the trouble and of Madame Naville’s laments, gallantly offered his hospitality, on one condition— the name of Hatshepsut was not to be mentioned. For several weeks the two deadly rivals lived in amity, enjoying many discussions on Egyptological matters—all matters except one. When the Naville establishment was restored to order, the Navilles moved out and the status quo was reestablished. Naville and Sethe stopped speaking.
Despite the criticism of other scholars, Sethe stuck doggedly to his theory. It’s an absurd scenario, really, and it is hard to understand how Sethe could have overlooked the obvious fallacy. When Thutmose III hacked out Hatshepsut’s name from her monuments, he put in its place not only his own name, but the names of his father and grandfather. Thus we derive the chronological sequence we have used in our chapter, the simplest and most logical.
Such examples of filial piety are not too common in Egypt. Ordinarily the kings who proclaimed this virtue in loud voices went around scratching out everybody’s name so they could put up their own. Thutmose III wasn’t the only king to demonstrate filial piety, though, and—who knows?—he may not have appreciated Hatshepsut’s implicit preemption of Thutmose I. She did make rather a point of the relationship.
World History
