Outline

I.  Tuthmosis II (1518-1504 BC) was the son of Tuthmosis 1 and Mutnefert, sister of the Great Wife Ahmose.

A.  He married twelve-year-old Hatshepsut, the “heiress” of the royal line.

B.  They were married for twenty years, an uneventful period.

C.  When Tuthmosis II died, the succession was in question.

II.  Hatshepsut (1498-1483 BC) served as regent the first four years for her young nephew and stepson, Tuthmosis 111.

A. At Deir el Bahri {Djeser-DJeseru), she built a beautiful temple next to Montuhotep’s. The temple walls tell her story.

1.  In 1829, Champollion visited the temple and saw a confusing scene: there were two kings, one of them Hatshepsut, and “the Great King is in the lesser position!”

2.  German Egyptologist Richard Lepsius figured out the mystery in the 1850s: Hatshepsut went from “King’s Great Wife” to “King”!

3.  The temple walls tell the story of her life. But everywhere her name was carved, it was later replaced with those of her father, husband, and stepson. The recarved cartouches on her temple caused great debate between Egyptologists Kurt Sethe and Edouard Naville.

4.  The temple walls tell of a trading expedition Hatshepsut sent to Punt, “God’s land,” land of incense (Eritrea or Sudan). The trek began from Coptos to Quseir on the Red Sea. Then they sailed 40 miles a day for 15 days, or 600 miles. (Temple carvings at Deir el Bahri are the first accurate depiction of sub-Saharan Africa: They include the Queen of Punt, her daughter, thatched houses on stilts.

And such trade goods as incense, trees, giraffes, panther skins, and ivory.)

5.  The divine birth scene on the temple claimed that, disguised as Tuthmosis I, the god Amun visited Ahmose, Hatshepsut’s mother. Because her father is Amun, she is divine, like the pharaoli. Hatshepsut is shown being created on a potter’s wheel.

6.  At the temple, we see scenes of how her great obelisks were quarried and transported. They were created in 7 months, then placed on a barge towed by 27 ships. Her two great obelisks were among the tallest in Egypt.

B.  Her first tomb (as Queen) was high in the hills west of the Valley of the

Kings and contained an abandoned sarcophagus.

C.  Her second tomb was in the Valley of the Kings.

1.  The excavation of the tomb, the longest and most difficult in the Valley, was done by Howard Carter. The tomb went toward Deir el Bahri, but workmen hit bad rock and had to change direction.

2.  It contained two sarcophagi—one for her and one recarved for the reburial of her father, Tuthmosis I. She was buried with her father, not her husband.

D.  The Red Chapel at Karnak justified her kingship—the oracle statue

Proclaimed she would be king.

1.  Hatshepsut and Tuthmosis III are shown together.

2.  The Red Chapel was dismantled twenty years after her death. Why did Tuthmosis III wait so long to do it?

3.  Rather than personal vengeance, the reason may reflect a desire that a female pharaoh not be recorded in the official chronicles.

E.  Senenmut, the man with two dozen titles, is central to her reign.

1. Some have suggested that Senenmut, a commoner and lifelong bachelor, was Hatshepsut’s lover.

He was overseer of the royal palace and tutor of Princess Neferu re. As Royal Architect and Steward of Amun (treasurer), he controlled money.

His first tomb, at Gourna, displayed his titles and contained a smashed pink quartzite sarcophagus in the shape of a cartouche, originally intended for Hatshepsut.

5.

His second tomb, at Deir el Bahri, was unfinished. It is a grand tomb with several levels and contains the first ceiling with an astronomical design.

6.

Pornographic graffiti at Thebes show a man with an overseer’s cap (Senenmut) making love to a woman (Hatshepsut).

7.

Senenmut dies, then Hatshepsut. Twenty years later, her name was erased. The kings list never included her name.