In Our Time - Archive: Hatshepsut

Episode Date: August 20, 2026

Misha Glenny delves in to the In Our Time archive to select ten episodes for listeners to revisit. His third choice, first released in November 2014, is the Egyptian pharaoh Hatshepsut, whose name means 'foremost of noble ladies'. She ruled Egypt from about 1479 - 1458 BC and some scholars argue that she was one of the most successful and influential pharaohs. When she came to the throne, Egypt was still recovering from a period of turbulence known as the Second Intermediate Period a few generations earlier. Hatshepsut reasserted Egyptian power by building up international trade and commissioned buildings considered masterpieces of Egyptian architecture. She also made significant changes to the ideology surrounding the pharaoh and the gods. However, following her death, her name was erased from the records and left out of ancient lists of Egyptian kings.With:Elizabeth Frood Associate Professor of Egyptology at the University of OxfordKate Spence Lecturer in Egyptian Archaeology at the University of CambridgeCampbell Price Curator of Egypt and Sudan at The Manchester MuseumProducer: Victoria BrignellReading list:Elizabeth Blyth, Karnak: Evolution of a Temple (Routledge, 2006)Kara Cooney, The Woman Who Would Be King (Crown, 2014)José M. Galán, Betsy M. Bryan and Peter F. Dorman (eds.), Creativity and Innovation in the Reign of Hatshepsut (Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 2014)Marc Van De Mieroop, A History of Ancient Egypt (Wiley-Blackwell, 2011)Catharine H. Roehrig, Renée Dreyfus and Cathleen A. Keller, Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh (Yale University Press, 2005)Catharine Roehrig (ed.), Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2005)Joyce Tyldesley, Hatshepsut: The Female Pharaoh (Penguin, 1998)Willeke Wendrich (ed.), UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology (University of California, 2010) particularly Peter Brand’s essay, ‘Usurpation of Monuments’In Our Time is a BBC Studios productionSpanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is essential listening for the intellectually curious. In each episode, host Misha Glenny and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.

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It's O'Debbler.com. Lives Less Ordinary is bringing you a special series of extraordinary love stories from all around the world. In India, love at first sight feels more psychotic than arranged marriage. Love stories that break all the rules. We came into our relationship

with a lot of complicated pieces. Stories that show that sometimes love is all you need. Lives Less Ordinary Love Stories from the BBC World Service. Listen now. Search for Lives Less Ordinary, wherever you get your BBC podcasts. This is In Our Time from BBC Radio 4, and this is one of more than a thousand episodes you can find in the In Our Time archive. A reading list for this edition can be found in the episode description wherever you're listening.

I hope you enjoy the program. One of the great pleasures of In Our Time is its serendipitous nature. The subjects are full of surprises. Sometimes it could be an author you particularly admire, and you wish to compare your knowledge against the deep understanding of the guests. The next week comes a subject you've never heard of. And that's why, for this selection of highlights

from Melvin Bragg's voluminous treasure trove of episodes, I have selected one about which I knew absolutely nothing until I heard it, the story of Hatship Soot, whose life answers the mistake, mysterious question, when is a queen, not a queen? And the answer is, when she's a king. The ancient Egyptians had no word for queen, and so once she became co-ruler with her baby stepson, she was designated a king. Hatshapsut had a serious impact on the royal culture of the

pharonic rule, and left a rich legacy of statues and buildings, and Melvin's guests played a significant role in piecing together what it tells us about Egyptian society in the second millennium BCE. But she also inspired jealousy, including in her stepson, Tuttmos the third, who after her death began erasing her from the history of ancient Egypt. And if you're interested in pornographic graffiti, remember to listen to the bonus material part of this episode where Melvin and the academics boldly go where not many of his guests, have gone before, or since. Enjoy listening. Hello, in the early 15th century BC, a woman came to power in ancient Egypt. Her name

was Hatshepsut, and she remained the longest reigning female pharaoh until Cleopatra 1400 years later. She was remarkable for ruling in a society normally controlled by men. She ruled for about 15 years. But that's far from the most remarkable thing about her. Many scholars regard her as one of the most influential pharaohs of the New Kingdom period of Egyptian history. Among her achievement, she forever changed the public image of the Pharaoh, embarked on a far-reaching building program, and increased Egypt's prosperity by expanding its trade network. Yet at some point after her death, it seems that a systematic attempt was made to erase her memory from the records, and her image was removed from many of her monuments.

With me to discuss Hatshepwood's life and legacy are Elizabeth Frood, Associate Professor of Egyptology at the University of Oxford, Kate Spence, lecturer in Egyptian archaeology at the University of Cambridge and Campbell Price, curator of Egypt and Sudan at the Manchester Museum. Elizabeth Frode Hacheput was born around 1500 BC, not long after a period of turmoil, turmoil even in Egyptian history. What had been going on? Well, when Hachipswit came to the throne, Egypt had been stable and centralised for only about 70 years, and that's only three, four generations. Prior to that time, Egypt had been split into a number of different kingdoms.

So in the north you have what we call the Hixos rulers, and these are rulers that probably were of Canaanite origin, so from Syria, Palestine. And they seem to have set up at least one or maybe several kind of kingdoms in the Delta area. To the south, far in North Sudan, you have the Kingdom of Kush, which is a major African kingdom based in the site of Kerma, which is just south of the third cataract. So you have these major foreign ruled polities on either end of Egypt, and the deep in the south, but coming into typical Egyptian territory, and these Hixos kings in the north. And squeezed in the middle, you have Egyptian dynasties, Egyptian kingdoms, one at a Bairos, which has recently been confirmed archaeologically, and a nascent kingdom in Thebes.

And it's this Theban kingdom that leads and drives the unification of Egypt at the start of the end of the 17th dynasty, the start of the 18th dynasty. And it's that Theban dynasty, it's those Theban kings at Hatcheps it has descended from. So those conquerors, those kind of reunifiers of Egypt, is where she has her origins. That's the family she's descended from. And this cultural memory of Egypt's trauma and this kind of split and division that it was under for a couple of hundred years is still very present. It's still very much part of cultural memory. So how did it become stabilised and active and conquering again?

These kings that were established in the Theban area, which is modern Luxor, they started this program of reunification, so a series of military excursions down into the north to drive out the Huxos, probably to take over this Abidon dynasty as well and maybe other kinglets, just to gradually expand, gradually consolidate, drive out the foreign rulers and push back the Kushite kingdom as well. So a series of campaigns under at least three kings of the late 17th and early 18th dynasty were pushing Egypt, the borders out and gradually restoring territory and gaining control

again. And Hatshepsut is probably directly descended from these conquering kings. Yes. And the last of those, the one from whom she's directly descended, seems to be particularly effective. Yes, he was the one that in biographical texts and royal texts from the time talks about driving out the Hixos and pushing them up into Syria, Palestine as this great kind of final conquering victory. And he is one of her ancestors. She was directly descended from him. Campbell Price, let's just take a swirl for a moment, before we come back to her.

Are there any other examples of female pharaohs before a chip-thot? Yes. We have this impression of that Pharaoh as being always a man. The god, the god, the god, the pharaoh is incarnating the god Horus, the falcon, god of kingship. That must always be a man. but in fact, there are lots of women who ruled Egypt. And what I think you've got to... What do you mean by a lot? How many?

It's hard to put a number on it. But if you imagine the life expectancy of even a royal person in Egypt was not great, women ended up ruling as regents a lot for young children. But they're not fair as though. They're regents. Well, right at the beginning of a unified kingdom in Egypt, there's a lady called Merneth. And she has this really big, impressive tomb alongside others belonging to male kings. She seems to have acted as a regent, but we don't have texts of a sufficient length and detail to give us more information about that.

This happens again and again where women seem to step in for young boys, boy rulers. But then there's a lady called Sobeck... Stepping being their mothers or usually? Yeah, yeah. The mothers... Regents. But not pharaohs. Not until a lady called Sobeck Nefrew And she really seems to rule

Not because she's the mother of a young son, a young king But on her own terms for about four years About 1700 BC And it seems actually that Hatship Suit could have based Some of her ideas about presentation On this lady's Sobic Nefrew But then just as Liz said Just immediately before Hatship Suit comes to the throne

There's this warlike Dinnestate, 17th dynasty and they comprise again several regents, powerful women. There's one woman in particular Queen Ahhotep who we've got a nice text describing her bashing up foreigners

and mustering the troops and there's a sense that she's a kind of Amazonian queen so possibly this is an influence for a hatchet suit. But you say Amazonian queen they didn't have a word for queen and is she a pharaoh or regent. I'm just I'm sorry to be picky but it's no no right

there is no word for queen as in female ruling. So what is this, this basher, as you've so eloquently described it? What is she? Is she a regent or is she Farah? She's a king's mother who acts again for a young son. But who must control a lot of the material wealth, the power in the land. And then there's this lady called Achmos Nefertari. Now, she again is a regent, mother of a famous king.

I'm in Hota, the first. and she, after her death, becomes worshipped as a goddess. So there's a possibility a Hachabstuit even met this woman, an elderly lady maybe when Hachab suit was young. So there's this precedent for strong, female characters with real ability in a world where you don't live for very long, maybe women have a greater life expectancy. We're talking about the average as the early 30s, aren't we?

Even less than that, yeah. But basically dentistry, as I understand it. Abscesses. Yeah. Well, that's very clear, but I'm just trying to isolate the idea of this woman being a pharaoh, and everything that a pharaoh implies in terms of depiction, in terms of history, in terms of influence on Egyptologists such as your good selves. So Kate Spence, what do we know about her immediate ancestors?

The early 18th dynasty are descended from the kings that Liz was talking about earlier. And the throne seems to have passed to someone called Amherstead. and Hotep the first, who doesn't seem to have left any children. The throne then passes to a king called Tupmost I, Tuchmose I, Tuchm's father. He was probably distantly related to the royal family, but we have no real evidence of this. And he seems to have been married to a woman called Ahmos, who was almost certainly directly related to the family of the rulers who had actually instigated the 18th dynasty and the new kingdom. So we have an idea of a royal grouping who intermarry and keep the firm going?

Very much so. One of the difficulties is it can be difficult to establish who is related to who precisely because we don't have the family trees. We have relationships to specific kings. So someone will have the title of king's mother or king's wife, king's daughter, but we don't actually always know which king they're related to. So a lot of ink is spilled over trying to work out quite who is related to whom. But Hachepsoot is the daughter of Tupmost I, who was a general, we think, early in the 18th dynasty and who seems to have stepped in as heir

because Amunhota I didn't produce any children. His wife Hachmos is the great wife, so she's the chief of many wives within the Hahrim, and Hachepsoot seems to have been her elder. daughter. There was probably a younger daughter as well, Nefrew Beatty. And then there are a number of sons that we know about, including two called Ammon Moes and Wajmos, who seemed to have died before Tupmo's the first did. And they then have to find, because when he died, there doesn't seem to have been an adult male child to pass the throne onto. So the throne passes to an

individual called Tupmos II, who we think was a small child at the time. of accession, we're not sure exactly how old, but he's thought to have been younger than Hatshepsut through a number of quite complicated arguments. It's quite complicated enough, Frank yet, so we can... Yeah, yeah, yeah. We can say we've done complication for the moment. Right, okay, so we have two.

Moses the second, and he then seems to be married to Hatshepsut, who we think is his half-sister, and is probably older than he is. This is quite common in the royal family at the beginning of the 18th dynasty. Egyptians generally don't seem to have practiced brother-sister and marriages, but this does occur within the royal family and seems to be particularly strong in the early 18th dynasty. The idea seems to have been that this is modelled to some degree on divine precedent,

but primarily probably to keep wealth and power within one family. But she was in, given the secondary developments of wives and the other, she seems to have been in rather a powerful position. Graham was talking about these powerful royal women, the powerful regents. She was already that, wasn't she, because of the primacy of her birth to the first wife. Her father's a great warrior. She's in a strong position already in the court. Very much so.

She's in an extremely strong position and she already holds important titles, which, particularly the title of God's Wife of a Moon. So she's embedded in the cult practice of the Theban 18th dynasty at Luxor by this time. I meant what Campbell was saying. So why did she, do we know anything about, was she forced to marry him? Did she choose to marry him? We know absolutely nothing about this. One of the big problems with our records is we vaguely know sort of where relationships are likely to have happened,

but we know nothing about the motivation other than what we can deduce historically. So there is no way of knowing whether she was happy with this. The likelihood is that she would have expected to marry as the eldest daughter of the major wife and the previous ruler of Pharaoh. She would almost certainly have expected to marry

whoever was coming to the throne next. And if she hadn't married that individual, there probably would have been no chance for her to marry outside the royal family. So again, to go back to Graham's idea there being only one fairer woman, woman, before, but lots of powerful women. She's in the stage of being the most powerful woman in Egypt,

by this marriage. It would have put her into the position to become that, although her mother, Queen Ahmos, is probably also a very, very powerful individual at the time. So there's this sort of line of very strong women who gradually sort of shift power between themselves. Okay, come back to you, Elizabeth Froud. the qualifications that you rightly made all along the way there, Kate,

it seems that we are talking about patchy evidence. We are talking about things put together from inscriptions on monuments, sometimes half erased, sometimes large gaps between and so and so forth. But let's also tell the listener that among the three of you, you've got some pretty straightforward, not some pretty certain ideas of what went on in key areas, otherwise you wouldn't do this program, would we? And so we take it for granted that the evidence, Mrs Pachi, but the evidence is also there and has been knit together over the years by Egyptologists.

So, Elizabeth, so she became, her husband became Tudmos II. And do we know what role she played? He's the Pharaoh now. She's what? She's the principal wife. And so in that role, she would probably participate in rituals in temple environments. Probably supporting rituals to him. particular kind of temple practices

like the daily ritual and the temple and things like that. When the king was performing those at maybe particular festivals or something she would probably be part of that. She bore the title of God's wife of Amund, which means she probably had her own separate set of ritual practices that she was doing

in support of the wider royal ritual performance. We don't know much about what those might have been just from temple depictions. When you talk about rituals, I always always talking about religious rituals, are the state rituals? It's hard to separate the two, actually.

But are they sacrificing stuff or what are they doing? They're offering to the gods, absolutely. So they're offering, they're providing sacrifices of animals, oxen, that sort of thing within the temple environments. They're not doing this every day. They have priests that run the temple environments and the kings are relatively separate from that for most of the time. But on particular occasions, they would be performing these people.

We are talking about a priest-powerful society, aren't we? Yes. So the fact that she, Kamala, can I turn to you now, the fact that she held the title of God's wife of Amon, put her among the priests ahead of the priest, and gave her her own independent power and wealth. Absolutely. So as Liz alluded to this role, this ritualised role for the Queen

is an important one to support the Pharaoh. But with this title of God's wife of Amun, there's a link, a direct link between the woman. fulfilling that role and the God. And it's a quasi-sexual role that's not quite clear to us. But the estate, this title came within estate.

And so you need administrators to control this vast amount of wealth that comes with the title. And I think it's interesting after Hatship suit, that title of God's wife of Amun is dropped for several centuries, perhaps out of fear that women

with that title become too powerful. but it's an important title it's one independent from the pharaoh. What evidence did they bring to bear then or did it need evidence that she was God's wife of Amud? I think, I mean, in her position in the royal family that was just an accepted role.

But don't we have an inscription or an illustration of this? A literal illustration. There are plenty of... What do they show? They show, as with all Egyptian scenes, almost all Egyptian scenes are kind of stereotyped, very formal, decorous, appropriate way to show the queen in front of a god interacting with a god.

But what's interesting about hatchipsuit is these become more and more kingly. They become more and more direct. She gets featured in scenes you would expect a pharaoh to be featured in. When he said God's wife, is there a sexual element as well as a religious and metaphorical? Absolutely, yes. It's not clear. And how do we see, as it were, that? I don't mean, I'm not looking for pornographic. I know that rubbish.

Is that depicted in any way? It's focused mainly on the words used. So wherever she appears, she's called the God's wife, the wife of the God Amunra, the principal god of the state at this time. Growing businesses deal with the same problem, too many tools, too much back and forth, and not enough time. Do Do helps bring it all together. It's an all-in-one business management platform,

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however she got hold of it, she became Pharaoh? Yes, Tumost the second, died after we think, probably only about three years on the throne. How old did he be? We don't know, probably somewhere around sort of early teens, or even before that, possibly. He has to have been old enough to have fathered a daughter because he and Hacheptschak had a daughter called Neferure.

So they'd had a child, but they hadn't produced a male. but there were children in the royal court but they're thought to have been extremely young and the throne passes when he dies to Tukmos III who we think was probably extremely young when they took the throne. The latest estimates are saying he's probably a toddler, probably only a couple of years old. Estimates ranging between about two and six probably. So really young child taking the throne. his mother was a very, seems to have been a very minor wife. Her name is Isis. She is only ever mentioned later during his reign as a king's mother,

so she had no formal titles in relation to Tup Moes II. And a hatchet, somehow, presumably because she already held a lot of power in the royal court, manages to get herself appointed into the position of regent. So she is ruling the country effectively for a toddler, even though she's probably fairly young still herself, maybe sort of late teens, possibly even into the early 20s. So she already is ruling the country for this child and basically trying to hold the dynasty together.

She would have had the support of many of the courtiers because all of the courtiers owed their position to their relationship to the royal family. So if the sort of kingship had been lost by that line of the family, there would have been major turmoil. and as Liz said at the beginning there's a lot of worry about the country returning to turmoil

in instability. So she starts off as regent and then extraordinarily cleverly she makes very, very gradual incremental changes within which Can you give us some examples as you're going along? You said she makes a plane and be under dab but I haven't got any examples.

Yeah, she starts around year two of Tuchmose III's reign there is an inscription from Semna in which she has referred to to as performing ritual and as the air of sort of the king and the son or daughter, the heir of the gods, which basically means those are things which would normally be reserved for kingship. And then we have images, we have an image from Karnak from somewhere early in the rain where she's shown wearing a queenly dress but with a king's crown on.

And then at some point between year two and year seven, but probably closer to year seven, she actually declares herself king and takes a full royal set of titles. Year 7 being year 7 because? The Egyptians count sort of time through the regnal years of specific kings. So when a new king comes to the throne... I say to we still.

Yeah. But we don't talk about the current year. The monarchs do. So year 7 is the seventh year of the reign of King to Moses 3rd. And then we add all the world. all of those together to try and project back in time. So she declares herself a full king, takes a full royal titulary,

and then starts to present herself as well as acting as ruler. There's a consideration here that might seem to be strange, but Elizabeth Trudit, one of the ways you progressed in societies like that, and then until a few hundred years ago in societies like ours, was by assassination. So why didn't she assassinate her stepson, Tuttmose, She would have had the opportunity to within a court, a large court that is probably

factionalised around particular individuals. There certainly would have been the opportunity to. So it must have been a very stable court. It must have been, the family must have been very secure. And as Kate mentioned, they must have been very concerned within this small family, you know, royal group to maintain the dynasty. And that must have been the primary concern. And so instead of Hatshepsut, and she probably wouldn't have been able to suddenly seize full power on her own,

she needed the support of the family and the wider kind of court group. That court group was stable and secure, so a small child could come to the throne and hold the throne, and the only mechanism for her to gain power was through Queen Regency, which was absolutely established and expected of these royal women. So she's absolutely following, I think, what is expected and normal. within this sort of situation. You have a very stable court, very stable family group and so she does what is expected.

She steps in as Queen Regent. It's what happens next that is extraordinary. To you, Kamel, what happens next? Well, we all want to know, when do they know so we can know when she became Pharaoh? We're talking 1500 BC, we're talking about this woman Pharaoh

and when did people begin to say this is the Pharaoh? So there's this key monument, the Red Chapel. and this is a small building made of quartzite which is a red-breddish stone and that's why it's called the Red Chapel. This was built to house the boat, the golden boat in which the god's statue travelled around.

That was a key part of Egyptian temple ritual. And in this, Hatshib suit takes the opportunity to depict herself and her supposed co-regent, Tupmos the 3rd, but she shows herself and Tummo's the 3rd, both as men, but she takes the precedent. She is the leading figure in these scenes, and in one text on that chapel, she says,

the god Amun, the chief god of the state, in the form of an oracle, the God speaks to her and says, you are my chosen king. You will have the kingship for yourself. Even though this is dated to year two of an unknown king, not quite sure, another king that's not a hatchet suit, she claims that title of Pharaoh, ruler of both lands.

And this was built when, this red chapel? So this would... We know specifically when it was built, so we know, I know, we're not specifically. Right, okay, okay. It may be a great perspective. It may be a great perspective. Never mind, within a year or two, we know, oh, two or three years. But that is when she is known, she says she is fair and she sees his public power.

Yes, she goes from sharing power. there's this acknowledgement that the toddler Tup Moes the 3rd is the notional pharaoh and Hatchip Soot is the regent And then this this announcement that the gods have endorsed her And she follows this up again and again In other scenes and texts That she has been chosen and we hear much less of Tup Moes the 3rd

And we'll stick to the architectural line for a moment Kate Spence because her mortuary temple Which is called Dear El Barri supposed to be evidence of her greatness as pushing into monumental buildings, architecture, and establishing authority, and as one of the things that she did. She didn't turn her energies to military campaigns as far as we know, but she did to monumental building and trade and diplomacy. Let's kick off with monumental building. The Mortry Temple, Daryl Bahra is the modern name. It sort of means sort of northern church or cathedral or whatever.

It was originally called by Hatchaptsut, Jezzar Jesiru, which is sort of Holy of Holy of Most Sacred Spaces. And it's built on the west bank of Thebes, so opposite Karnak, and it's cut into the cliffs in front of what we now call the Valley of the Kings, which became the dynastic burial place for the kings of the new kingdom. And it's an extraordinarily innovative monument. Although there's disagreement on it, a lot of people think that Hachep Soot was the king who actually established. this dynastic burial place, and she built her mortuary temple so that it sort of backed onto her tomb through the other side of the cliff. And it was an incredibly carefully chosen site, because it's right next to the tomb of a king called Nebhepetre Mentuhotet, who was a king who unified Egypt at the beginning of the Middle Kingdom. So he was an extraordinarily famous and well-respected king.

You can see the project developing over time. as she builds it. It seems to have started as a small project sort of next to this big, famous monument. And then it grows until she has to cut the cliff face away. And it becomes this huge terrace monument sort of looking out towards Karnak. And it does a whole series of things

which are really interesting. One of them is it's the first time a king actually creates a mortuary temple, which is primarily presented as a temple of the god of moon. and the king's mortuary cult is only celebrated in a side chapel. And the idea seems to be that the king and the god sort of become one on death, and they're very, very closely linked. She also establishes a mortuary cult for her father within the same monument

and even seems to have moved her father's body and buried it in her tomb so that it was also linked in this sort of sequence. And it was constructed as the culmination point of a big festival called the Beautiful Festival of the Valley, which was a Theban Festival of the Dead when the cult statue of the god of moon was taken from Karnak Temple across the river and spent the night in this temple

as part of these celebrations of the dead. So she's sort of developing the whole ritual landscape at Thebes with this structure and fundamentally changing the relationship between the king and the god in the process and the dynastic sort of succession line and presence in the landscape. And she also restores and of a certain extent remodeled Luxor and Karnak.

And so she's making her presence felt in the way that you did in those days through monuments. Yeah, but even more so than previous kings. Previous kings had done a bit of building in specific temples. Hachep really sort of changes the whole landscape and builds a whole load of new projects in order to set up these ritual routes. So we have this king coming in, this new pharaoh, and one way she establishes herself is to say, look, I am a pharaoh in the great tradition

and I am making great buildings and monuments to show my power and who I am. This is so simplistic. I know it's being very kind, and you're nodding your head, so I'll keep going on. So that's one aspect of it. Another aspect, Elizabeth Frood, is the way that she expanded Egypt's trade. Now, can you give us a good idea how she did that?

At the beginning of the 18th dynasty, you have an elite kind of culture that is suddenly opened up to the world again from being quite isolated in the Theban area, suddenly you get this beginning of a really cosmopolitan outlook amongst the elite group. And what Hatshepsut does, I think, is seems to kind of support that and drive that forward.

And the best example of that, and the one that is perhaps most famous, is the expedition to the land of Punt, which she dates to her year nine. Where's Punt? Punt, that's debated, of course. It's somewhere on the Red Sea coast, and there's evidence to suggest that it might be Arabia or Africa, Somalia.

It may have moved as a place. It's attested from the very earliest periods of Egyptian history. It almost has a semi-mythical reputation as well. So it's in religious texts as a kind of mythical gods land, but it is also a concrete place somewhere on the Red Sea that people are actively trading with from very early in Egyptian history. So why did she get a point, and what did she get from it? Well, she went probably to the choice to display Punt and to make Punt so prominent in her representation

is probably a way of showing that she is opening up these ancient trade routes again. Hatshepsut is very concerned to go back to ancient models of kingship and of royal practice and show that she is part of those traditions. And I think the expedition to Punt is part of that. It's an ancient practice that she initiates again. She sends an expedition to this strange and fantastic land to bring back. all sorts of exotic goods. The key thing that she makes a big deal of in the scenes and texts which narrate this

journey in Deraabakhri are mur trees. So she is one of the key products that's brought back of these murteries that are then planted in the temple complex. So it's almost like she goes to Punt or her people go to Punt and bring back part of this land and integrate it within her own temple environment. So she's sort of laying claim to Punt as well as opening up this new trade, reopening this trade route. I ask this with due tentativity for such a real evidence that you expanded trade in the Near East as we now call it and Africa as we now call it as well as Ponce. I mean,

is the proper... We have, I mean, there is an expansion, in elite culture in this time, there's a real interest in new technologies from the ancient Near East, new luxury goods from Africa and the Near East. And this is characteristic of the whole of the 18th Dynasty, but it's particularly driven in the early 18th dynasty. So yes, we have archaeological material, material culture of oils and things, new things, products, new musical instruments, new military weapons that are coming into Egypt. And she would have been part of, she would have been a driver for that, certainly. Back to you, Campbell Price.

Her chief official was a man we know of called Sinenmut. There are 26 statues to him. He was very important to her. There's one carving of him with her child on his knee. And can you tell us as much as you know about him? Senen Mutt is really an exceptional individual from ancient Egypt. It's really interesting because he's someone we can really attempt to write a biography for. And that's surprisingly surprisingly difficult from ancient Egypt.

Because he leaves so much evidence, we have. so many texts and images for cinema. So can you tell him what he did first of all? So his background seems to have been well a lot of Egyptians present themselves this way but a rags to rich's tail. We know his parents were kind of modestly well off and then when he

becomes more wealthy under hatchetops he reburries them in much more well-appointed surroundings. He may have had a military background initially what's key in his career progression is that he becomes, as you said, a tutor to Neferura, the princess, a hatchet suit's daughter, her daughter with Tuchmo's second. And this is the beginning of an exceptional way of presenting non-royal people.

So you mentioned these statues in which he's carved, supporting, enveloping in his cloak, the little princess on his lap. Now, this is unheard of. You know, royal people don't touch non-royal people, let alone be be shown in a statue form like this. He increases his number of titles, his responsibilities. He takes control of part of the estate, the estate of the god Amun, which brings with it all this material wealth.

And maybe this shouldn't surprise us because if Hachap Suit has entrusted the care of her daughter to this man, she clearly trusts him. She trusts him to do a good job in erecting obelisks. a favourite thing of kings in the 18th dynasties to erect these monuments for the gods and then he himself takes the opportunity to build his own tomb and his own tombs indeed he's got two tombs interestingly he isn't married as far as we can tell and this is again really weird for an ancient Egyptian elite man why is he not married well this has led to speculation that indeed he may be hatch-oopsuit's lover and there's one particularly

controversial graffito which seems to show some sexual act between a man and a woman that some have interpreted as hatchet suit and senen mood now I don't think the evidence is strong for that I don't think any of us think here but two shaking heads are on your left but this this illustrates the thing about hatchipsuit the story is so attractive people like to speculate

But what's interesting for me about Sennon, is that of anyone in ancient Egypt, he just takes the opportunity, perhaps because he doesn't have children and he doesn't have that chance to have a legacy with future generations. He takes the chance because he can to create monuments. And he creates more statues than any other person of the time. Up until recently there were 25 statues and we found the 26th one in Manchester Museum in our basement. And this was one of the most exciting days in my life where I was jumping up and down. another Senenmout statue this man just weren't you jumping up down in anger that Manchester Museum had kept it for

for 1500 years No one knew Nobody knew it was there This is just the reality of Museum life But what's important is Senen Mout really makes a mark And he even one of his tombs

Seems to attempt to place the burial chamber Under Hatship So it's Temple at Daryl Bakr So there's some association there which leads to the speculation about them being lovers. One of the things that I think is really interesting and Senamut is a really good example of that is there's really this line that we have in later periods and early periods between royal representation and non-royal

seems to really blur. Senenmut displays himself in ways and has texts that are sort of semi-royal and I think there's a real kind of creativity and drive towards innovation and experimentation in the court under Hatchepsut and she must be driving that to some extent. Kate. Cates.

Senenmutt is also almost certainly behind that. He creates these incredible cryptographic inscriptions with hieroglyphs so he creates freezers around the Mortuary Temple which are representations of Hatchets Hatchepsut's name. They say

Hachepsut's name but they represent part of her as a cobra goddess with sort of uplifted car arms and sun discs. They're beautiful beautiful things and behind the vast majority of doors in the temple, he actually has images of himself praying, actually carved behind the doors.

So no one would know they were there because when the doors are open, you wouldn't see them. But it's a thing which Egyptians, sort of normal Egyptians, would have found very, very problematic, actually having an ordinary person represented in that way in a temple. So he does create extraordinary things and is able to take extraordinary liberties with his position.

Well, what's your view? of Hawaii was so powerful. I mean, can we just top being tentative for half a minute and just dance this boil for half a minute? Then I promise I'll pass on until we haven't got enough evidence for it. Do you have a view? I think he was the right man in the right place at the right time. Oh, wow.

And I think you have an Egyptian court that is very stable, very secure of families that have been in position for at least a couple of generations. And this opportunity to create, and the dynasty is still very young. So there's all these opportunities to experiment and create new forms of self-presentation. I think he was an extraordinarily talented individual and that his talent was recognised by a very, very talented female ruler who needed someone like that to help her actually create the monuments, the ideas, all the new things she was coming up with,

because the level of innovation in her reign is extraordinary. Well, let's try to nail that in a few minutes ago. Was one part of innovation the change in the relationship, the change in the relationship between the Pharaoh and the gods? Absolutely. Right. Can you tell us about that? It draws on precedent, but the Hatchap Sut is represented as the bodily son of the god Amun. The god Amun is said to come to her mother in her bedchamber in the form of the king's father,

but she knows that it isn't really her husband, and because he smells nice, he smells of the sense of punt. And all the mer which is being brought back is to create the sense of sort of, Amun's home and background. And so the king becomes the bodily offspring of the god. It's not a new idea, but it's emphasized to a degree which has never been done before. The king becomes united with the god in the mortuary temple. And Hachepsut's name, her name is Hachepsut, foremost of the noble women or whatever. When she takes the throne, she adds to the beginning of that, Hennamette and a moon, which is united with a moon. Hachepsut united with a moon. So she's won with him. And the

Egyptians have a very, very strong sense of the ability to be both the sort of offspring of and a sort of materialisation of the god. Elizabeth, let's stick to the idea of innovations. What else did you do that was new and changed things? I think she created an environment that allowed elite individuals and members of her court to test new ideas. So burial practices change and expand from elite, the elite court. they can have

these kind of two tombs they can have texts within the tombs that are later primarily royal you don't see them in royal context here we see them in non-royal contexts there's experiments with with types of pictorial representation how you represent the body

a real expansion in mortuary display and that's probably partly because people are more wealthy there's an influx of wealth into the Theban area and partly because she's creating this environment that allows for this, allows her elites to make play.

And this is probably because of her diplomacy which you haven't had time to get into, which she actually did make treaties and so on. But can you tell us, Hamill, can you start to tell us, why soon after, at her disappearance, we don't know whether she disappeared or was killed or whatever, her name began to be erased from monuments, and she was more or less erased from Egyptology for hundreds of years. What was going on there?

So we don't know ultimately the reason for her demise, what's important is she ruled on her own essentially for around 15 years if there had been a major problem. I'm sure she would have been bumped off before that. But then after her death and Tupmos the third becomes the sole, Pharaoh, as was planned all along, maybe 20 years after that point, that's when her name seems to start getting attacked. So it's not something, as used to be thought in Egyptology, that this is a really pent-up aggression that he's been waiting to.

do end his stepmother's memory. He's waited some time, and for whatever reason, people start to attack the name. Kate and then, Elizabeth. We think that it may very well be something to do with the succession, because it's at the end of his life that Tuchmosa 3rd starts to attack these images, and it may be because there's uncertainty over which of these numerous children in the Royal Nursery will succeed him,

and there may be competing family lines, and that really seems to be the most likely reason that she would, start to be written out at that rather late point. Elizabeth? And there is, the process of erasure is quite complex and there is actually evidence from Karnak, which is one of the sites that I work at, that the prescription, some of the prescription had started earlier.

So soon after she disappears from the record, some elements of her name and her image are removed from context. And then it sort of peters out and then later at the reign of Tartmosis III. It really takes hold and he really erases her name. So it's a more complex process. There's some reaction immediately after she disappears. And Senan Mott is also prescribed. He is erased as well and other of her officials are too, but others remain in power.

So there's a real complex transition point. Well, thank you all very much, Elizabeth Frood, Campbell Price and Kate Spence. Next week we'll be talking about the engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, and thank you for listening. And the In Our Time podcast gets some extra time now with a few minutes of bonus material from Melvin and his guests. but then it went really quickly. Sorry I called you Graham earlier on. I know a Graham Price. She was a big friend of mine when I was a kid.

My mother's best friend was Mary Price. Her son, my age, was Graham. And then I realised, I apologise. Give me an apology. So I didn't time to go into the diplomacy. All the legacy stuff as well. Which is really interesting. Well, let's go, let's talk about the legacy.

Because, I mean, we sort of talked about the so-called like pornographic graffiti. And people have seen that as, you know, Hatshepsut and Senenmut. And that goes, and that kind of crystallizes this key issue with how we study gender in ancient Egypt. And, you know, this early idea that somehow she... What you're talking about pornographic or graffiti? I know what pornographic and graffiti mean, but what specifically are we talking about here? This particular thing in a grotto above the template Diorabakhri, there's this. Yeah.

several graffiti, actually. It's not just one, but the date of those and the identity of the people in them is not clear. But you have a pharaoh, a woman in a pharaonic headdress being in a sexual position with a man. I don't think it's a headdress. I think it's a representation of a wig. It's just a woman and a man engaging in the sexual act. And because there is some graffiti in the cave that is of similar date. Exactly. But it tells us so much about our attitude and how our approach as Egyptologists to studying gender has changed over time.

So in the early part of the 20th century, Hatshepsut was this woman who was being manipulated by Seney Mouet and had this horrid relationship with him and was manipulated by these men in the court. Now we see her as this powerful woman, we've reclaimed her, and it tells us so much about how we think about gender. Absolutely, and perceive characters in the past. I'm surprised she doesn't have more of a,

more of, she's not more of a, kind of a rallying point for feminist thinkers, for the transgender community because she's gender bending. She's gender bending. And I mean, other than very fleeting references, I remember when I was young, reading in the mid-90s a newspaper column where Tina Turner claimed she was reincarnated,

hatchet suit reincarnated. And her, Why didn't you say that on the program? You didn't have a chance. Honestly, you could have just popped it in. Oh, we should have gone into the genie bending. We hardly talked about the suggesting as a male issue either because it's fantastic the way she sort of gradually morphs

from a female to wearing male crowns to interfull male kit and male body. It's really interesting. Oh, blow, we missed that, didn't it? My fault. Next time. You can't make me depressed. I thought that was a good program. And now there's another good program.

It's lining up behind it. So much to talk about. That's always the way, isn't it? It is. Yeah. Particularly when we have to spend so much time getting in things about not really knowing. Yeah, yeah. I think that's really key.

I mean, you're academics and you've got to stick by your trade, and that is what people expect, and that's good. I think people think, oh, that's good. That's the way they set things. That's good. And I think that is essential. I don't think we should skip that at all. If we do skip that, then if you do, then we're not doing program with academics. I mean, that's part of the point.

It means you can't bring in Tina Turner. I agree to close hold. I told people I would mention Tina Turner. Yeah, I promised I would use the word gender bending. Oh, yeah. But it's fantastic. Disappointment everywhere. In our time with Melvin Bragg was produced by Victoria Brignall.

So, Alice Lockstone, I'm here for the history. Well, Ben Henderson, I like the formality. And that's perfect because we have a lot of history to share. Why did tea become such a British obsession? How did English turn into the language we speak today? And yes, why do women's clothes still not have pockets? Well, in our new podcast, Here for the History, we're investigating how stories from the past shape everyday life today. Basically, the things we've all noticed, but never stopped to question. Listen on BBC Sounds or watch on YouTube. Just search for Here for the History.

Lives Less Ordinary is bringing you a special series of extraordinary love stories from all around the world. In India, love at first sight feels more psychotic than arranged marriage. Love stories that break all the rules. We came into our relationship with a lot of complicated pieces. Stories that show that sometimes love is all you need. Livesless Ordinary Love Stories from the BBC World Service. Listen now. Search for Lives Less Ordinary wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

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