Noble Blood - The Female Pharaoh

Episode Date: May 14, 2024

From wife and sister of a Pharaoh, to regent to eventually Pharaoh in her own right, Hatshepsut is one of the most compelling figures of the ancient world, a woman who sought to preserve her legacy in real time by carving her accomplishments in stone. Support Noble Blood: — Bonus episodes, stickers, and scripts on Patreon — Order Dana's book, 'Anatomy: A Love Story' and its sequel 'Immortality: A Love Story'See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hey, I'm Dr. Maya Shunker, a cognitive scientist and hosts of the podcast, a slight change of plans, a show about who we are and who we become when life makes other plans. I wish that I hadn't resisted for so long the need to change. We have to be willing to live with a kind of uncertainty that none of us likes. You can have opinions. You can have like a strong,

dance. And then there's your body having its own program. Listen to a slight change of plans on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of IHeart Radio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised. In 1922, Howard Carter had achieved what most archaeologists can only dream of. After over two decades of methodically exploring and excavating Egypt's Valley of the Kings, a region in Thebes where pharaohs of ancient Egypt built their tombs, he made a discovery that would change the field of archaeology forever. Carter happened upon a pharaoh's tomb virtually untouched for millennia. Pharaoh Tutankhamun was relatively inconsequential as a ruler, but thousands of years later as King Tut,

he became the most famous ancient Egyptian pharaoh of modern times, thanks to the fact that unlike the tombs of many other pharaohs, it hadn't already been ransacked by robbers, which meant it was filled with dazzling artifacts. King Tut and Howard Carter both shot. to stardom. But 20 years before Carter's career-defining discovery, back in his very first season in the Valley of the Kings, Carter had actually come tantalizingly close to making another spectacular find. Only three days into his expedition, while exploring the southeast wall of the basin, he discovered steps. The stone staircase led to the tomb,

of Tutmos IV, a pharaoh of the 18th dynasty. The tomb itself was almost entirely empty, having been ransacked by ancient tomb raiders. But Carter didn't walk away completely empty-handed. He found two artifacts, an alabaster cup and a blue scarab beetle carving, both bearing the name Hotchipsut. Later that same season, Carter found another tomb, one that was relatively simple compared to the ornate burial chambers of the valley. After climbing down the rough steps and creeping down a passageway, he came to a chamber which looked to be ransacked. All that remained were two mummified women and some mummified geese. Carter was unimpressed. He took the geesealed the tomb and moved on to his next find.

Another archaeologist came upon that tomb just three years later, Edward Arton. He removed one of the two mummies, the one in an actual coffin, and he resealed the tomb again. Neither Carter nor Arton thought that the tomb was important enough to warrant even cataloguing. Until the tomb's rediscovery in 1989, the remaining female mummy had lain alone on the cold floor of the dark tomb for over 3,000 years. If only Howard Carter had known that this unimportant-looking female mummy, which he came upon decades before King Tut and left behind in favor of mummified geese, was likely one of ancient Egypt's greatest pharaohs. I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is Noble Blood. From the beginning of Hotchipsut's reign, she was exceptional, both in the sense of her rulership

and in the sense that she was in almost every way, an anomaly. Before we get into Hatshepsut's life, I think it'll be a little helpful first to understand ancient Egyptian royal families and their systems of inheritance. Like many monarchies throughout history, the Egyptian monarchy was organized around male preferent primogeniture. In other words, firstborn sons and their offspring took privilege over their siblings in matters of succession. Speaking of siblings, ancient Egyptian royal families also practiced incest. That might count as this episode's Lord Byron cameo. In ancient Egypt, brothers and sisters regularly married each other and had children who would then often go on to marry their

siblings. Ancient Egyptians believed that pharaohs were the physical embodiment of gods, and since incest was integral to the ancient Egyptian creation myth, this practice within the royal family was seen as divinely inspired. Another marital tradition that ancient Egyptian royals practiced was polygamy. While polygamy was not the norm in everyday life in ancient Egypt, pharaohs were able to have multiple wives. Their primary wife was ideally a sibling, but they were not necessarily related to their lesser wives. If a pharaoh didn't have any male offspring by their primary wife, the sons of lesser wives could ascend to the throne. Importantly, Egyptian succession almost never included women, and few women were pharaohs in their

own right. That being said, royal women were not shut out of power entirely. Within their system of government, there was an institutional structure set up to bestow power upon select women. Given the many health problems royalty faced, due to their family's incest, as well as the decadent lifestyles they led, it was common for pharaohs to die young, with only a young child to succeed them. When that happened, the new Pharaoh's mother, usually the primary wife of the former Pharaoh, acted as her son's regent. The phenomenon of mother as regent was so common that King's mother was an official title that one could hold. In fact, there was no term in their language that translates to regent, but King's mother appears to have functioned as the equivalent term.

exercising power as king's mother was entirely accepted, even celebrated, and if you think about it, it makes sense why? In a strict system of patriarchal rule, if an adult man was acting as regent to a younger pharaoh, he might be tempted to usurp power for himself. But women who had no way to take the throne would act in their son's best interests and gladly step aside once their sons came of age. A monument erected by Amos I, the first Pharaoh of the 18th dynasty, offers just one example of the celebration of king mothers. Amos the first had a stella, or stone, similar to a tombstone, engraved at Karnak, which honored his mother, his former regent, Ahotep I. Hortep I. The engravings describe her as, quote, one who pulled Egypt together, having cared for,

its army, having guarded it, having brought back those who fled it, gathering up its deserters, having quieted the South, subduing those who defy her." I don't know about you, but just reading that, it definitely doesn't sound like she was a toothless regent. For a woman's power to be celebrated in such a way so early is kind of remarkable. Notable, too, is just how many kings' mothers there were. in the few generations before Hachepsut, during the outset of the 18th dynasty. And importantly, these women were not exclusively the mothers of the pharaohs for whom they were acting as regent. Excuse all of the names that I'm about to throw your way. No need to remember

them, and I will do my best not to mispronounce them, but just to get the point across. For example, Hachepsut's grandmother Amos Nefertari had been the king's mother. and ruled as regent for her daughter's husband. Because Amos Nefertari's husband, Faro Amos I, hadn't had any male heirs, the throne passed to their daughter's husband, a distant relative. But that husband was young when he ascended the throne, so Amos Nefertari, despite not being her son-in-law's biological mother, shepherded the country while he learned the ropes. This tradition of female regency, later helped Hotschepsut legitimize her reign, but more on that later. Like his predecessor, that son-in-law, Aminhotep I, Amin-Hotep I, didn't have any male heirs,

so the throne passed to his sister's husband, Thutmos I first, and finally we get to Hotschepsut. She was the daughter of Thutmos the first and his primary wife, Ames. Thutmos and Ames, Thutmos and Ames, And Um's did not have any sons, but Thetmos had a son by his secondary wife. So Thutmos the second, that son, was his father's successor. Following tradition, half-siblings, Thet Most the second and Hotschipsut wed, thus making Hotschipsut the daughter of the pharaoh, the sister of the pharaoh, and the wife of the Pharaoh, quite the collection of titles. At this point, Hachipsut's life and true.

trajectory was pretty standard for someone of her background. What her everyday life looked like, we can't exactly know. But her general responsibilities were to perform religious rituals, and like many queens before and after her, to provide the pharaoh with a male heir. But everything changed when her husband slash half-brother that most the second died in 1479 BC. Okay, this is the last of the very, very confusing family tree, I promise. Hotchipsut and Thutmost II hadn't had any sons, and so when Thetmose II died, the throne passed to his son by his secondary wife, Isis,

a son named Thutmos the Third. But like many of the pharaohs before him, Thutmos the third was a young boy when he ascended to the throne. Instead of his mother, Isis, who had been a... secondary wife, acting as his regent, Hatshepsut, as the closest person of royal blood, assumed the role of King Mother. This transition was the stepping stone for Hachpset between life as a royal wife and life as a pharaoh. As king's mother, Hachpsut basically ruled Egypt with little to no input from Thutmos III. However, instead of stepping aside, one Thetmos

the third came of age, Hachipsut took another quite unusual path. Seven years into young Thutmos' reign, Hachipsutkot crowned herself, along with her stepson, co-faraoh of Egypt. She was no longer ruler on behalf of someone else, but now acted in her own name. And even though she was technically of equal power to Thetmos III, and even though both of their courts got along, Hachipsut became the primary leader of Egypt. In becoming Pharaoh, Hachipsut went from king's mother to daughter of Ray, lady of the two lands, king of upper and lower Egypt, Hachipsut united with Amun. As Pharaoh, she was successful in maintaining peace and order within the state. Even better, she helped Egypt prosper financially and artistically. It's clear

that Hachepsut's rise to the throne was a positive force in ancient Egypt. We'll never know why exactly Hachepsut chose to elevate herself to becoming Pharaoh. Unfortunately, the kinds of records or stories needed to know that information have been lost to history. Perhaps she felt she needed to become co-faraoh in order to secure the sun for Thadmosher stepson. Or perhaps she believed this promoting. would be the best way for her to maintain her own legitimacy as a ruler. Maybe Thutmos was unqualified as a pharaoh and she thought she was doing what was best for Egypt.

We can't know. Luckily, however, there is quite a lot that we can know about how Hotchipsut legitimized herself as a pharaoh to the public. And we can thank Hotchipsett herself for that. During her reign, she sponsored an impressive number of artistic, and architectural projects. Many of these commissions featured engravings, paintings, and sculptures that tell her story,

or at least the story she wanted told. The type and volume of art created during Hotchipsut's reign was markedly different from that of her predecessors. First, facilitated by the trade route that Hotchipsut had helped to open up, Artists began to draw inspiration from neighboring kingdoms, and Egyptian art began to feature new motifs and techniques. Not only were artists creating new visions of Egyptian art, but now Hachipsut was paying them to do so. The Pharaoh commissioned an impressive number of buildings and monuments during her reign,

and in the interest of keeping this episode relatively short, I'll name just a few. Following in the footsteps of previous pharaohs, Hotchipsut sponsored various projects at the Karnak Temple Complex in Luxor, like what is now known as the Chappelle Rouge Temple. The most outstanding of these projects at Karnak are twin obelisks that once flanked the entrance to a temple. Measuring just under 30 meters, almost 100 feet tall, the obelisks were the tallest buildings in the world, when they were constructed. Unfortunately, only one of these obelisk's remains upright, but it has stayed upright for over 3,500 years,

which is amazing, and that remaining obelisk is the tallest obelisk in Egypt to this day. The gem in all of ancient Egyptian architecture, really, is her mortuary temple at Dear El-Bari, the temple, which was meant to serve as a place to worship the pharaoh after her death, sits on top of a series of colonated terraces. Sloping walkways allow visitors to scale the many stories with ease. The monument was built into a steep cliff face, which makes for a striking backdrop.

Despite how awe-inspiring it is today, the temple is less impressive than it once was. Many sculptures, including ones of the gods Osiris and Sphinxes, were eluded over the years by other pharaohs for their own projects. And although a bit hard to imagine based on today's arid landscape, the entire complex was once surrounded by lush gardens. I urge you to look up photos of the temple, as it certainly deserves its title as a masterpiece of the ancient world. And I'll put up photos on the Patreon within the episode script. It's on these buildings that Hotchipsut solidified justification for her reign. At all of these different sites, there remain engravings and paintings which tell stories of Hachapsut's origins, and her accolades and many accomplishments.

For example, on the walls of her mortuary temple, we can still find engravings telling about her successful expedition to the Kingdom of Punt, or the region south of the Nile, around the mouth of the Red Sea. Inscriptions and images also tell us how the pharaoh used religion and gender to justify her reign. As I previously mentioned, ancient Egyptians saw pharaohs as physical embodiments of their gods. Not only were pharaohs ordained by the gods to rule, but they were the beings that connected the physical and spiritual worlds and held the two in balance. If the king wasn't appeasing the gods properly, the world, as the ancient Egyptians knew, would cease to exist. The Nile would dry up, disease would descend upon the population,

or their neighbors would invade. As such, being a pharaoh involved a panoply of religious responsibilities. Accomplishing all of those religious tasks were not difficult for Hachapsoot. she had already trained to be God's wife, or the highest priestess in the state religion. The Pharaoh's religious rituals were no more difficult or demanding than those of the Pharaoh's wife. The task Hotchipsut did face was to communicate the divine justification for her rule. And to do that, Hotchipsut made herself divine. At both her temple in Karnak and her mortuary temple, inscriptions tell the supposed story of Hachipsut's divine birth.

According to the inscriptions, Amun, the principal god during the 18th dynasty, visited and impregnated Hachipsut's mother in the form of Hachipsut's father, the pharaoh, Thutmust the first. This way, Hachipsut is simultaneously the daughter of a pre-exhipsut. previous pharaoh, but also sired by a god. Hachapsut's birth itself was also sacred, as her mother was tended to in labor by Hecchkett, the goddess of life, and Knoom, the god in charge of shaping humans. On top of all that, according to her story,

Hachepsut was also endorsed by the oracle of Amun, who proclaimed that it was his will that Hachapsut be Pharaoh. With those stories and proclamations, Hachipsut covered all of her bases. Whether or not she truly believed that narrative is something else we'll never know. But like many later monarchs who bought into their own divine mandate to rule,

Hachipsut very well could have believed that the gods predetermined her birth and fate as a pharaoh. But more importantly, the general point, public and future generations needed to believe it. And by inscribing that tale on her temples, Hachipsut was cementing her claim to the throne in perpetuity. Another key way that Hachepsut legitimized her rule was by deliberately masculinizing her image. In ancient Egyptian art, there were customary and distinct representations of men and women. The main difference between genders was that men were drawn wearing short kilts and with their feet spread apart, and women

had ankle-length dresses and a shorter stride. Given that Egyptian pharaohs were almost always men, the standard depiction of a pharaoh included standard male dress and stance. Ferros were also depicted wearing a variety of crowns and a fake beard. During the early years of heres, agency. Hotchipsut was depicted femininely. She had a smaller stride and wore a long dress. I mean, she was the wife of the former Pharaoh and not yet claiming the throne beside her stepson. There was no need for her to portray herself as anything but the norm. However, once she crowned herself Pharaoh in the seventh year of the most the third's reign, her depictions started to feature both masculine and feminine traits. For example, the engraving of Hachepsut at Chappelle Rouge shows her with a long dress,

but also with a crown adorned by ramshorns, an accessory worn by pharaohs. Over time, her depictions became more and more masculine. For example, some of the statues that we still have of her today feature the fake beard that all pharaohs donned. Other engravings that depict both Hachepsut and her co-ruler Thetmost III, appear to show two male pharaohs. We only know that it's this particular pair because of the inscriptions that accompany the engravings. It's clear that Hachapsut was meticulous in crafting her image. She even went so far as to have altered depictions of herself from her years as queen and king mother to eliminate the queenly attributes and add in more masculine, traits. Now, this topic has been controversial over the years. For a while, many scholars believed

that Hachepsut's masculine appearance in art reflected a queer identity, or perhaps an androgynous wardrobe. However, that view has largely fallen out of fashion, particularly because of the feminine grammar that was used in writing Hachepsut's names and epithets, accompanying many of masculine depictions of Hachipsut are inscriptions using feminine versions of titles and feminine endings for words. So while the image appears to depict a man, the inscriptions communicate that we are looking at a female pharaoh. Scholars now mostly believe that Hachipsut did not try to hide her sex, but rather assumed these masculine traits in portraiture in order to associate herself with kioskut. kingship. And considering that we still consider her not just a pharaoh, but one of Egypt's most impactful pharaohs, she seems to have achieved her goal. About 22 years after Thutmos

III was crowned Pharaoh, and about 15 years after Hotshipt crowned herself, co-fero, Hachipset died sometime around 1458 BC. She was likely around 50 when she passed. Based on the mummy that is believed to be Hachipsut, she likely died of bone cancer. Her co-ruler and stepson, Thutmos III, went on to rule for about 33 more years. That I'm telling the story of Hotship Soot itself is pretty remarkable given the measures taken after her death to erase her from history. Across the many monuments that Hotchipsut commissioned, archaeologists have found evidence that Thutemost III and perhaps his son, the next Pharaoh, tried to destroy statues and engravings featuring Hotchipsut. One of the biggest examples of that erasure was found at Dier-El-Bari, not far from Hotchipsut's mortuary temple. In the 20th century, archaeologists found two pits filled with destroyed statues, just yards away from Hot Shipsut's temple.

After reassembling the fractured stone, it became clear that the broken statues were all of Hot Shipsut. Some featured her as a sphinx, others depicted her sitting, and some were enormous statues of the Pharaoh standing upright. These works of art had previously adorned her mortuary temple, but at some point they were removed, destroyed, and thrown into pits. It seems Thutmos I third wanted to erase Hotschepsut's image so completely that he hid some of the rubble underneath a ramp leading to his own mortuary temple. But that wasn't the only form of erasure that Thutemost III demanded. Artisans on the Orders of the Pharaoh chipped away at images of the previous pharaoh as well as inscriptions bearing her name. Thutmos III literally tried to remove Hatshepsut from ancient Egyptian historical records. Although this act might feel pretty personal, the destructive mission was likely not an act of retribution on the part of Thutemost III against his stepmom.

Evidence suggests that this work didn't begin immediately after Hotchips had died, but close to 20 years after. Why wait so long to take revenge if it's personal? Historians hypothesize that actually Thutmos III removing his former co-ruler from the records was trying to gradually subsume his stepmom's achievements as his own, In order to appear all-powerful, he wouldn't want to share credit for various achievements during their co-rulership. He wanted to claim those achievements for himself. Additionally, the idea of female leadership complicated the male-led form of government that the ancient Egyptians subscribed to. Since it was the Pharaoh's job to maintain order and ward off chaos, it's possible erasing Hotchipsut from their history,

was an attempt to erase the reality of female leadership and any of the chaos that it might cause. So even though it might be easy to assume that the most third attempted to erase Hotchipsut from history because of personal contempt for his stepmom-slash-a-ant, the motivation was much more likely political. Despite this campaign of Erasure, evidence of Hot Shipsut's reign remains. I mean, how else would we know about her? But between her death and the archaeological excavations of the 19th and 20th centuries, Hachipsut largely disappeared from history. It was only after archaeologists deciphered the inscriptions at DRL Bari that Hachpsut, the female pharaoh, reappeared. And that is part of why I'm telling her story today. This woman was one of the most successful and prolific pharaohs.

of ancient Egypt. Despite centuries of silence, we're now able to share her story and her achievements. Her reign complicated the patriarchal system of governance of her time, and complicates our current understanding of gender and power in the ancient world. But still, she existed, and her story is worth telling. That's the story of Hot Shipsuit, but keep listening after a brief sponsor break for a little bit on her beauty secrets. You can have opinions, you can have like a strong stance. And then there's your body having its own program. I'm Dr. Maya Shunker, a cognitive scientist and hosts of the podcast, a slight change of plans,

a show about who we are and who we become when life makes other plans. We share stories and scientific insights to help us all better navigate these periods of turbulence and transformation. There is one finding that is consistent, and that is that our resilience rests on our relationships. I wish that I hadn't resisted for so long the need to change. We have to be willing to live with a kind of uncertainty that none of us likes. Listen to a slight change of plans on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. You can have opinions. You can have like a strong stance.

And then there's your body having its own program. I'm Dr. Maya Shunker, a cognitive scientist and hosts of the podcast, a slight change of plans, a show about who we are and who we become when life makes other plans. We share stories and scientific insights to help us all better navigate these periods of turbulence and transformation. There is one finding that is consistent, and that is that our resilience, rests on our relationships. I wish that I hadn't resisted for so long the need to change.

We have to be willing to live with a kind of uncertainty that none of us likes. Listen to a slight change of plans on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Nowadays, skincare and beauty are all the rage. Influencers are touting the newest creams and ointments, mascaras, and lipsticks. obviously the solution to any and all of your problems. Despite the distinctly postmodern capitalist spin on beauty that we're currently experiencing, emphasis on one's appearance is as ancient as the pharaohs.

One of Hotchipsut's notable accomplishment is her successful expedition to the kingdom of Punt, which I spoke briefly about earlier. That kingdom was known for its luxury goods, like aromatic, resins, ivory, gold. Hotchipsut's royally sponsored expedition came back to Egypt with live mer trees, with frankincense, and with gold. This trio of items predating the three wise men of the Bible, Hotchipsut brought them first. Hotchipsut took the frankincense from this expedition, charred it, and ground it to a paste. She then took the paste and added it to a galena-based eye, cosmetic, now known as coal. While she was almost certainly not the first person to ever do it,

Hatshepsut is the first person to have been recorded using Frankencense resin as eyeliner. Archaeologists also think they found the skin cream Hatshepsut used. The Egyptian Museum at the University of Bonn in Germany has in its permanent collection a vessel shaped like a falcon that, based on on an inscription on the vessel likely belonged to Hachipsut. Originally, scholars believed that the falcon might have once held her perfume, but after breaking through the seal into the body of the falcon, they were able to test what was once inside. Based on the chemical components of the remaining ancient residue,

the vessel likely contained skin lotion, and not just any lotion, but body lotion or even medication. for irritated skin. The sample contained lots of fatty acids that are known to provide relief to people with skin conditions. Further, scientists found a number of hydrocarbons, which are used today to treat chronic conditions like eczema. Scholars know that skin diseases ran in Hachepsut's family, so it is very likely that Hachpsut herself suffered from something like Surveh. and used that cream in that falcon to help calm her skin. While this cream might have been a temporary salve for hot chipsuit, it also might have killed her.

One of the hydrocarbons that the scientists found in the falcon was a benzopyrine, one of the most carcinogenic compounds known. This is the compound in cigarettes that causes lung cancer. So essentially, Hachipsut probably exposed herself to cancerous lotion regularly. Scholars knew for years that Hachipsut had cancer, now we have a potential cause. People have always said beauty is pain. Noble Blood is a production of IHeart Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Menke. Noble Blood is hosted by me, Danish forts, with additional writing and researching by Hannah Johnston, Hannah Zwick, Courtney Sender, Julia Melani, and Armand Kasam.

The show is edited and produced by Noemi Griffin and Rima Il K. Ali with supervising producer Josh Thane and executive producers Aaron Manky, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, visit the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite. It shows. Hey, I'm Dr. Maya Shunker, a cognitive scientist and hosts of the podcast, a slight change of plans, a show about who we are and who we become when life makes other plans. I wish that I hadn't resisted for so long the need to change. We have to be willing to live with a kind of uncertainty that none of us likes. You can have opinions. You can have like a strong stance and then there's your body having its own program.

Listen to a slight change of plans on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast, guaranteed human.