The Ancients - Hatshepsut: Egypt's Hidden Pharaoh

Episode Date: December 27, 2020

Hatshepsut – whose name means “foremost of noblewomen” – was an exceptional figure in the history of Ancient Egypt. Only the second woman in history to assume the title of pharaoh, during her reign she oversaw the building of monumental temples, established trade connections with far away African powers and oversaw extended periods of peace. Hatshepsut's legacy in the history of Ancient Egypt is remarkable and the fact that her story has been largely-forgotten is one of the great tragedies of antiquity. To shine a light on Hatshepsut, Tristan was delighted to be joined by Lucia Gahlin, a brilliant Egyptologist with a great passion for the story of Hatshepsut. This was a great chat, enjoy.  Lucia also stars in our new History Hit documentary about Hatshepsut, featuring alongside the likes of Kara Cooney and Monica Hanna. Please do have a watch: historyhit.com/hatshepsut

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like The Ancients ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. It's the Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and in today's podcast we are kicking off a small series on ancient Egypt. And in this first podcast we are talking about one of the most extraordinary pharaohs from the history of ancient Egypt. Her name was Hatshepsut and she was an extraordinary figure. She ruled in her own

right for years. She was called a pharaoh, a title that was normally for men. We know that she was involved in military campaigns, in trade expeditions to faraway lands, in the construction of monumental architecture including temples and the building of obelisks, a remarkable figure who was almost erased unfairly from history. Well, to shine a light on Hatshepsut, this extraordinary ancient Egyptian pharaoh, I was delighted to be joined by Lucia Garlin. Lucia is a leading expert on ancient Egypt. She is a huge fan of Hatshepsut, brilliant speaker, so it was great to get on the show to talk all things Hatshepsut. You're going to love this one. She was absolutely great. Here's Lucia.

Lucia, thank you so much for joining me today. It's such a pleasure, Tristan. Now, Hatshepsut, as a female pharaoh in ancient Egypt, she seems to be this exceptional figure. I think there's no denying that Hatshepsut was an extraordinary woman. You know, the ancient Egyptian pharaoh was ideologically male. There's no escaping that fact. That's not to underestimate the significance of women within the royal family. Pharaoh's mothers, pharaoh's wives, pharaoh's daughters, extremely important, both cultically, often

politically. They exercised a great deal of influence very often. But in some 3,000 years of ancient Egyptian history, women didn't tend to rule the country. And there was Hatshepsut. Attaining that position of ruler and then the achievements that we can talk about were quite marvellous. Absolutely. We can definitely talk about all of that in the next hour. But first of all, let's start with the background. Lucia, what sort of world is Hatshepsut born into? Hatshepsut is living at a time when Egypt was stable. Egypt had control over the most fabulous resources, the eastern desert to the east of the Nile Valley yielding

gold, turquoise, carnelian, copper, all sorts of different stone for construction and statuary. So the control of the natural resources, a very fertile country, the annual flooding of the Nile coupled with the wonderful sun providing Egypt with two crops a year. And then you have trade, extensive trade, lapis lazuli coming all the way from Afghanistan, from Badakhshan in Afghanistan. So Egypt was a strong and prosperous country at the time. But if you went back 100 years before Hatshepsut was born, it wasn't the same story at all. Egypt was politically disunified. The north of Egypt was ruled by foreigners and you had an ensuing period of civil war. So at the beginning of what we call the 18th dynasty,

Hatshepsut's dynasty, there had been a reuniting of Egypt. And there had been a period prior to that of all sorts of trouble within Egypt. So that would have still been within memory. So Egypt had emerged several decades earlier out of a period of trouble. And I think that's something we need to be aware of when we're thinking about Hatshepsut and her role within the history of ancient Egypt. And first of all, you mentioned the 18th dynasty there. And we were talking just before we started recording it, the great length, the great extent of ancient Egyptian history in antiquity? I mean, when about is the 18th dynasty? That's a good question, because we are dealing with such a vast period of time when we think about ancient Egypt. And we're actually about halfway through the 3,000 years of ancient Egyptian history when the 18th dynasty starts. So we call that the first dynasty

of the new kingdom of ancient Egyptian history. So the New Kingdom is about 500 years, the 18th, 19th and 20th dynasties, and that begins around 1550 BC. So to help with thinking about this vast period of time, it's worth being aware that when Hatshepsut is living, the Great Pyramid at Giza is over a thousand years old. So the Great Pyramid at Giza is already an ancient monument when Hatshepsut's alive. And when Hatshepsut ends up beginning her rule of Egypt, the dynasty was only some 70 years old. So when Hatshepsut ends up coming to the throne, that's only 70 years after the end of a period of trouble, of political fragmentation, of civil war, and then the beginnings of a new stable period of ancient Egyptian history. So 70 years isn't that long.

No, that's quite interesting, especially for the 18th dynasty. You said it's only been there for 70 odd years before Hatshepsut is born. I mean, what do we know about these previous rulers in the decades before Hatshepsut's birth? So when I talked about political fragmentation in Egypt, I'm really talking about a north-south divide. And what emerges in what we call the second intermediate period, the period prior to the 18th dynasty, Hatshepsut's dynasty, when we talk about the second intermediate period, we're talking about a period of division where it is a foreign ruler in the delta ruling the north of Egypt. And it is a ruler in Luxor.

We tend to refer to ancient Luxor in the south of Egypt as Thebes. That's using the ancient Greek name. Actually, the ancient Egyptian name was Waset for ancient Luxor in the south of Egypt. So a local ruler in the south of Egypt, Waset, Thebes, and it is the local ruler in the south of Egypt who manages to ally with his neighbours and enter into conflict with the northern rulers and then an outright war with the foreigners in the eastern delta, and then an expulsion of those local rulers in the delta. We tend to refer to them today as the Hyksos. They have a southern Levantine material culture. We don't know exactly where they came from, somewhere to the east of the

Mediterranean. We can't say with certainty, but it is those local Theban rulers who managed to drive them out around 1550 BC. So it is a local, rather bellicose ruler from the south, whose name was Ahmos, who ends up as the first ruler of the 18th dynasty. His son succeeds him, Amenhotep I, but Amenhotep I doesn't appear to have a viable son to succeed him. And so a choice is made, a pharaoh, Thutmose I, and that is then Hatshepsut's father. And so what do we know about Hatshepsut's relationship with her father and also her mother? I'm guessing Thutmose I at this time, he didn't just have one wife. Phares definitely didn't have one wife,

but they picked out their favourite as what they called their chief wife or their great wife. Hatshepsut was the daughter of Thutmose I and his chief wife, his great wife. Her name was Ahmose. When Thutmose I died, the child by the great wife was Hatshepsut. Hatshepsut, female, not destined for the throne, because for the ancient Egyptians, the pharaoh was very much a male idea,

an extremely masculine idea. A whole ideology, a whole framework around the role of the Egyptian pharaoh was reliant on projecting strength and virility in a very masculine way. So Hatshepsut, although the offspring by the great wife Ahmos, wasn't destined for the throne. And instead, her half-brother ended up the successor. And her half-brother was a son of Thutmose I by what we would call a secondary wife, one of the other wives. Her name was Muthnefret. Now, actually, Muthnefret wasn't just any old wife. Mutnefret wasn't just any old wife. Mutnefret held the title daughter of a pharaoh. We don't actually know which pharaoh, but we think possibly Ahmose, in which case Thutmose II, as he was called, was related back to the great Ahmose and Amenhotep I,

the founders of the first dynasty, in a way that his father wasn't. So that's quite interesting. So what you're saying there, so Thutmose II has this connection, perhaps to a founding father of this dynasty or someone further up in the dynasty line. But Hatshepsut too,

she is also, she is the daughter of the great royal wife of Thutmose I. But when she's growing up, she's not expecting to become pharaoh in her own right. She's expecting to have a different role. Yes, she certainly wouldn't have expected to become pharaoh, but she would have been very evident during her father's reign because, interestingly, the pharaohs of Egypt traditionally, until the 1200s BC, until later on, post-Hatshepsut, the pharaoh Ramesses II in the 19th dynasty,

until later on Ramesses II's reign, you don't tend to find sons, princes, featuring during the reigns of their fathers. You find the daughters featuring. So the daughters are very present during the reigns of their fathers, very often represented on the walls of temples, on statuary, very often present, cultically important. The pharaoh is represented, surrounded by royal women, his mother, his wife, his daughters, and they provide a divine framework around him as the female counterpart to his masculinity. So Hatshepsut, as a daughter of the pharaoh, would have been extremely important within the royal family, especially as a daughter of the most important wife. But she certainly wouldn't have expected to rule Egypt as full

pharaoh. Having said that, at the beginning of the 18th dynasty, those early rulers I mentioned, Ahmose and Amenhotep I, they had both arrived on the throne when they were young. And in both instances, it appears that their mothers had helped them out, had co-ruled, had acted as regents to their sons until their deaths. Now, never taking full royal titulary, never claiming to rule Egypt, but helping out their sons. Ahmos, at the beginning of the dynasty, we think was about 10 years old. about 10 years old. And we think that his mother, Ahutep, the wife of second Enra, Tau, that she had either ruled on his behalf early on because he was too young to rule Egypt properly, or possibly she was designated to do the administrative side of the governance because he was busy expelling the Hyksos in the north, so engaged in the more military activity. And then

with their son Amenhotep I, we then see again, so the son of Ahmose and his wife Ahmose Nefertari, we then see the same thing happening. Amenhotep I arriving on the throne, seemingly too young to rule Egypt in a full way, calling upon his mother, Ahmaud's Nefertari, to rule alongside him. And we think that she might have been responsible for even helping out with the decision as to who his son and heir should be, because we think that Ahmaud's Nefertari actually survived into Thutmose I's reign and died at a very old age, in which case there's just a chance that she was still around when Hatshepsut was born. And I just love the thought of this amazing woman, very elderly by that stage, passing on perhaps stories of what she'd achieved, never as a full pharaoh, but as an extremely important co-regent

to her son, Amenhotep I. There's just a chance that she was sitting with Hatshepsut on her knee, regaling her with stories of how important a royal woman could be. I mean, absolutely. I love that so much. And from what you're saying, it sounds like when Hatshepsut, she's growing up, she has these role models of powerful women before her who have shown how they can be very significant during this dynasty. Yeah, I think that is important to be aware of. And so we're talking when Hatshepsut starts her reign, we're talking, as I say, about 70 years earlier that Ahotep had probably stepped in for her son, certainly in the south of Egypt. And then we're only talking 45 years previously that Ahmose Nefertari had clearly acted as a regent,

co-regent to her son, Amenhotep I. So not many decades previously. And as I say, Ahmos Nefertari, living to such an elderly age that she was even around, it's thought, into the beginning of Hatshepsut's father's reign, Ahmos I's reign. That's amazing. And first of all, forgive my ignorance, but how do we know all of this stuff from, it seems like, over thousands of years ago? Is it mainly through hieroglyphics? I mean, what are the main sources that we know so much about, like the lengths of these reigns? We're really lucky that the ancient Egyptians wrote everything down. They were an extremely bureaucratic society. They recorded everything. So you have the monumental inscriptions in hieroglyphs on the walls of

temples, on the walls of tombs, on inscriptions on statues, because very importantly, the ancient Egyptians didn't divorce the image from the written word. The two were combined beautifully, and the ancient Egyptians captioned everything. They labelled everything. Inscriptions on statues were actually really much more important than the image itself. So we have plenty of more monumental inscription in hieroglyphics. on flakes of limestone, on bits of broken pottery and other writing services in ink, hieratic, a more accursive script, which was more the script of everyday life. So the legal documents, the administrative documents, wonderful literature, love poetry, it's all written down. And the ancient Egyptians in their dating of these inscriptions and documents, dated by regnal year of the pharaoh.

So we know reign lengths because archaeology and the study of the written records gives us the latest known regnal year for a pharaoh. Until an archaeologist comes along in the future and finds an inscription with a later regnal year for any one pharaoh, we go with the latest known regnal year for each of the pharaohs. Fantastic. That's amazing. Especially considering how many years ago, even in antiquity, the times we're talking about now. You mentioned it slightly earlier, were talking about now. You mentioned it slightly earlier, end of Thutmose I's reign, he dies, he has succeeded. What happens? So with the death of Thutmose I, it is his designated heir, his son by his secondary wife, Mutt-Nephrit, who succeeds to the throne. And Thutmose II then rules Egypt for some 12, 13 years.

We don't have a great deal of exciting evidence for his reign. He doesn't seem to have engaged fully in the military activity that his father, Thutmose I, Amenhotep I before him, Ahmose, had certainly chosen to focus on during their reigns. And we don't have great monumental architecture for Thutmose II's reign. So it's not a reign for which we have great achievements. But we do know that he married his half-sister Hatshepsut. She became his great-royal wife. He, of course, also had secondary wives, as we call them. And we know that Hatshepsut was influential during her husband's reign. She features during his reign and she takes the title God's Wife of Amun, which we know to have been a very important both ritual and political title.

It relates her to the deity emerging as the king of the gods. The ancient Egyptian religion was very much a polytheistic religion, but we have by this stage a more supreme deity. And that is something that Hatshepsut really focuses on when she comes to rule Egypt. She elevates Amun to a more supreme position than he has ever been within the pantheon of gods and goddesses. And so as god's wife of Amun, she's holding a priestessly title within an extremely wealthy temple in Luxor, Karnak Temple. But she is also very much involved with all sorts of important individuals within the priestly hierarchy, within the administrative hierarchy, through holding this title. So she clearly is an influential figure during her husband's reign. So although we don't know too much about the second's reign, at Shepsut during this time, she has this really important religious role,

and they say in these amazing temples as well. I mean, amazing. So she must have been one of the key figures in this time, especially among the religious circles. I would say so. And so it's setting her up beautifully to arrive at a point where she is extremely powerful and is surrounded by powerful individuals. And so at the point where her husband dies, and it is not her daughter, because she does have a

child with her husband, Thutmose II, she has a daughter, Neferura. But again, there's no expectation that Neferura will end up on the throne, despite being the daughter of the great royal wife Hatshepsut, who is also very much a royal figure, being a half-sister of the pharaoh, a daughter son by a secondary wife. So Thutmose II's son by a secondary wife, Eset in ancient Egyptian, Isis, if you want to be more ancient Greek about it. And it is then Thutmose again, Thutmose III, who comes to the throne. But he comes to the throne when he's no more than a toddler. And by now, Hatshepsut's good early 20s, she's at a point in her life where she would be considered at her most able, one imagines, with the average life expectancy being pretty short for ancient Egypt. So when you're in your early 20s, you're at your best. And she's in that position then to exert a great deal of influence and as we know go on to rule egypt yes i can

imagine when thutmose the third becomes is this just a toddler i can just imagine that oh for goodness sake this little kid obviously can't do anything i mean so how does hatchet suit come to a position of great power at this time in a way hatchet suit doesn't do anything odd initially. We've established that for a royal mother to exercise control during the early years of her son's reign, if her son comes to the throne too young to rule properly, we've established there was a norm to that. Initially, we have Ahhotep for Ahmos. We see Ahmos Nefertari for Amenhotep I, and we've established that that isn't taking place many decades before Hatshepsut has arrived in this position. So to a certain extent, the situation is normal that Hatshepsut, as the widow of the previous

ruler, does step into the breach. What we have to remember, though, is that she was not the mother of Thutmose III, and that's where things are different. She's the great royal wife, so it would be expected that it would be her who would exercise the most influence, but it isn't her son who is now on the throne, and that is the difference. One imagines then that perhaps the stepmother slash aunt in this family tree is not going to disappear by the seventh year of Thutmose III's reign and their co-regency, Hatshepsut then takes the full royal titulary, all the epithets of the full pharaoh of Egypt. She's represented as a full pharaoh of Egypt. She is always ruling alongside her nephew slash stepson. That doesn't change, but she is clearly the dominant one in the partnership. She is clearly the one overseeing

the administration, the construction program, the far-flung trade network. She is very much in control. That's absolutely extraordinary. So from what you're saying, first, she takes this regency status. It's very similar to those before her in the dynasty. But you're saying seven years in, she takes this unprecedented step of going the next level up, as it were, and becoming a pharaoh in her own right. Yes, it's absolutely clear because we have these representations of Hatshepsut as a queen. We have her in sculpture. We have her on the walls, inscriptions on the walls of temples. We know that as a great royal wife of her husband, she was represented in the regalia of kingship. Once we arrive into the beginning of Thutmose III's reign, something very odd happens.

She's represented in the art as a woman wearing a dress, but she's wearing the pleated linen nemes headdress. And that pleated linen headdress that the ancient Egyptians called nemes is only ever worn by a pharaoh, never by anyone else, not even the great royal wife. So she starts to wear the regalia of the Egyptian pharaoh, initially not fully. And then when we can see the inscriptions are dated to regnal year seven, off Thutmose III's reign, she is wearing the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt. She has her name, her birth name, hatchet suit in a cartouche and a new throne name, Mart Kara, in a cartouche. She's being name, Martkara, in a cartouche. She's being called

Nefernecha, which means the good god. She's being called Sara. She is the offspring of the sun god. She has been called Nisubiti, the one of the sedge and the bee, which we usually interpret as the one of upper and lower Egypt. We may have got that wrong. It might mean something else. It might mean the one who is mortal and who holds the divine office of kingship. So there are all these titles. There is this regalia, and she is no longer represented as a woman. She is represented as a man, flat-chested, bare-chested, wearing a kilt, wearing a false beard, wearing a bull's tail. She is shown with her muscles rippling. So there's no suggestion that she necessarily ever in day-to-day life was wearing that male dress. But in the art, because she is now holding the office of the pharaoh, she has to be represented as a pharaoh. And the ancient Egyptian pharaoh, since the beginnings of the ancient Egyptian civilization, going back to 3100 BC, the pharaoh is represented in this way.

So by holding this office, she then needs to be represented using the iconography expressing this very masculine ideology. Looking at the arts, especially for that, with some of these features of the pharaohs, do we see this portrayal of her becoming this masculine figure? Is it an evolution to that? Initially, does she appear very differently? Yes, there is, but only pre-Regnal Year 7 of Thutmose III's reign. So once in Regnal Year 7, she, those around her,

because we don't know the certainty, take the decision that she should be projected as the pharaoh. At that point, the iconography is then consistent through to the end of her life, which is then also the end of her reign. So there is an evolution prior to that. But once you get to the point where she is represented as a full pharaoh, that's the way she's represented. Very quick change. And this is for the first time. So she's not the first woman to rule Egypt,

but she is the first woman ruler of Egypt who is represented in this fully male way. So if we go back to an earlier ruler, the ruler Sobek-Nefru, who sometimes gets called Nefru-Sobek at the end of the 12th dynasty, we have a statue of her where she interestingly is portrayed wearing both a dress and the male kilt of the pharaoh so she is shown wearing both we don't have any representation of her where she's fully represented in the male iconography so it's the first with Hatshepsut and from what you were saying earlier as well if we're keeping on the arts we see in the arts that Hatshepsut is the dominant figure in this co-regency. Without a doubt, without a doubt, the representations of her alongside Thutmose III always show her in front. And there is a canon of ancient Egyptian art that adheres to convention,

convention that goes back to 3100 BC. And there are these rules of decorum, which particularly when it comes to the art of kingship, have to be adhered to. And the dominant position is the position in front. So we have images of Hatshepsut in front of Thutmose III. Other than that, they look identical. And she then is in front of the god. If they're facing a god in a shrine, she will be the figure in front. And then in the art, when we have

representations of just one pharaoh, it tends to just be her her so she's either standing alone as the pharaoh or she is with Thutmose III but represented in front of him. And further on with that you mentioned just now how it may have been the decision by those around her to then take this next step to become pharaoh do we have any idea who these people around her would have been who her key supporters would have been sorry this is probably a very difficult question, but do we have any idea? We certainly have the names of lots of the officials, the high officials, the noblemen, the elite who were operating during her reign. And one of them is an interesting character, One of them is an interesting character, and that's an individual named Senenmut,

who'd been a royal tutor initially during the reign of Thutmose II, had been a royal tutor to his daughter, Hatshepsut's daughter, Neferura. And he'd clearly been running the household of Hatshepsut and Neferura. He was their steward. On Thutmose II's death, he becomes more and more important. And he becomes the great steward of Amun, this god who is becoming god of all gods, who has this great emerging temple that Hatshepsut patronises, adds to, adds monuments, adds obelisks. So an extensive building programme on the east bank in Luxor at Karnak Temple that Senenmut is overseeing. He becomes the overseer of works of Amun, which means he, if not the architect, seems to be supervising the projects, which means he is supervising extensive manpower.

He has control of the natural resources. So he's clearly very important. We have plenty of evidence for just how important he gets during Hatshepsut's reign. So we do have information about those individuals who are operating at the highest levels within Hatshepsut's bureaucracy, within her priesthood. and from what you're saying there let's go into it now because you mentioned her remarkable construction program especially with temples i mean doing a bit of research for this before our chat i never realized just how much construction was undertaken during her reign. It's absolutely phenomenal. Yes, the heyday of Egyptian architecture was really started by her. That monument of hers that everyone knows on the west bank in Luxor, the Temple of Deir el-Bahri set into the limestone cliffs there. There really hasn't been a temple like it on its scale in recent history for the

ancient Egyptians. Of course, if you go way back, the ancient Egyptians were building pyramids. We've now established that the pyramids at Giza are some 1,000 years prior to Hatshepsut's reign. So we've got a sense of that, how far back they are in ancient Egyptian history. It is worth mentioning that when Hatshepsut chooses to build this fabulous monument, her temple, her memorial temple on the West Bank in Luxor at Deir el-Bahri, temple, her memorial temple on the West Bank in Luxor at Deir el-Bahri, she chooses to have it built alongside an earlier, smaller, but earlier temple, which is also a tomb, a tomb of a very important pharaoh called Mentuhotep II, Mentuhotep Nebhepetra. He had followed an earlier period of political disunification and again a period of north-south divide and again it had been the pharaoh the local ruler of Luxor who had ended up reuniting Egypt and he'd chosen to combine his tomb and temple which is unusual for an Egyptian pharaoh and so

there was a monument predating Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahri by 500 years, so significantly earlier. But when she chooses to have her much larger, more spectacular temple built at Deir el-Bahri, she probably chose that spot very deliberately because it was alongside that of a pharaoh who was still being remembered as a great figure in Egyptian history, having reunited Egypt after a particularly troublesome period. What she was also doing was building a temple directly opposite Karnak Temple on the east bank, which was this emerging temple to the god Amun, which she particularly focused on and added to. And she also created links between the temple of Amun at Karnak and the emerging temple of Amun's consort Mut to the south and further to the south she built at Luxor Temple. So this great programme of sacred construction that spans either side of

the river in Luxor. Of course, she didn't only build there, she built throughout Egypt and actually south of the first cataract into Nubia, for example, at Buhen, the second cataract. So she built extensively throughout Egypt, but she really focused on Luxor. Well, let's focus on a few of these constructions now because they are absolutely extraordinary. And you mentioned, first of all, Diyah el-Bakhri. And Diyah el-Bakhri, from what you're saying, this is a remarkable temple constructed by her, phenomenal in its scale and its size? Yes, it is an extraordinary, extraordinary monument and a monument that ultimately was dedicated to this emerging king of the gods, Amun, but a temple that was also dedicated to Hatshepsut herself. And the cult of Egyptian kingship and particularly focusing on her father,

so the ancestor cult of the pharaoh, her father Thutmose I. But if you visit the temple today, you also visit shrines within the temple dedicated particularly to the funerary god Anubis, the jackal-headed god Anubis, and then perhaps most importantly of all, the goddess Hathor. The goddess Hathor was the lady of the West, the lady of this Western mountain that for the ancient Egyptians was associated with the place of death, where the deceased went to in order to be reborn again. So there are many ways in which the temple at Dira Bahri should be explored as a place of the rituals of the ancient Egyptian religion of daily life, but it was also very much connected to the ancient Egyptian

beliefs around death and the memorialising of Hatshepsut in stone for eternity. Is this Hatshepsut, when she's commencing this building programme at Deir el-Bahri, and you said it right there, is it trying to memorialise herself and her achievements for eternity? I think you've hit the nail on the head there. It's all about that. Because I've mentioned the gods. I've mentioned Amun, Anubis, Hathor, and the importance of those gods to the ancient Egyptians. And the position of kingship for the ancient Egyptians was considered divine. And particularly after death, the pharaoh joined the gods. So the idea of the pharaoh joining with Amun and Uvis

Hathor. So there are many religious images on the walls of that temple. But actually, when you start to explore it, as you say, it's all about her achievements. There are scenes of the transportation of obelisks from Aswan to Luxor. There are the scenes of the Great Trading Expedition that took place during her reign to a land that the ancient Egyptians called Punt. So it is all about the celebration of her achievements. And as soon as anything goes into stone for the ancient Egyptians, that is meant to last for eternity. For the ancient Egyptians, there's a sense that their architecture of daily life is rather ephemeral because they built out of unfired mud brick when they built their houses, even their palaces. So there is a sense that they expected that over time to deteriorate

and for this constant rebuilding of their housing, of their palaces. But their temples and their tombs were either in stone or cut into the stone, and those they expected to last for eternity. There is a great emphasis on eternity in ancient Egyptian. There are two words for eternity. There's a sense of linear eternity and cyclical eternity. So for the ancient Egyptians, this sense of eternity was fundamental. And especially if Hatshepsut, she knows she is, she must know that she's exceptional when she is ruling as well. We said taking this title, going one step further than any woman ruling Egypt had done before.

So she must also know that when she's building this. Yes. And she clearly wants to then leave her mark for eternity. And it's clearly extremely important to her to consider her legacy. I would also add that within that temple, even within the temple that we associate most with her, and she clearly associated herself most closely with, she still included images of her co-ruler, Thutmose III. We mustn't forget that throughout what we consider her reign as the primary pharaoh, at no point did she try and oust Thutmose III. He is ever-present, although she's the dominant ruler, and it is only then on her death that he becomes the sole ruler of Egypt. But we mustn't forget that he is present and her monuments include him. And there is certainly always the suggestion that this is a partnership.

It seems that Thutmose III is being allowed to train up with the army. He goes on to become Egypt's greatest military pharaoh. I think if Hatshepsut had been in any way anxious about his presence, she wouldn't have allowed him to become so fully integrated within the army and to train to such an extent that he, as I say, goes on to become the great military leader. Often people refer to him as the Napoleon of ancient Egypt. He goes on to become a great military leader. I mean, yes. Do we see Atul during their co-rule, do we see At all Hatshepsut sending Thutmose III off to deal with revolts or military action, or does that really start appearing after Hatshepsut's death? That's a good question. We always think of Thutmose III leading extensive, some 17 military

campaigns into the area, to the northeast of Egypt, into the Levantine area as far north as northern Syria. And we associate him with those military campaigns that are extremely well documented. But actually, those don't appear to really start properly until he becomes sole ruler of Egypt. So the extent to which he is engaged in military campaigning in that part of the world during her reign is less clear. What we do have is reference to a couple of rebellions in the area to the south of Egypt called Nubia. In Nubia, there's reference to a couple of rebellions. And what's interesting is that there is, I would say, fairly decent evidence that Hatshepsut herself got involved in one of those. There are a couple of references to her actually leading even in the quashing of the rebellion in Nubia.

And you would perhaps expect this kind of statement on her temples to possibly be exaggerated, hyperbolic. But we have an interesting inscription, which is at the natural southern border of Egypt is the first cataract, modern Aswan. And there's an island there called Sehel Island. And on that island, an inscription has been left by Hatshepsut's Chancellor, T, which seems to suggest that Hatshepsut was possibly personally involved in quashing this rebellion. So we often think of Thutmose III as engaged in the military side of what was going on, and Hatshepsut involved in what we would consider the more peaceful side of ruling. But we may have mythologised Hatshepsut to a certain extent. She may have been a bit more engaged in the military

side than some people would like to think. There we go. That's phenomenal. Well, let's talk about Egyptian southern neighbours because you mentioned Nubia just there. And also you mentioned at the Temple of Deir el-Bahri, this great trading expedition with this power to the land of Punt. I mean, what do we know about this great trading expedition? to the land of Punt. I mean, what do we know about this great trading expedition? The really frustrating part of this is that although the ancient Egyptians tell us that they went to somewhere they called Punt, and rather wonderfully, they documented this trading expedition in such detail that we pretty much have an ethnographic study on the walls at Deir el-Bahri of this place they went to and they called Punt. Unfortunately, we don't have the excavated site itself. There is nowhere that has been excavated and has been

definitely found to be Punt. What we do know is that the ancient Egyptians took all that was necessary for their trading mission through the desert from the Nile Valley to the Red Sea. We've got all the evidence for that, inscriptions in the rocks, particularly in a region known as Wadi Hammamat today. And we have the archaeology on the Red Sea coast, which gives us evidence for the construction of the ships, which they then used to get to Punt. So we know that the ancient Egyptians went to Punt via the Red Sea. And certainly the images on the walls at Deir el-Bahri show us great ships on what is clearly the sea and not the River Nile, because the ancient Egyptians' attention to detail when it came to representing flora and fauna was exceptional. And what they're

representing is maritime fauna rather than riverine fauna. So we already knew from the ancient Egyptian images that they were going on the sea, but we have the archaeology to support that. What we don't know for sure is exactly then where they were going, because they could either be going to the Horn of Africa. So we're thinking Eritrea or Somalia. But there's just a chance, and it has been well argued, that they could have been going to the Arabian Peninsula. They could have been going perhaps to Yemen. So although on the whole, Egyptologists see Punt as more Eritrea, Somalia, there is a chance that it's actually the Arabian Peninsula. That is amazing that it could be. And I think Yemen is the kingdom of Saba or something at that time, isn't that? It's starting to emerge. And you have the predecessors to the kingdom of Aksum in Eritrea and Somalia, it is remarkable to think that Hatshepsut, although we're not exactly sure where the destination was, but she has connections, has trade connections with these powers at the far end of the Red Sea. In my opinion, that's absolutely remarkable. Yes, and certainly the

imagery we have shows African animals, East African animals. So if they were going to the Arabian Peninsula, then chances are exotic animals were being brought from Africa to the Arabian Peninsula and then being traded on because the Egyptians loved a bit of exotica. They loved these animals. There was a very important trade route, certainly from way back in ancient Egyptian history from sub-Saharan Africa, but via either by the river or actually very often camel, sorry, definitely not camel because the ancient Egyptians didn't have camels until the Persians. And so we're talking 5th century BC. We always expect them to have had camels, but they didn't. They were using the

donkey as the beast of burden. So donkey caravans through the desert, going way south. So we certainly have plenty of evidence for trade more directly via Nubia than, and through Hatshepsut's reign as well, but throughout ancient Egyptian history, as well as this maritime trade to Punt. The commodities that they were importing were pretty much the same from the two, but via Punt, it was particularly gum resin, which was being tapped from a tree that the ancient Egyptians were calling Antiu. There's a little bit of uncertainty as to whether that was frankincense or myrrh, but it was certainly a gum resin they were then using for incense, which was very important within their rituals within the temples. It's remarkable.

Do we have any other evidence for trade connections apart from going to the land of Punt during Hatshepsut's reign? There's actually a really important trade route that's opening up with Crete for the first time. So I mentioned that Hatshepsut's reign was in many ways innovative. There's the beginnings of an intellectual movement around this god Amun merged with the sun god Ra. Amun merged with the sun god Ra. There are wonderful innovations in sculpture, in construction, but there's also innovation when it comes to trade at this time. And this is when we see, for the first time, the Egyptians engaged in both trade and the accompanying cultural exchange with the Minoans. So we have good evidence. For example, Senenmut, who I mentioned earlier, he had two tombs. We actually don't have

any evidence that he was buried in either of them, so it's all a bit mysterious. But we know of two tombs for Senenmut. And in one of those tombs, tomb number 71, there are scenes of Minoans on the walls bringing very Minoan-style artefacts into Egypt. So trade was particularly interesting and important during Hatshepsut's reign. Absolutely extraordinary. So it does seem to coincide, doesn't it, with the golden age of the Minoans just before the Mycenaeans come. So, wow. So she has these connections not only with the land of Punt further south, but also with the Mediterranean basin. Yes, that's worth stressing because that's new to the Egyptians. Whereas the trade with Punt, although we always think of it as being particularly associated with Hatshepsut because we have the best documentation of it for Hatshepsut's reign. We actually know of the

ancient Egyptians trading with Punt all the way back to the fifth dynasty. So I'm talking about all the way back to 2400 BC. So in fact, that trade with Punt had been going on a really long time. But when it comes to that contact with the Minoans, that's new to Hatshepsut's reign. So that's a really good example of innovation during Hatshepsut's reign. There's so many more questions I have to ask. But just before we go on to the end of Hatshepsut and her reign, you mentioned at the Temple of Daryl of Bowery, there's also evidence to show her construction of obelisks. This is another part of her remarkable construction programme that she puts a lot of attention behind. Yes, and we have to remember that when we're talking about

obelisks, we are talking about granite obelisks. So just imagine carving that stone. granite obelisks. So just imagine carving that stone. And these are obelisks that have been quarried in Aswan. So there are no granite quarries around Luxor, which is where the obelisks were erected during her reign. They had been transported 180 kilometres from Aswan to the south. So not only were they quarrying granite monoliths, because of course obelisks are tapering monoliths, but they were then transporting them 180 kilometres. And we have evidence for Hatshepsut setting up two pairs of obelisks. So four obelisks at Karnak Temple. We think that one pair had actually been quarried during Thutmose II's reign, but she certainly erected them. And not only were they inscribed, but one of the pairs

of obelisks the inscriptions tell us were originally completely covered in gold foil, and the other pair, they were covered, the top third or so of the obelisk was covered in gold foil. So that gold doesn't survive. We just have the granite beneath. But these would have looked stunning. They look amazing today, but just imagine them covered in a layer of gold. Absolutely. It's like the statues of ancient Rome in Greece. We see just the marble today.

We've got to imagine that they were painted and the same with the obelisks in ancient Egypt, especially these ones by Hatshepsut being covered in gold. I mean, once again, she must be emphasising her, really putting her mark down, putting her stamp down, like once again with this monumental architecture. Certainly doing that and also emphasising her divine nature as the holder of this office, this divine office of kingship. Gold for the ancient Egyptians was associated with a sense of the divine. And by erecting these obelisks, she was almost placing herself within those temples, but also with an emphasis on the solar. So these were very much solar symbols. Just imagine the sun catching the gold apex of

each of these obelisks. It would have been an extraordinary sight. And we know that at this stage in ancient Egyptian history, we're seeing the earliest surviving solar hymns. So we're seeing the sun really for the first time being regarded as a manifestation of the Theban god, of her local god, of the god most associated with Hatshepsut, this god Amun. And so we now have Amun merged or syncretized with the sun god Ra, who was a god of the north, a god of Heliopolis in the north. Today, when you fly into Cairo, the airport is located in a region that is today called Heliopolis, a Greek city of the sun. This was the ancient centre of the sun god Ra. And we have Amun of Luxor being merged with Ra of the

north, and then these very much solar symbols, these obelisks being positioned within the temple to Amun, and these hymns stressing for the first time the primacy of Amun over all the gods. And this is really the beginning of a movement towards a sense of all the gods of the Egyptian pantheon being aspects of a single god, this god Amun, united with the sun god Ra. And we mustn't underestimate the significance of this. When you get great innovation, when you get the emergence of intellectual movements in Egypt, it's particularly notable because we are dealing with a very conventional, traditional 3,000 years with very little change in the iconography, very little change to the religion. So when it does happen, it's quite startling. And it does

happen during Hatshepsut's reign, which I think is one of the reasons why her reign is so special. Lucia, go on then. Cleopatra's Needle in London. What is the connection between Hatshepsut's extraordinary obelisk building programme and this monument on embankment? Yes, that obelisk in London that we all call Cleopatra's Needle has pretty much nothing to do with Cleopatra. There's a very tenuous link. But in fact, the obelisk in London is an obelisk that wasn't originally at Karnak Temple. It was originally at Heliopolis.

So I mentioned Heliopolis, the cult place of the sun god Ra, modern Cairo. Thutmose III, after the death of Hatshepsut, when he becomes sole ruler of Egypt, he erects a pair of obelisks at Heliopolis. One of those ended up on the embankment and the other one ended up in Central Park in New York. But neither obelisk was taken from Heliopolis in the 1800s. They were both taken from Alexandria. And that's because right at the very beginning of the Roman period in Egypt, the reign of the Emperor Augustus over Egypt, the two obelisks of Thutmose III were taken from Heliopolis to Alexandria. And they were positioned in front of a temple built by Cleopatra in honour of Julius Caesar.

So they did end up for a time decorating the entrance to a temple built by Cleopatra, but they weren't even moved to Alexandria while she was still alive. So the link with Cleopatra is tenuous, but they were obelisks erected by Hatshepsut's co-ruler, Thutmose III. They actually have a column of inscriptions on each of the four sides of the obelisk that dates to the reign of Thutmose III. And then a column of inscription added on either side of that central column on each of the four sides, added by Ramses II in the 1200s BC. So a couple of hundred years later, later pharaoh Ramses II wanted to add his name, his inscription, to that obelisk. So there's a lot of interesting history to that obelisk in London.

Well, absolutely. But it also sounds like after Hatshepsut's death, Thutmose is continuing a lot of the practices that Hatshepsut was doing earlier. And one regard to that is the construction of obelisks. Yes, Thutmose III certainly continued with many of Hatshepsut's policies, ways of doing things. He, for example, continued to employ the same officials in the civil service. So he chose to employ the same individuals. He chose to build in the same style. On the death of Hatshepsut, he began a temple at Deir el-Bahri,

which unfortunately has been destroyed by a landslide, but a temple alongside Hatshepsut's at Deir el-Bahri. He chose to finish off her construction programs. He chose to finish off the decorative programs that she'd initiated on various of these structures. And so we see a sense of continuity. He chose to have himself represented in a very similar way to Hatshepsut. So after Hatshepsut's death, when Thutmose III becomes sole ruler, he certainly continues her traditions. And in fact, the evidence suggests that initially he's worshipping

her as a royal ancestor. He's venerating her as a divine royal ancestor, at least at the beginning of his sole rule of Egypt. But what happens as time goes on? Well, very sadly, when you visit Egypt today, many of the images of Hatshepsut have been erased and many instances of the writing of her name have been excised from the monuments. So at some stage, someone took a dislike to Hatshepsut's presence on these monuments. on these monuments. Initially, people thought that we could see a belligerent stepson who had this furious, immediate, vengeful backlash against his wicked stepmother. This was this mythologising I mentioned earlier of Hatshepsut, where people decided she'd been a wicked stepmother figure. And the mythologising of a historical figure went crazy without full note of the evidence. We now know that Thutmose III emphasised a sense of continuity initially, completed Hatshepsut's monuments. As I stress, he continued to be

represented in a similar way. He chose to employ the same administration. And we now know that some 20 years after her death, the decision was taken to excise her image from the monuments, to remove her name. And I would stress that it isn't the imagery of Hatshepsut as a person, as an individual. Very specifically, it's image of her as a pharaoh, imagery of her as a pharaoh. So we still see her in pristine condition when she is represented as a queen. But as soon as she's represented fully as a pharaoh, that becomes clearly extremely worrying iconography. So there is at some stage, and we're talking after his 42nd regnal year, which is about 20 years after Hatshepsut died, the decision is taken to remove

images of her as a female pharaoh. Now, we don't know why that happened, but it's interesting that it happened at the very end of his reign, just as he had chosen his successor, Prince Amenhotep, who went on to become Amenhotep II. It's just possible that there was some anxiety around that succession, and the decision was taken that it would be best if the recent history had been rewritten to remove the very existence of that powerful woman on the throne. So it may have related to the forthcoming succession, because certainly once Amenhotep succeeded to the throne as Amenhotep II, we don't seem to get any further removal of her presence. So it may be that there was good reason to be anxious about the succession. It may just have

been that conceptually, even practically, it had not worked for the ancient Egyptians to have had a woman on the throne. And a point was arrived at where it was decided that this had been contra to all that was good and proper. For the ancient Egyptians, a sense of order was all important. And they had a word for that. The word was mat. And they were extremely anxious that at all times, both Egypt and the cosmos were in a state of mart. And it may have been suggested at some stage that having a woman on the throne in recent history had not been in accordance with this sense of order with mart. And so the decision was taken to rewrite history. It may have been this, or it may have been more specifically relating to some kind of concern around the succession to the throne following the death of Thutmose III.

But it certainly wasn't an immediate backlash by a belligerent stepson. That is all part of this mythologising of Hatshepsut, which I hope doesn't happen so much anymore. I mean, it's extraordinary, because as you're saying, Thutmose III, he actually buries Hatshepsut with full regal honours. Absolutely. Hatshepsut ends up in a tomb in the Valley of the Kings, a tomb we call KV Kings Valley 20. There's a little bit of uncertainty whether this was the tomb of her father, Thutmose I, which she extends and is buried in alongside her father Thutmose I, or whether it's a tomb that was intended for her and her father buried elsewhere was she chose to have him placed in that tomb with her. But certainly she and her father end up in a tomb in the Valley of the Kings, KV20, each with a quartzite sarcophagus. But

if you look at that tomb, it does appear to have been extended. I think it's very likely it was begun for Thutmose I. He was buried there. She extended it. She ends up in there. They're in there together. And as you say, this has been a great funeral of pomp and ceremony, one can only imagine. And she is buried as a pharaoh in the Valley of the Kings. And this could have only been at Thutmose III's behest. It is remarkable what you were saying and what you've been saying over the last hour, that her reign is full of these achievements, full of these successes. last hour that her reign is full of these achievements, full of these successes. And yet,

20 or so years after her death, there is this attempt to remove her achievement, well, not her achievements, but her reign from the history books. Very luckily, the attempt was somewhat half-hearted in that we do still have some very fine, perfect images of Hatshepsut surviving. We do still have her name in cartouches. And very often where she's removed, she's been so carefully removed that we still have a very clear outline of her body. We can still see, for example, at Karnak Temple temple we can see her engaged in various rituals on the walls there we know that it's hatchet suit because she has been excised but the hieroglyphs have been excised in such a careful manner that we can actually still read the hieroglyphs so very often we still see images of hatchet suit as a ph And other times, we can work out that we're looking at

images of Hatshepsut. So thankfully, it wasn't an entirely successful campaign to obliterate her very existence. I mean, thankfully, indeed, because from what you've been saying also the last hour, her legacy for ancient Egypt seems very, very significant. That's certainly the case that the later rulers of this dynasty built on her achievements without a shadow of a doubt. I'm thinking in terms of construction and the Egyptian religion, which in Amenhotep III's reign, Akhenaten's reign, several reigns later, but still within the 18th dynasty. These are pharaohs who do extraordinary things to the ancient Egyptians. In the case of Akhenaten, taking to a culminatory point the idea of one god, a form of monotheism, a solar deity, Aten, the roots of this are in the reign of Hatshepsut.

So we can't underestimate the significance of what she did and of her legacy. And we can see that then played out through the 18th dynasty. Lucia, amazing, brilliant. Thank you so much for coming on the show. An absolute pleasure. It's been wonderful talking to you, Tristan.