You're Dead to Me - Hatshepsut

Episode Date: June 17, 2022

Greg Jenner is joined by special guests Kemah Bob and Dr Campbell Price as they head back to Ancient Egypt to meet the unique and powerful ruler, Hatshepsut. She reigned for over 20 years, built a temple which is still admired today, had a ‘special’ relationship with statues and was one of the first rulers to focus on divinity rather than gender norms. So why did history try to erase her?The Athletic production for BBC Radio 4

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Hello and welcome to You're Dead to Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name is Greg Jenner, I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster and former chief nerd on the BBC comedy show Horrible Histories. And today we are travelling back thousands of years to unwrap the mysteries of ancient Egypt's ultimate yummy mummy, who ruled as pharaoh for over two decades. Yes, we're talking about Queen Hatshepsut. And to help us do that, I'm joined by two very special guests. In History Corner, he's curator of Egypt and Sudan at Manchester Museum, a fellow at the University of Liverpool, and the chair of the Egypt Exploration Society. What a job. You may have read his excellent book, Pocket Museum, Ancient Egypt,

and you definitely would have heard him on our Ramesses the Great episode. It's the fantastic Dr. Campbell Price. Hello, Campbell. Welcome back. Hello. I'm delighted to be back. Much happier talking about Hatshepsut, in fact, than Ramesses. She would definitely get an invite to my fancy dinner party over him. Oh, OK. Playing favourites already. And in Comedy Corner, she's a fantastic comedian, writer and producer, and she's returning to the show. You'll have seen her on TV as the host of It's a Sin After Hours or co-hosting The Island on the Dave channel or on Richard Osman's House of Games. And you'll have heard her many times on Radio 4 or on many podcasts, including The Guilty Feminists. But most importantly, on our podcast, talking about prohibition in America, it's Kima Bob.

Welcome back, Kima. Whoa, thank you so much. Oh, my gosh. What a beautiful intro. I was like, is that me? And then it's like, oh, cool. It's like, whoa, I've really lived a life, you know? You've got stories to tell.

Last time out, we had a lovely, funny, raucous chat about Prohibition, but we did learn that you weren't that into history at school because you'd been taught history by your gym coach, I think? It's a very American thing to do. It's almost like they leave history. It's like history and sex, they're just like, who's around? Who is around? said they're just like who's around who is around and oftentimes it will be some guy that would much rather just be teaching people how to play football yeah it's just the American way so

I'll have an absolutely no idea what was going on in Egypt I barely know what was going on in Texas at the time are you into Egyptian history did? Did you ever dig it at school? Have you ever been to a museum and gone, oh, wow, this is for me? I've seen some vibes. I'm really into the kind of color scheme of the time, you know, the golds, the blues. Like, I think that's very fun, the eyeliner of the time. I think that's fun.

Cats, people respecting cats cats i think is great yeah so i think it's an era that like like aesthetically i could really get down with interesting okay so actually this is uh this is more of a sort of vibes feel for you but that's yeah all right okay have you heard of hatsatshepsut? I'm guessing not. I have, but I have no idea. Like, I've heard the name. Okay. I mean, like, who even is she?

I guess is the big question. Like, who even is she? She's the word. Yeah, pronoun is right. We're talking about one of history's most interesting women, but perhaps not well known. But by the end of this episode, we'll know plenty more. Love a queen. Great.

So what do you know? Well, that brings us on to the first segment of the podcast, the So What Do You Know, where I have a guess at what you, our listener, might know about today's subject. And in terms of the lovely ladies of ancient Egypt, I'm guessing you've definitely heard of Cleopatra. Of course you have. You've probably heard of Nefertiti. And we talked about Nefertari on the Ramses episode. But I don't think you know Hatshepsut. She's not had the classic movie treatment, but she has featured in some historical novels.

And she's the inspiration for one of Rhapsody's songs on her acclaimed 2019 hip hop album, Eve, dedicated to inspirational women of colour. So there is some kudos there, but who was the real Hatshepsut and what was it about her reign that makes her so interesting to novelists and modern musicians? Well, let's find out, shall we? The real housewife of Egypt County. Yeah, I mean, I think Egypt was bigger than a county, but certainly plenty of drama, for sure. Kima, in terms of Egyptian history, do you know roughly how long Egyptian history was when we talk about ancient Egyptian history? Too long.

That's fair. Too long, yet too short. Do you know what I mean? Over too soon. Yeah. I mean, Campbell, it's easily, I mean, easily what? 3,000 years? Yeah. Conservatively, Greg, pharaonic history. So the time you've got pharaohs on the throne is 3,000 years.

Oh my gosh. So there's a huge amount of Egyptian history, which we talked about last time in Ramesses. Where do we squeeze Hatshepsut into that enormous timeline? Where does she go? Early, middle, late? Well, relatively middle, Greg. In Egyptological terms, she's in the 18th dynasty,

dynasty being the royal family, and we'll talk more about family. So she's around roughly 1507 to about 1458, give or take, BCE. So that's like a century before Tut, 200 years before Ramesses II, and a whopping 1400 years before famous Queen Cleopatra. Wow. It's just sort of boggling, isn't it? I say this a lot on this podcast, but Cleopatra is closer to us, Kima, than she is to the Great Pyramid of Giza. That's so wild. I wonder if people from other places were just tired of Egypt. They're just like, oh, they're still at it.

Just take a break. Fall already. Crumble. Jeez. So today we're talking about a queen who ruled 3,500 years ago, give or take. That is a long time ago. I'm going to start with the boring question, Campbell. Her childhood total mystery or do we have like some clues well you know greg so

much of egyptology is we don't really know but we've got loads of stuff uh as keema's already alluded to there's just so much stuff because there's so much history um so we can take an educated guess an honest answer to that question no we don't know a lot about Hatshepsut's childhood. She's clearly someone very important. You can tell that from her name. So her name, Hatshepsut, means foremost of noble ladies. She's born into the royal family. Yeah, great name.

Oh my gosh. She is expected to marry, as a woman, the next pharaoh. And she is, in fact, the daughter of a pharaoh a guy called tutmos the first and one of his wives called achmos she marries her half-brother uh tutmos the second and then is the stepmother of the next king tutmos the third so it's all a very involved situation you could say to keep the royal blood. It's super tutmose, I'd say. It's very tutmose. It's keeping the royal blood pure.

We might call it quite incestuous. But you want to know exactly who's in and who's out the royal family. It's also confusing in terms of language because the ancient Egyptians' word for husband is the same word as the word for brother. So you can be a sen, meaning your brother or your spouse. Great. And sometimes your brother is your spouse, which is just to save language. So her dad is Thutmose I, and then she has to marry her sort of half-brother,

who is Thutmose II. Yep. Okay. He's Thutmose the – well, he's Th. He's Tutmos the useless, isn't he? He's not very good. He's not really a competent king, as far as we can tell. And actually, I mean, Kima, you seem very lovely. Oh my God, thanks, Greg.

If you had to undermine someone who wasn't doing a job very well and you wanted their job and you knew you could do it better and you had to get rid of them gently, but just sort of slowly undermine them, how would you could do it better and you had to get rid of them gently but just sort of slowly undermine them. How would you go about it? I would get them to book me on their podcast for the second time where I would pretend to not know everything about a certain ancient Egyptian queen. Your plan is working brilliantly, yeah.

It's like that thing where like if we watch the movies and then people pretend to be like bad at pool and they're like, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm so bad at pool. And then like once they've convinced the other person to let their guard down, they're like, bam, hole in one, eight ball in the socket and you know other pool terms it's in it's in the pocket now they're all in the pocket break the triangle the things they say and the person is like what you know how to break the triangle i thought you were a rookie but i think that's what i do i love it you'd hustle i love the fact you've hustled your way onto this podcast and you're gonna steal it from me a thousand percent uh campbell does she um break the pocket yeah is she breaking the pocket triangle i'm trying to take that metaphor further um yeah she's she's doing it she's wrecking it she's literally taking the reins from her

incompetent brother husband uh brusband brusind, Brasbind, say. The husband, her husband, Thutmose II, unlike his father and unlike his son, isn't really remembered because he doesn't really build much, or he doesn't build much on his own, because quite unusually, Hatshepsut, his wife, is ordering things like obelisks to be erected and more on those later but we've got texts from contemporary observers at the time an official a guy called in any saying her husband took most of the second snuffs it and then basically everything's under her control so wait so people are like he's he's useless because he didn't like get any buildings made like he didn't live long enough keema no okay like that's like so he's he's not great

as pharaohs go that's like your job like as a pharaoh it's like ordered the construction of monuments if nobody's making an obelisk you failed the country yes basically what a vibe yeah hat ships it's already sort of elbowed him out the way and then he dies. And, you know, I think we can assume that it's not poison or murder, but it's not a true crime podcast. We don't know. She's got quite a lot of names, Kima. I'm going to run through them quite fast. Great. As well as being Hatshepsut foremost amongst the noble ladies. Great name. She's also the king's daughter, the great princess, great in favour and grace, God's wife of Amun, king's great wife, mistress of all the lands, royal daughter and royal sister, lady of the two lands, and of course Hatshepsut. That is her full email signature.

Wow. It's quite a lot. My favorite has to be like mistress of the land. Yeah, that's good, isn't it? Because it's just like you're a mistress of all of the places. All you survey. You look anywhere in the land, who's the mistress of that land? This woman.

Very, very accomplished. It's quite the CV she has. Yeah. There's also a ceremonial role that Hatshepsut has. It's called the Hand of God, which is a pretty good role to have. It has nothing to do with Diego Maradona, for any football fans listening in. Kima, do you want to have a guess what The Hand of God did? And I'll give you a clue.

We are a grown-up podcast for the adults. Hand and job in the same title. And they called her The Hand of God? Yeah. Did she have to, like, jack off people as like her job not just people campbell do you want to step in and save our blushes i i i'm gonna add to your blushes um so she's we've already heard she's the god's wife she's also the god's hand and as you said it's a powerful ritual role which had great material wealth associated with it oh my god egypt what is going on

teams of administrators but i don't know if you know uh keema but um the the the fundamental ancient egyptian idea of creation was that uh the creator the god amun or the god atom depending on what version you read masturbated the world into existence great with his semen creating new life nice so literally the the role of the god's wife of the god's hand was to in some way to sexually stimulate the god amun to reproduce whether through literally wanking off a statue yeah go ahead campbell you know, engaging with the statue in some way. But she says in one of her... What? Statue? A statue of the god, because the god could only be present in the temple through a gold statue.

This is brilliant. It's a lot, I admit. Brilliant. But she says in her inscription, she says, I have experienced his impressive efficacy of the god amun and she goes on a lot about i've already said building obelisks which are a shaft of stone with a pyramid shaped yeah ben ben it's called the ben ben stone at the top which is believed by some egyptologists to represent the petrified semen of the creator god so literally obelisks

are monuments to masturbation how exciting so good we promised you exciting i thought that i didn't have strong feelings towards obelisks but now i see that maybe the obelisk was a part of me all along. Wow. Okay, so brother slash husband, Thutmose II has died. Does Hatshepsut inherit the throne? Does she have to share it with her son, who's also her nephew, Thutmose III? What's next, Campbell?

Well, it's not an unusual situation because men die generally before women, especially royal women. Looking forward to it. Watch out, Greg. I'm very tired. I've only got 10 years left. generally before women um especially royal women looking forward to it watch out greg i'm very tired i've only got 10 years left so so she's kind of in a in a position of power anyway so yeah she's the the co-ruler the regent for this boy tutmose the third probably her stepson not biological son but he is maybe only two years old so she steps into this role she has another name which is really weird usually only the pharaoh has another name so she's born Hatshepsut but she has this other throne name

Mat-ka-ra which means something like the justice of the sun god spirit which is very pharaonic and she never denies or contests that she has this junior partner, this Tupmo is the third figure, but she's always shown literally one step ahead of him in reliefs and paintings, or she's shown in the lead position doing more active things. So she's never a queen.

So this is, in modern English, we think of kings and queens. She transitions from being a king's wife to being the pharaoh. Brilliant. So is that a sort of gender neutral term, the pharaoh? Yeah, pharaoh is expected to be the incarnation of a male

god, the god Horus. But yeah, pharaoh means a great house. So it's the place occupied by the spirit of the reincarnation of the falcon god Horus, the god of kingship. Whoa. So every person that's a pharaoh has just like a falcon inside of them.

Yeah. That inner falcon waiting to get out. You got to tap into your inner falcon. That's a great name for a self-help book, isn't it? The Falcon Within. The Falcon Within. The Falcon Within, new from Kima Bob. How to take rule over your life. Okay, so she's sort of in a job share with her stepson, who's a toddler.

That means she's basically running the show. Again, we are 1,400 years before Cleopatra. So an obvious question, Campbell, is it okay for a woman to rule? Sure. I think the key thing is she doesn't seem to take the kingship by force. She must have buy-in from the people in the court, the kind of kingmakers, and she goes on to rule quite successfully for 20 years. But she's not exceptional. There are previous cases of female pharaohs right back at the beginning of the so-called nation state around 3000 BC. You've got someone called Nithhotep

in the first dynasty, she does it. Then a lady called Sobeknefru who rules for about four years at the end of the Middle Kingdom. But much closer to home, Hatshepsut has powerful women at the end of the previous dynasty and the start of her own dynasty. So within a few generations, people like Achmos Nefertari, who is worshipped as a goddess. No, it wouldn't have been completely outrageous to have a woman ruling as a regent, having real power, and she would have had plenty of powerful female role models, I think. That's nice. It's good to have role models. Because you go, can I do this? Can I be worshipped as a goddess?

And you see people before you being worshipped as a goddess and you go, maybe this is an achievable goal. Kima, congratulations. You're the new king slash pharaoh of ancient Egypt. What's on your to-do list? What would you do on day one? Oh my gosh, this is huge i gotta get some stuff built i've heard and i've seen that if you're not ordering some buildings to be made are you truly effective um and i don't want to do anything that can like

help people like i don't want to make sure that people are like fed or anything like that. That's not really my vibe, but I would like a real big building. Okay. Yeah. And do you know what? Shaped like a vulva. Why not? Yeah.

That's what I'm going to do. To go with the obelix. So the question then is, does Hatshepsut build a vulva palace, Campbell? Not that it survived. Does she start building stuff or is it more about war and conquest? She's inherited this newly reunited Egypt, quite strong military position Egypt has, thanks to her dad, Timo's I.

Egypt, quite strong military position Egypt has, thanks to her dad, Thutmose I. It's her job, I guess, to ensure that influence, Egypt's influence abroad continues. And do you know what? She might eventually send the young Thutmose III off to be the general of the army while she's at home just ruling Egypt from her palace. Nice. So he can get killed. Maybe. Who knows?

It was all a setup. She doesn't seem to be so interested in military endeavors herself, but she is interested in trade. So trade with the goal of obtaining nice, fancy, luxury foreign goods. That's a way of showing off to the gods that you're a legitimate, powerful ruler. And she, we know because she records it on her beautiful temple at Deir el-Bakri she's most famous for sending this great expedition

to a mysterious land of the gods called Punt so she brings boats back bursting full of exotic things like frankincense and myrrh these very fancy trees to make incense. Incense is a way of calling the gods down into temples. Incense is very important. It basically makes a space divine by smelling nice. So lots of exotic woods, gold, ivory, elephant tusks, panther skins, herds of cattle, a troop of monkeys, even dancing pigby performers. I mean, it's quite the unboxing video when this all shows up. It's the kind of Jesus package. Like, if you don't have

frankincense and myrrh, how am I supposed to prove my... That's great. Yeah, gold, frankincense and myrrh, but in the Bible, they don't talk about panther skins, do they? I mean, that's... There must be a wise man who got lost on the way, because panther skins, Jesus, look amazing.

Primo. Primo stuff. Can I ask a sort of quite boring geographical question? Where slash what is Punt? The exact whereabouts of it are not known. Much debated. Some say Somalia, some say Eritrea, some say Ethiopia. East Africa seems most likely.

Hatshepsut sends a fleet out out and this is the most impressive thing to get to that area you have to go down the red sea to get to red sea port you basically build ships on the nile flat packet carry it across the desert for hundreds of miles then rebuild the ship on the the sea potentially it was something like a 2 000 kilometer voyage there and another 2 000 kilometers back i love how much stuff she made i'm assuming men go through so she could obtain just shit i love that that's great just fancy shit that's and i love like the idea of egyptian gods being like super vain and they're like look we don't care how good you are we don't care how benevolent you are how shiny is your hat like that's fun how good you smell yeah let me get a whiff. Also, what kind of skins do you have? Show me your skins.

Panther, maybe you can roll with us. Can you imagine carrying a flat pack ship across the desert? You'd be like, this is the worst thing that possibly could happen to me. I'm sorry, what am I going to go get? Why am I doing this? Okay, great. You've got to travel 2 2 000 kilometers once you get there having crossed the desert carrying a ship on your back you've got to then travel 2 000 kilometers to

go and pick up all your panther skins and then come back 2 000 kilometers and then what walk across the desert again yeah great come back with stuff yeah that's so much all right so these luxurious goods obviously are you know in terms of trade, they're helping Egypt's prosperity, but they're presumably also confirming Hatshepsut's legitimacy. If there's a sort of a boy king lurking in the wings, this is giving her kudos, right? She's staking a claim? I think it's exactly as Kima just said.

The gods in ancient Egypt are vain, and they are self-interested, and they just want nice, smelly stuff. That will impress them. That will get their attention. She does does this stuff she boasts about it on every kind of decorated surface in her temple and we actually see at the temple at Dera el Bakri her most beautiful construction that survives the roots of the incense trees so she's not telling porcupines there are incense trees there so you see it now in ancient egypt is so much beige you know as keema said at the start it would have been eye

poppingly colorful you'd have your golds your bronzes your silvers you'd have blue and red and yellow and just amazing the inscription in one of her monuments tells us about this mission to punt and uh and had chips it sort of says look i didn't order the mission the god amun ordered the mission and the inscription says come in peace my daughter i will give the punt the whole of it i will lead your soldiers by land and by water on mysterious shores which join the harbors of incense the sacred territory of the divine land my abode of pleasure they will take as much incense as they like they will load their ships to their satisfaction Basically, Hatshepsut is like, I've got an excuse that God said I can have it. It's so great.

Yeah. If you were the king or the queen of Punt and you had all your incense taken away, you might not be so chuffed. It was more like trade, but the Egyptians record it as just being taken. So you're getting a kind of one-sided story. This sounds a bit like she showed up with a bunch of soldiers and nicked it. Yes, basically. She definitely sounds like an organiser. But the most important question that Kima has already asked is, has she built any stuff?

Because that's all we care about on this podcast, isn't it? Build that stuff! So, Campbell, tell me about the stuff she built. The biggest thing she builds that we know about is this fantastic terraced temple. Often, Egyptology calls these things mortuary temples, but they're not focused on death or dying. They're focused on the eternal life of the pharaoh and their union with Amun, the god Amun-Ra, who's worshipped at Karnak on the east bank at what's named Luxor. On the west bank, you have this set of temples

and Hatshepsut is the most impressive, I would say. Like until now. Yeah, tourist attraction now. Oh my gosh. It's the photogenic place to go. Well, on that note, should we show you a photo, Kimmy? Oh, yes. I want to see.

I demand it. Wow. So what can you see? That's a vibe. Behind this temple, you see a kind of like side of a mountain, right? And that itself is gorgeous. But in front of it it you have this like double decker okay temple with like these statues on it it's giving me like parthenon energy

a thousand years before the parthenon was built. Wow. Lots of columns. Columns are happening. I will say that it is very beige. It is now. Which is not super exciting, but I can't believe, and so like this is a picture of it like recently. Yes, very recently. It's not falling apart.

It looks really good. It's been restored, it's fair to say. It was found bashed up. Don't tell them that. It's got a gangway It looks really good. It's been restored, it's fair to say. It was found bashed up. Don't tell them that. It's got a gangway on the way in. Yes. And the temple is known as Deir el-Bahari, but I think it's also got another name, Campbell?

Yes. So the ancient name for it is Jeser Jeseru, which means literally sacred of sacred or holy of holies. And Kima, you mentioned the mountain. The mountain itself is sacred to the goddess hathor she's often shown as a cow and she's the mistress of drunkenness and partying so she's a party cow and hatchet suit is very pious towards hathor uh this very powerful goddess so the whole temple is like an arena of celebrating how great Hatshepsut was and how

pious she was to all the gods and how much of a good daughter she was to her dad uh Tutmose I the brusband uh the rather ineffectual Tutmose II hardly gets a look in it's all about Hatshepsut and the gods nice yeah it's an absolutely enormous temple 3,,500 years old, and you can visit it today. Kima, if you had the infinite resources of a pharaoh, what would the Kima Bob building look like? So it's in the shape of a big party cow, because I'm quite the party cow myself. And you come in and you're like, whoa whoa it's gold everywhere on the inside almost to the point

where it becomes like things aren't actually functional because they're made of gold and you're like please i just needed a phone like i just wanted some water and you're like sorry all all I got is gold in here. So all gold vibes, except a giant picture of me, which is for some reason not made of gold, but it has to be there. So people aren't like, what is this? And then they look and they go, okay, now I understand where I am.

And the picture of you, is it you as a human form or is it you in sphinx form um it's actually me in party cow form okay great great it's my truth excellent excellent uh and for listeners who don't know what sphinx looks like in terms of the animal chimera it's uh it's a human face lion's body falcon's wings sometimes falcon's wings in egypt yeah but hatchet sometimes was represented with a sphinx wasn't she yeah and it's it's a good way of saying you're superhuman it doesn't matter if you've got male bits or female bits you've got the body of a lion so head of hatchet superhuman yeah i love it amazing okay so we have hatchet uh she's got

a shrine depicting her as the daughter of the god Amun. But she's also, of course, claiming to be the daughter of Thutmose I. So has she got two daddies? In which case, how does that work? Well, here's the thing. Hatshepsut presents a story of her divine birth in which she says her mother, remember Queen Achmos, is sitting in the palace one day and she smells this overwhelmingly beautiful smell of incense from punt and in walks a man that could

be her husband but actually is the god amun-ra himself and so he seduces her by his divine cologne and they have sex and hatchip suitepsut is conceived. So she's literally saying, Hatshepsut is saying, I'm the bodily daughter of the god Amun-Ra. So I'm literally a demigod. And it's funny, historians have tended to focus on this saying, oh, you know, Hatshepsut needed this kind of legitimation because she was a woman, other pharaohs claim it as well. And so gods smell amazing. They smell just like, they smell delicious and seductive. Yeah, you're like, get a whiff of that.

I got to go bone. That's what you say when you smell a god. If you had to redesign gods to smell differently these days, what would the go-to smell be? I kind of want to create a kind of just like androgynous scent that also reminds you of things that grow in nature so it's like wow you smell like the ocean but also a plant when it's cut open and that that's hot. I mean, that is a very divine thing, too. That's creation. That's fertility. That's perfect.

It's life. Okay, so we have here a pharaoh, a queen, a kind of sphinx-like being. And they walk into a bar. But what I'm getting at here, I think, Campbell, is that she's like the ultimate career girl, building stuff, doing trade. But we haven't heard any kind of romance. She's forced to marry her half-brother, which isn't perhaps too much fun. And she doesn't remarry after his death. In some sense, you remember she's the god's wife and she's sort of married to the god Amun-Ra.

But we do have another significant presence in her court a guy called Senenmut now Senenmut holds all of the high titles basically he's in charge of all the estates of Amun-Ra he's the overseer of all royal building work so he's like the royal architect he's the tutor to Hatshepsut's only daughter, Neferuri, Princess Neferuri. He comes from nothing. He's not born into an aristocratic family, but his name is everywhere, all over Hatshepsut's monuments, on a series of little objects I like to call love beads, which are donation monuments in themselves, little beads with the name of Hatshepsut,

the name of a pharaoh built into the foundations of temples, but with his name on them as well. So a very intimate way of connecting yourself with the pharaoh. And interestingly, Senenmut has no evidence of having had a wife. So people have naturally suggested that maybe they were special friends. Ooh. So what do you reckon, Kima? Do you think that chipset had a special gentleman friend?

Or do you think he's just a sort of very effective business partner? I think she's a hardworking woman. She's ordering buildings. And sometimes you need someone to relieve that stress with and to have special moments. And I bet his name was everywhere, just like his mouth was probably everywhere. Yes.

Yes, I'm sure I'm sure. I support this. Campbell, any evidence to back up Kima's bold claim? Well, there are some naughty graffiti showing a man and a woman, maybe the woman's wearing a royal crown, at it. But I don't know if they're actually contemporary. And also, Senenmut has loads of statues. And in some of them, he's shown literally cuddling the princess,

Hatshepsut's daughter, Nefruiri. Now, usually non-royal people aren't even allowed to touch royalty. So to be shown in that kind of intimate gesture in stone for eternity, you know, has raised the question, maybe you know, Thutmose II wasn't

up to fathering Nefruiri and in fact, Nefruiri is Senenmut's daughter. So we don't know, but it's fun to speculate. Clearly, Senenmut is a super important individual and also a kind of PR guru in a way because he's in charge of all the royal building work. There's another aspect of Hatshepsut that is quite well known.

We're going to show you now a statue of Hatshepsut Kima and you tell us what you can see on her chin that is quite distinctive. Better not be a dick. It's a dick. Oh, God. She's got a dick chin. Campbell, is this a dick chin? I have never thought of it like that before.

But in a way, you've got a point it's got a point as well oh gosh golly gosh um this is the conventional egyptological interpretation for this schema is this is the the beard of divinity okay can you see there's a there's if you look closely there's a strap strapping it onto the chin. Yeah. Yeah, it's a strap-on. But it's not natural hair. You know, pharaohs wouldn't grow these big, long beards. It's a sign of being like a god.

But the king was meant to be the incarnation of this god, Horus, the falcon. Yeah, the falcon within. This is something hatchet suit does she mixes gender roles she clearly is shown in in wall paintings and in reliefs as being a woman early on when she's the queen of egypt but then she she changes how she appears um she is shown in fully male attire with the beard with the crowns with a short kilt with a man's physique because that would be the appropriate way of representing a pharaoh and interestingly she uses a mix of gendered language so her her pronouns are both male and female so she mixes it up and she's just

all about being divine rather than being constrained by gender norms as they existed what an icon i think we should all be more focused on being divine i mean kima you're a comedian but you you do a drag king act right so it's true can we have some hatships vibes maybe in your in your act can you bring in the the hatships at bed i think i'm slowly just realizing in this moment how much i thought we didn't have a lot in common had chips and me you know and i realized that maybe she's been inspiring me all along and i'm just really sad that i don't have a stepbrother to exile yes to exile eyebrow raise eyebrow raise xxx aisle yeah um so um we have hatchet set here she's built all this stuff it's incredible temple this the holy of

holies it's called she's building statues to herself she's obviously reigning for over 20 years i think and we also have this quote attributed to her which is translated in one building statues to herself. She's obviously reigning for over 20 years, I think. And we also have this quote attributed to her, which is translated in one of her obelisks at Karnak. Now my heart turns to and fro in thinking what people will say. They who shall see my monument in the after years and shall speak of what I have done. So she's interested in what's going to happen after she's gone. She's already aware that people will discuss her when she's dead. So I wanted to ask Campbell, does she hang on to her throne until her death? And then what happens in that handover period?

Well, this is one of these things, Greg, where we, I have to say, honestly, we don't know. I'd like to think she dies a natural death and then the stepson tutmos the third succeeds her and goes on to rule for another 30 odd years so he becomes really one of egypt's great kings um also the traditional understanding which is based on a very kind of traditional view of egypt is that boring old white guys yeah yeah the traditional view is the stepson hates her she's the wicked stepmother he goes around chiseling her image out so her her image is the subject of a real campaign of of destruction her name is attacked her image is attacked but we know this actually happened some 20 years after her demise,

her presumable death. So I suspect it's more for dynastic reasons and that actually maybe Tutmose III actually quite liked Hatshepsut and she was a mother figure to him. But it's more convenient to paint the picture of a wicked stepmother, I think. Super Freudian vibes. So Campbell, we've been hearing about Hatshepsut's family, about her building projects, the Holy of Holies, the kind of obelisks. Maybe her love life with Senenmut, maybe. Who knows?

And then we've heard that her name was scratched out of history. And yet here you are, eminent Egyptologist on a podcast, chatting pretty confidently about all the stuff we know about Hatshepsut. So hang on, how do you know all this stuff then if her name was wiped from history? Yeah! How come? Well, to be honest, they didn't really do a very good job.

Ah, okay. Incompetency. Good. Yeah. And there's a whole set of objects which I find fascinating. We have one of them in Manchester Museum. It's just a little block of stone with her name written on it. And it was buried out of sight. And it's almost like, you know, two fingers to history. So we know about her because lots of the buildings have survived. The erasures that were done don't completely remove her image.

And there were lots of hidden things that didn't get it. So cool. She's venerated, you know, 500 years after her death. The king of Egypt calls his daughter Matkare, which was Hatshepsut's name as pharaoh, not just as queen. So he must know. So I think Hatsheps suit had her own little fan club that persisted after her death oh wow okay that's kind of sweet it's kind of sweet but also there's been

a recent discovery i don't know how recent this is but something called i mean i love this it's called the porch of drunkenness keema the porch of drunkenness um do you know what that is um no but i feel like i've been on it yeah what is the porch of drunkenness it's a great monumental area to experience the ecstatic vision of divinity through the consumption of alcohol right so. So as part of temple ritual, a way of getting closer to the gods, of experiencing the gods, this could have been aided by use of alcohol

and perhaps other narcotics. And we know at the height of Hatshepsut's reign, she expands a temple to the south of Karnak, built for the wife, the divine wife of the god Amun, not Hatshepsut herself, I'm sure there wasn't a rivalry, but there was a goddess called Mut, the mother goddess often shown as a vulture. And so her temple has this porch of drunkenness, Hatshepsut sets it up. There's lots of interesting texts that talk about drunkenness and talk about travelling through the marshes,

drunkenness and talk about traveling through the marshes which is an ancient egyptian euphemism for having sex the festival of of drunkenness was quite the party time traveling through the marsh that doesn't sound very sexy sounds quite boggy sometimes spearing in the marshes oh okay that's that's better it's wet it's cold it's slippery it's a bit muddy we're in the marshes baby okay so the porch of drunkenness is a is a place for ecstatic reverential divine worship where you get blackout drunk and have sex is that right well that's what the evidence seems to suggest yeah okay you know i told you ancient egypt wasn't beige yeah it true. It's a very exciting place. We know that Hatshepsut herself was a step-mum. Was she also a step-mummy?

Is there a mummy in a coffin, in a sarcophagus somewhere? Can I... Show me the mummy. Show me the mummy. Good, thank you. Well, we have actually three sarcophagi, plural of sarcophagus, which she made. She was only buried in one of them.

She made one for her dad, and she had one she just didn't use but i cannot say for sure that we found her mummy although some egyptologists believe we have so there's a story that in 1903 howard carter of tootin cam and fame he found a tomb with a mummy in it that was rediscovered in 1989 by an American Egyptologist called Donald Ryan. And recently, an Egyptian Egyptologist called Zahi Hawass believes he has identified in that mummy the body of Hatshepsut based on a tooth, a mysterious tooth that was lost, put in a box. The box had Hatshepsut's name on it, and the tooth was reunited with the mummy of this woman. She's rather a large lady. Whether she is Hatshepsut, we cannot be sure. The DNA hasn't survived well enough. But her hand position is the hand position of a queen of Egypt,

not a pharaoh. So I'm rather sceptical that it was Hatshepsut personally. Yeah, she doesn't sound like the modest type. But what if some psycho rearranged her hands before she got really, really hard? Maybe, and the dead don't bury themselves, so you can't always have your wish. True. So we have Hatshepsut, maybe,

because we have a mystery tooth in a box, but maybe the hand justices are wrong. Perhaps she's a plus-size icon from history, but we don't know. So let's leave the question mark hanging. But speaking of slight mysteries connecting the ancient world to the modern day, Kima, can you guess which modern

musical icon thinks that she is the reincarnation of Hatshepsut? Madonna. Oh, good guess. Gaga. No, it's Tina Turner. That's femme. Apparently, before the popular musical Simply the Best came out, Tina was writing her own life story for Broadway.

And in the script, Ike Turner is represented by Thutmose III, who is an evil usurper. And Thutmose pulls out a gun and hat shepsut jumps in front of tina and saves her life wow my only disappointment is the show wasn't called simply the bast because that would be an egyptian cat pun that would you know no one would get no one would get it but i would be very pleased with myself hat shepsut is a heroine to tina turner that tells us that hat shepsut has a 20th century reputation. How has that happened? In terms of the way that she was written about in the 19th century and 20th century, how was Hatshepsut understood then and how do we think of her now?

Oh gosh, Greg, this is such a problem. So much of what we know or think we know about the past is through the lens of people in the 19th century who tend, frankly, to be pale, male, and stale. And so that is definitely the case with Hatshepsut because she's, as I've already alluded to, painted as this wicked stepmother character who Timo's III really hates. So one of the early, very significant Egyptologists, Jean-Francois Champollion frenchman who deciphered

hieroglyphs denied that she could even be a woman he just assumed it was a man who's acting weird acting as regent on behalf of chum was the second obviously um but then my favorite is an american egyptologist a guy called william c hayes whoatshepsut in 1953 as shrewd ambitious and an unscrupulous woman painting her as a total schemer who stole the throne shrewd from that you go obviously a woman yeah obviously people aren't calling dudes shrewd so it just goes to show that any evidence you know we've got lots of, but it's how you put it together. And in the 19th century, it tended, in the early 20th century, tended not to be very positive for poor old Hattie. So Kima, you've heard plenty about Queen Hatshepsut, or as Campbell calls her,

Hattie, today. So where do you stand on Hatshepsut? Are you a fan? I think that she's an icon. I think that she's a hero. I think that she could an icon I think that she's a hero I think that she could have had a more colorful temple but maybe she was limited by the things of the day I think sending loads of full-grown men across the country with a ship that they like half built and flat pack and then have to fully construct just to go get you some trinkets and whatnot. So you can see him rich and fancy. I think that's iconic.

Like, yes, like waste hundreds of men's lives, like do it, you know? So I think that's great. All right. The nuance window.

This is where Kima and I take a sort of sit back and savour our luxury imports from Punt, our panther skins and our golden myrrh, and we allow Dr Campbell to tell us something we need to know about Hatshepsut for two uninterrupted minutes. And today, Campbell, you're telling us about your very own Indiana Jones fantasy moment, although hopefully with better care for the artefacts, because Indiana, as much as I love him...

A bit slapdash. A bit slapdash, yes, let's be honest. So frankly, he shouldn't really have an academic job, but let's move past that. So, Dr. Campbell, two minutes, the nuance window starting now, please. A few years ago, I was going through the storerooms of Manchester Museum, and I am a big fan of sculpture that's my main research topic and I had seen this beaten up lower part of a very fine sculpture in indurated limestone almost like marble covered in hieroglyphs and I'd always wondered about it

because I was trying to translate the hieroglyphs. And one day, a German colleague, a late great Egyptologist by the name of Rainer Hannig, came in and he was interested in titles people held. And I pointed the statue out to him. I said, Professor Hannig, I just can't work out what's going on here. The statue says it is given as a gift of the king. And the number of statues that were expressly said to be given as gifts of pharaohs to non-royal people is actually very small. But then together, we worked out that it wasn't given as a gift of the king at all. It was given as a gift of the god's wife. Now, we've met the god's wife. God wife his hat-chip suit and suddenly all the other inscriptions fell into place and the titles held were all titles held by senenmut and when the

penny dropped i am not kidding you it was the professional highlight of my life and i thought oh my bloody god it's a statue of senenmut who is as I've told you very well known in Egyptology until that moment he was known by 25 statues now there is 26 including the Manchester fragment but the really interesting thing is the statue was found in a temple right next to Hatshepsut's at Diyar al-Bakhri that was already 500 years old by the time she came to the throne. So it's likely her architect, Senenmut, based the design for her much more impressive temple on this earlier predecessor, and she was trying deliberately to echo that earlier ancestor.

So that was the most exciting moment of my life. Amazing. What a story. So juicy. And it's like, oh, did people forget him are people gonna let us see what he looks like you know what i mean like how much were they boning well yeah this question was he a hottie is he a hottie that's what we want to know most definitely listeners i'm sure will be sort of slightly astonished that your job involves identifying statues from 3 500 years ago because frankly job involves identifying statues from 3,500 years

ago because frankly I struggle identifying photos from 20 years ago what a wonderful career you have but it's time now to see how much our comedian Kima Bob has remembered and learned about Hatshepsut it's uh it's time for the quiz this is called the so what do you know now so what do you know now last time out keema you got 9.5 out of 10 which is almost perfect let's see how it goes and i just want to say that no matter how it goes campbell this is not a reflection on you okay thanks keema you're welcome okay question one Okay. Question one. Roughly how many years ago was Hatshepsut ruling Egypt? Like 3,000-ish. 3,500. I'll give you half a mark for that.

Question two. Hatshepsut's name translates to foremost of the noble what? Woman. Yeah, that's it, ladies. Question three. Hatshepsut held the ceremonial position of Hand of God. According to some suggestions, what service did she provide the statue of Amun?

Was it perhaps as a wild guess, just from the gutters of my horribly depraved mind? Was it like wanking off statues? It was. Question four. Name three of the luxury items that Hatshepsut's expedition brought back from the mysterious land of Punt. Great. So you got your panther skins.

Mm-hmm. Fun. You have some elephant tusks. Yes. Which, you know, shame on them. And you got some frankincense, which we love. We do. Okay.

Question five. Hatshepsut's huge mortuary temple, carved into the cliffs at Deir el-Bahari, is called Jaisa Jaisaru, which translates to what in English? The house we like to party at. No, it's the Holy of Holies, although the party house would be pretty good, but it's the Holy of Holies, although the party house would be pretty good. It's the Holy of Holies. Question six.

Who was Hatshepsut's right-hand man? And some say lover and man who lives in Campbell's cupboard in Manchester Museum. Simi Sim Sim. Senemut. It's Senemut. Question seven. Why did Egyptologists know very little about Hatshepsut until quite recently?

Because someone did like a smear campaign where they tried to erase her, but she wouldn't let it happen because of the little anal beads. The love beads. That's right. Question eight. Recent temple excavations suggest there was a religious festival associated with hat shepsuit where people would do what in the porch of drunkenness making sweet sweet love to those statues that's it okay question nine in statues and art hat shepsuit wore what on her chin to perform the role of king dick beard just strap on Dick beard. Strap on dick beard.

Normal beard, but yes. And question 10. Though much debated, a mummy has been possibly identified as being Hatshepsut by which body part found in a small box? Tooth. It was a tooth. And they were like, either that's a H that's a ship or just another curvy icon i think you got i lost track of the score i'm gonna go seven and a half out of ten i feel like you know you can count your numbers if you want to but ultimately i feel like i've

learned more than 10 i think i got like a 12 out of 10 wow you heard it here first 12 out of 10 for keema bob congratulations very impressive and uh and listener if you want to hear more from campbell then check out our episode on ramses the great and if you want to hear more of keema then of course listen to our prohibition episode which is an absolute hoot our whole back catalogue of episodes is available on bbc sounds and remember if you've enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review, share the show with your friends, make sure to subscribe to You're Dead to Me on BBC Sounds so you never miss an episode. All that is left for me

to say is a huge thank you to my guests in History Corner. We've had the fantastic Dr Campbell Price from Manchester Museum. Thank you, Campbell. My pleasure. I've gone places with Kima today that I never thought possible. Yeah, well do you know what? That's the beauty of talking about the mistress of the land. She'll always send you somewhere you don't expect.

And in Comedy Corner, we have the magnificent Kima Bob. Thank you, Kima. There's a lot going on on this earth. So thanks for showing me a bit of it. Absolute pleasure. And to you, lovely listener, join me next time as we set off on another fact-finding expedition to another mysterious land of historical wonders

and maybe come back with some frankincense. Who knows? But for now, I'm off to go and jerk off a statue. Bye! You're Dead to Me was a production by The Athletic for BBC Radio 4. The research was by Genevieve Johnson-Smith. This episode was written by Emma Neguse, Emmy Rose Price-Goodfellow and me.

It was produced by Emma Neguse and me. The assistant producer was Emmy Rose Price-Goodfellow. The project manager was Saifah Mio. And the audio producer was Abby Patterson. Uncanny is back. The hit paranormal podcast returns with a summer special that will chill you to the bone. It was a real dream holiday, really.

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