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- [00:01]
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- [01:17]
Emily Brifix Campbell
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Dr. Campbell Price
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Emily Brifix Campbell
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Dr. Campbell Price
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Emily Brifix Campbell
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- [03:50]
Emily Brifix Campbell
Hatshepsut is one of ancient Egypt's most extraordinary figures. A pharaoh who deftly asserted her right to the throne, reigned over an era of prosperity, and commissioned some of the most iconic monuments of her time. But how did she rise from a royal princess and consort to become a pharaoh in her own rights? In this episode of History Extra's Life of the Week series, I spoke to Egyptologist Dr. Campbell Price to explore Hatshepsut's remarkable story. Now, you and I have spoken all about ancient Egypt before in our podcast series Ancient the Big Questions, and funnily enough, you nominated this particular figure as the person you would most like to invite to a historical dinner party. Why would the ancient Egyptian pharaoh Hatshepsut rank as your number one historical dinner party guest?
- [04:45]
Dr. Campbell Price
Well, Emily, I think when people think of ancient Egypt, they think of Tutankhamun. They think of Ramesses the Great. Maybe they think of Khufu, the builder of the Great Pyramid. If they think of royal women, they think of Cleopatra. Of course, she's very famous. But the reason I suggested Hatshepsut is because I think she's much less well known, despite the fact there being lots more evidence for her. So actually the raw historical material as opposed to other historians accounts, as in the case of Cleopatra, but with Hatshepsut the stuff she built, the texts that concern her, the statues, the images, the evidence for inner circle is much more voluminous. So. So that is why I just think she is a fascinating, very powerful lady who ruled Egypt pretty successfully for over 20 years. And I would love to know what she was actually like.
- [05:37]
Emily Brifix Campbell
So let's get right into it. Who was Hatshepsut? And when we're talking about ancient history, how close is it possible to get to some of these historical figures?
- [05:46]
Dr. Campbell Price
Oh, I'm glad you've asked that. Top of the bill, because it's very difficult and I think when we talk about people, it's almost like, you know, we're writing biographies as you might a 20th century figure figure. We cannot do that. Although there is lots of evidence for the existence of Hatshepsut, it is very difficult because she never left any diaries. We don't know anything about her real personality or motivations or anything like that. So it's very difficult to fill in the gaps in the evidence and talk about intention and purpose and motivation and all that stuff that you want to kind of know about a historical figure. So let's slap on a bit of a caution warning. We are talking in biographical terms, but a real biography as we would think of it today is not possible.
- [06:33]
Emily Brifix Campbell
So what do we know about her earliest life? If we could try and sort of pin a date on when she was born, that kind of thing.
- [06:40]
Dr. Campbell Price
So when we are talking about Hatshepsut, we're really talking slap bang in the middle of what we would think of as Veronic Egypt, Ancient Egypt. So if you imagine the state such as it was, the kind of united Kingdom of Egypt form forms pretty definitively around about 3,000 BCE. And Cleopatra again the seventh, she pops her clogs in 30 BCE and then the Romans come along with Augustus. Hatshepsut is in the middle of that. So she's the 15th century BCE. So we're talking the 1400s before the common era. What we know about her? Well, we know about her dad. Her father is a chap called Thutmose I. He is not seemingly of very royal birth. He maybe marries Hatshepsut's mother, a lady called Ahmose, as a way of securing his claim to the throne. So her dad is quite a warrior, expands the influence of Egypt into other lands. She is born a royal princess. So she's, you know, someone quite important. Anyway, if she's the daughter of a pharaoh, she has several brothers and sisters, as is normal. It is a son of the king who will take on the throne. So it is expected that the ruler of Egypt, the pharaoh, will be male. He's an incarnation of the male God Horus. So Hatshepsut indeed marries one of her brother's half brothers, Thutmose ii. He's not up to much, it's fair to say. He's sometimes unkindly been described as tut, mostly useless. So he doesn't stick around for long. They have a child, we think, we assume that Hatshepsut's one known daughter, Neferure, is fathered by her half brother, husband Thutmose ii. And then he is eventually succeeded by a third Thutmose. Hatshepsut is that child's aunt, stepmother. So that's the basic biographical picture.
- [08:32]
Emily Brifix Campbell
Fantastic. Plenty of Thutmoses there to really confuse us, I'm sure as we're talking through this confusingly. Yes, and what pharaonic dynasty are we talking about here?
- [08:41]
Dr. Campbell Price
Okay, so we've got a choice of 30 dynasties. There are 30 royal families. But actually they're not nearly as neat as we would expect. I mean, families are complicated, as we all know. So we're talking about the 18th dynasty. And that is the first of several dynasties in what Egyptologists call the New Kingdom. So the Old Kingdom is the time of the pyramids. The pyramids are already a thousand years old by this point. More than so again, to get that sense of Hatshepsut's own attitude to her own history is important because she does very deliberately quote and reference and cite examples of great kingship in the past. So she seems to be unusually quite interested in. In her own history, her own ancestry.
- [09:27]
Emily Brifix Campbell
So I think we've got what we would probably describe. Maybe this is imposing back on history. Quite complicated family dynamics going on. What was her relationship like with her husband and brother, if that's correct? Mostly useless.
- [09:42]
Dr. Campbell Price
Yes. Thutmose ii, God bless him. So actually we know something about this. Of course we can't talk about the personal relationship because we have really no idea about the emotions, sadly. But within the last year, Emily, the tomb of Thutmose II has shown up. It has been identified in Egypt. It's not in the Valley of the Kings, it's nearby. Because after Hatshepsut, and indeed perhaps because of Hatshepsut. The Valley of the Kings becomes the place to be seen dead in, to have a tomb with a view. And it's the main royal cemetery. But prior to that point, Thutmose II is buried a little further away. And in Excavating that very badly damaged underground set of chambers, objects were found, including those with dedications from Hatshepsut. So it really looks like Hatshepsut buried her deceased husband and she tells us she did it. That is very unusual that it would usually be the next king, the next male king, the son. But if you bear in mind that Thutmose iii, when his dad dies, when Thutmose II dies, Thutmose III can only be a toddler. So he maybe is only two or three. So he's not personally commanding people to organize the funeral from his crib. But it is very interesting that Hatshepsut herself is named as being responsible. And I think that reflects on her status and something of the relationship between husband and wife, I guess.
- [11:08]
Emily Brifix Campbell
So with Thutmose III being quite a young boy when his father dies, how does that change things for Hatshepsuts?
- [11:15]
Dr. Campbell Price
Well, I think you've got to bear in mind that at that period, so the 18th dynasty, it is not unusual for the king of Egypt either to be very young or if he's grown up, to be away on campaign fighting. So actually the business of government, however, we imagine that for ancient Egypt is often done by trusted royal women. So I think the reality for Hatshepsut, if you imagine, I don't know, a 10 year old Hatshepsut growing up in this court, she would have a number of significant female figures. Her mother certainly, possibly her grandmother. And historically ancestral powerful women. So it's not unusual that she steps in to be what we would call a regent. So she's the queen regent. And we know that from other monarchies around the world.
- [12:06]
Emily Brifix Campbell
I want to ask you, is this, I don't know if this is a silly question, but is imposing a title of regent a modern thing put back on an ancient past, essentially? Is it different?
- [12:16]
Dr. Campbell Price
Well, oh gosh, I think the concept is, although we have this word regent, I think the concept is there that there is someone who is trusted. And importantly for Hatshepsut, we have the texts of officials, the people in the court, very important men who seem to acknowledge that when the husband dies, when Thutmose II dies, it is accepted that the reins of power are held by Hatshepsut. So she's got, if you like, buy in to be the regent from the get go. And I think she was probably acting in an unusually powerful way for the queen of Egypt before even the husband died. But that's kind of supposition. That's my own personal belief. The thing About Hatshepsut is she doesn't content herself just with being the regent as previous women had done in the royal family. She goes a step further and says, do you know what, chaps? I'm just gonna say I'm the pharaoh. I'm gon to just go the whole hog and say, I'm the king of Upper and Lower Egypt and take five names. Because usually only the queen of Egypt would take one name, her birth name, the name she was given at birth. Hatshepsut doesn't do that. She starts adding names like right, left and center. And she is saying she's acting as a pharaoh. And that is what is unusual. It's the extent to which Hatshepsut formalizes the status quo. The accepted political reality of she is actually the one in control. And she says, do you know what? While this toddler is still running about the palace nursery, I am going to be the king.
- [13:47]
Emily Brifix Campbell
So there's a difference here between, like, saying you're a pharaoh and being the pharaoh and having everyone accept that you are the pharaoh. How does she go about justifying that, apart from her many names?
- [13:59]
Dr. Campbell Price
Yeah, let's not get onto the names. That's quite complicated. So she begins, as is normal in ancient Egypt, with dating. I mean, chronological dating, not romantic dating. Although maybe she does some of that as well. We'll come on to that. So year dates in ancient Egypt don't reference a fixed point as modern dating does. So we've got the common era date. They change with every pharaoh. So as a new king comes to the throne, the year system starts again with year one. So Hatshepsut does this jointly, and this is really important jointly with her stepson, Thutmose iii. And they share year dates and they essentially share the throne. At no point does Hatshepsut totally deny that Thutmose III exists. And she dates things from the point he becomes the king. But she also acts as the pharaoh, is shown as a pharaoh in statues and reliefs, does very kingly things like commands obelisks to be erected and temples to be built. And she dates everything as a king would date to the death of her predecessor. So Hatshepsut pushes into this new ground, if you like, she breaks new ground. But she also, as I said before, references the past. So I emphasize that Hatshepsut is not the only female pharaoh. We know there have been others, most particularly a lady called Sobek Nephrus, who ruled maybe 300 years before Hatshepsut. She takes on similar kinds of names. Her statuary looks a bit the same, so Hatshepsut has a precedent, so it's not completely unknown that a woman would take ultimate office in the land.
- [15:46]
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- [18:28]
Emily Brifix Campbell
I think symbolically, there's been a lot of discussion about how she chooses to depict herself as well. Is that a fair thing to ask?
- [18:35]
Dr. Campbell Price
Yes. And much has been made of this. And I always say Hatshepsut comes in for such detailed critique that is never applied, almost never applied to male pharaohs. So because she's a woman, she must be trying to hoodwink people. So people see what they perceive as the disconnect between the official presentation of kingship that you're referring to, the statues, the reliefs, the inscriptions, and the physical, biological person. They are really interested in how those are different. They were always different. The living pharaoh never looked like his statues or reliefs. He never was the person that was presented. This is why we can't really be write a biography for an ancient Egyptian king. But because Hatshepsut was a female pharaoh, and because a lot of Egyptology was written in the 19th century by bearded upper class white men, there was a discomfort with the idea of a very powerful woman. Strangely, a lot of that history was written when Queen Victoria was on the throne and they were perfectly accepting of that. So it's very interesting to see how Hatshepsut's story has been told, not just through the evidence as we have it, but through the lens of modern historians.
- [19:43]
Emily Brifix Campbell
I think, because this is the whole idea that even though she's a woman, she's portraying herself in a very kingly man like way. But I think when we spoke previously in the podcast series about ancient Egypt, you spoke about how art was symbolic and the pharaoh had a certain look and that that look didn't necessarily change in the same way.
- [20:05]
Dr. Campbell Price
Right, exactly. And I think that's very strange for modern people to get their heads around. And it's something actually I'm writing a new book about ancient Egyptian faces and how we approach them in museums, how we've tried to reconstruct them. So with Hatshepsut, there is a transition, I mean, there is a chronologically, fairly clear, generally accepted in Egyptology transition from a female figure into the male figure of kingship. And the idea of kingship is symbolic and it is coded male. So it's not that Hatshepsut is necessarily dressing up as a man walking around doing rituals. It is that the only way to be shown as a legitimate pharaoh is to be shown in a male guise. And so that's how she has to appear in statues, in reliefs. So there seems to be a bit of experimentation, but by say, year seven, she is fully declaring she is a pharaoh. And then a bit later on, she is shown completely male, with kind of a bare chest and the kingly crown and essentially a man's body. And the face of Hatshepsut, it's been called a pseudo genealogical mask, which I think gets to it really well, because what you're seeing is a mask of kingship. It's not the actual face of this person.
- [21:20]
Emily Brifix Campbell
So between her symbolic depictions, her name, her backdating of the rule, could we say that Hatshepsut's almost this queen of pr?
- [21:30]
Dr. Campbell Price
Yes, yes, you could. You could say she is very good and very interested in, as I said, precedence, and very good at combining tradition and innovation. And undoubtedly there is an interest in doing things in a slightly different, slightly new way. So I think the political circumstances of having a woman fully declared as the pharaoh for a number of years, for quite a long time, that creates the conditions for some new pr. And it's really an innovative time generally. And in that campaign, if we're talking in those terms, I have to mention someone very important. A chief member of her inner circle of the royal court is a man called Senenmut. So Senenmut, I mean, he holds over 90 titles. Very important guy. He seems to be the spin doctor in chief, if you like. He is involved very early on when she is probably still the queen of Egypt. And, and it seems fairly clear to me, he is personally responsible for creating the iconography of kingship. And Hatshepsut does all of these slightly unusual things while referencing the past. So Senenmut is the person who really promotes this idea of her as the great pharaoh.
- [22:51]
Emily Brifix Campbell
Do we know about anyone else in her inner circle as well?
- [22:54]
Dr. Campbell Price
We do, because the officials surrounding her have left evidence of their existence. So everyone from the high priest of Amun, a guy called Hapu Seneb, he, interestingly, is not nearly as important as Senenmut. And usually you'd expect the high priest of Amun to be someone quite important. There's a guy called User Amun who's the vizier. This is kind of an old clunky term we use in Egyptology, which is kind of like a prime minister. And there are other people. There's the royal butler, we know about him, a guy called Djehuti, he's shown with lots of nice drinks in his tomb. So we can get an impression of the people surrounding Hatshepsut. As I said, these are people both who enable her slightly unconventional kingship and are themselves enabled by her. Because you could imagine if Hatshepsut didn't like you as any pharaoh, if the pharaoh didn't like you, you were for the high jump. And that seems to happen quite a lot, that there are competing elites. So, you know, in the court of any, any great monarch, you're trying to get royal favour. And I think Hatshepsut's favour was highly sought.
- [24:06]
Emily Brifix Campbell
Wow. That says quite a lot. We've spoken about the fact that this is a co rulership. How did this function in practice? Can we get any insight to how the power was shared?
- [24:18]
Dr. Campbell Price
With difficulty, yes. We don't know for sure that the personalities involved iconographically because that's the evidence that survives. Undoubtedly Hatshepsut's name and image regularly trumps that Thutmose iii. And that may be because he is a kid, literally a child. But equally we fall back on this dependence on older scholars of Egyptology, especially in the 19th century, early 20th century, who were very suspicious of Hatshepsut. They call her that unscrupulous woman. And for them, you know, when she does eventually disappear, around about year 22 of the CO rulership, when you know, Thutmose III would be a young man coming into his prime, if you like, it was assumed that he must have been waiting for the throne and been resentful of his aunt's stepmother. So she's kind of painted as this wicked stepmother character. But I would counter that with the possibility that knowing other historical parallels, the reason for having what essentially this was, which was a co Regency, a sharing of the throne, that's a way of securing the throne for the junior party. And Thutmose III was undoubtedly the junior party. So in some ways I like to think Thutmose III actually rather loved Hatshepsut. And she taught him how to be the king. And she taught him how to be a really successful pharaoh. And he was. He went on to rule for another 30 odd years. So Thutmose III rules, of course, he comes to the throne as a baby, but he rules into his 50s. So he's quite long lived.
- [25:58]
Emily Brifix Campbell
Wow. Because there is this whole story about Hatshepsut that her name, her memory was erased by Thutmose iii. Presuming you don't think that's him going wipe her off the slate. We don't know her. She wasn't There. There's more to it than simply just. I want to scandalize her memory. Right?
- [26:16]
Dr. Campbell Price
Yes, exactly. As you will not be surprised to know, there's more to it. You'll be delighted to learn. So it's all about timing and it was assumed. Yeah, it's the fitful rage of a young man who is really into the military. Ah, yeah. Eraser from. From history. It has since been shown. Very likely because of the sequence of buildings at Karnak and the way certain structures respect earlier structures and they cover certain areas that are damaged or not damaged. It seems very likely that the proscription, you know, the attack, the Damnasio Memoriae on Hatshepsut's name doesn't happen before year 42. So bearing in mind she disappears, presumably dies around year 22. If you really hated someone, why would you wait 20 years to get rid of their name and their. Their image? So it seems to be briefly, because we do it a vlog, briefly. It seems to be that for dynastic reasons, Thutmose iii, in preparing a co regency for his own son, a guy called Amenhotep II, he wants to emphasize Amenhotep II's legitimacy, his lineage, and through his mother. So Amenhotep II's mother is from a different branch of the royal family. He needs to de. Emphasize Hatshepsut. So it all kind of makes sense. As Thutmose III is preparing to hand on the reins of power, so he has to dynastically, selectively persecute the name and memory of his stepmother.
- [27:47]
Emily Brifix Campbell
What has that meant for Hatshepsut's name in history?
- [27:51]
Dr. Campbell Price
I think it's been pretty bad for her reputation. As we've already said. She's done great things. You know, she's sent off these great international expeditions, trading expeditions. She's built on such a scale as has almost never been seen before. She's doing the whole kingly thing very well. I mean, had she been born a man, we would have no doubt in saying she's one of the greatest pharaohs. But sadly, there is this dynastic change of emphasis. I don't know how else to describe it, that requires Hatshepsut's name and image to be removed. And that has really dealt a serious blow to her historical reputation and legacy. So she's often defined by the damage that was inflicted on a lot of her monuments. But that kind of damage, the patterns, the kind of iconography as it appeared and as it was changed and as it was damaged, has been studied Especially recently by some really excellent young scholars who are showing that the sequence of damage was slow and it only happened in certain phases. And it was much more to do with practicality than pique and hatred towards her name and image and reputation itself. And I should say 500 years after Hatshepsut's death, people still knew who she was. Royal children were named after her, and her temple is still a place of pilgrimage. So it's not that she's totally written out of history. There is a kind of folk memory, there is a, a reverberation of this incredible woman's life and reign in Egyptian history.
- [29:25]
Emily Brifix Campbell
So let's flip this on its head then. You said that she would be deemed one of the most successful pharaohs if she had not been a woman. Presumably, then we can say her rule was a pretty prosperous one.
- [29:37]
Dr. Campbell Price
Yeah, without doubt, based on the surviving evidence, which, as I said, is really numerous, because she does seem to have a focus of her attention in the south, in Thebes, modern Luxor, where a lot of the structures just happened to have survived. If you were to go looking for her in Memphis, in the notional capital city, which is pretty much slap bang under modern Cairo, you would struggle because not much has survived. And so a question I have asked myself is how much is this a reflection of actual building practice and how much is it an accident of survival? And I think it may actually be what was really built. There's so little evidence for her in the north, but she builds at lots of other places in Egypt, as I said, she sends out these extraordinary international trading missions. She does keep her hand in with warfare. And again, there's this presumption because she's a woman, she must be meek and mild and a diplomat and wanting to avoid war. She is pretty mean. She shows herself as a sphinx, trampling foreigners. You know, she can be a nasty piece of work. And she also, as all pharaohs have to do, threatens people. She says, anyone who doubts my power, bad things are gonna happen to them. So she means business as the king. And I would say the time we know of hers on the throne is a prosperous one for Egypt.
- [31:03]
Emily Brifix Campbell
Yes, I'd like to just break down a few of the things you mentioned there. So mention about her building projects, what were the most significant ones undertaken during her reign that we could perhaps point listeners to.
- [31:15]
Dr. Campbell Price
I think anyone listening to this, if you've heard the name Hatshepsut, you've probably heard of her extraordinary so called mortuary temple. But mortuary temple is really a clunky Bad Egyptology term. These kinds of structures are known anciently and indeed Hatshepsut refers to hers as a mansion of millions of years. So it's where the cult of the king is going to be celebrated with the gods. And I think we get a clue to that structure, which is at modern Deir el Bakri in the west of modern Luxor. Extraordinarily graceful, impressive temple, very nice. Dependent again on ancient precedents. Her predecessor's temple is nearby and she or Senenmut, who seems to act as a kind of overseer of works and architect for her. She and Senenmut do base some of her buildings, especially Deir el Bakri, on previous precedents, but they also use innovations. They bring in new styles and new ideas. But the understanding of these buildings, I think to an extent is explained by one of Hatshepsut's own names. So she takes on this kind of epithet, an added statement to her birth name. So Hatshepsut means literally foremost of noble people, noble women. And she adds this other bit, Khinmet Amun, which means literally united with Amun. And that seems to be theologically, politically, religiously. One of her main campaign points is that she is uniting eternally with her father. And she does put this about, although she's proud that she's the son of the warrior king Thutmose the First. Also, she tells us, in the manner of many ancient Egyptian pharaohs, that actually her mother conceived her not just with her dad, but with the God Amun himself, who came into her mother's bedroom. And that's how Hatshepsut was conceived. So this idea, and again in the past, people have made much of this, oh, she's a woman, she needs, you know, kind of special pleading for people to accept her as the pharaoh. So she needs to put about this story that, oh, actually her. Her mother had sexual relations with a God. In fact, this is standard fare that the pharaoh in Egypt says, I'm the son of the chief God, the God Amun. So it's not just Hatshepsut, but this idea as motivation is made absolutely explicit it in a lot of her texts. So when she's building on the east bank at Karnak, so that's the main temple of the God Amun, she says she's doing it for her father, my father Amun. And she goes on at great length. There's one wonderful text on the base of one of several obelisks. So she erects obelisks, four, maybe six obelisks, she says I have done this. I'm telling you this so as people in the future will not be ignorant and they will know it is me who has built these things. So I like to say when I'm with tour groups in Egypt and we're looking at the obelisks, you know her name and you are fulfilling the wish she wanted three and a half thousand years ago, that you will know it was this incredible woman that commanded these buildings. It's not that you can say, oh, we have no idea it was giants or it was aliens. No, no, it was Hatshepsut who commissioned these things.
- [34:35]
Emily Brifix Campbell
Extraordinary. Though I will say it makes me very curious. Curious to know what all of her other names mean. Do we have time?
- [34:42]
Dr. Campbell Price
Yes. So she's got. So her birth name, right, Hatshepsut. Then she's got a throne name, which is like when a pope takes on a pontifical name. It's not your given name, but it's a theologically important name. So her name is Maat Ka Ra, which means literally something like truth or justice is the spirit of the sun God, which is cool. But then she says she's literally Usret Kha. So strong, spirited. She's Wedjarenpet, which means literally green of years. And she's Netcheret Ka, which means divine of appearances. And make no mistake, I think that's very telling one, divine of appearances. Because in various places she says she is a full blown goddess and she is playing with this idea of divinity and she pushes, actually for that time of Egyptian history, she pushes the idea of the king's divinity, which later kings like Amenhotep iii, great Builder, also Ramesses ii, their ideas about their own godliness I think you can trace back to Hatshepsut.
- [35:49]
Emily Brifix Campbell
Amazing. I wish I could go around laying claim to that many names in that fashion. One of the other things that you mentioned that we should definitely talk about was about these extraordinary. Is it trading expeditions that were taking place? Is that a fair thing to call them?
- [36:04]
Dr. Campbell Price
Yeah, and I think the terminology is important because they are presented and have been interpreted sometimes as tribute, so like raids. So there's a military sense to them, but it does seem to be a fairly peaceful mission. So I think it's to be understood, although the ancient Egyptians downplay the fact that they take stuff with them on the mission to give to people, rather than them just snatching stuff, as they did in other places from the people of Punt. So we're talking about the land of Punt, mysterious, exotic land of Punt in ancient Egyptian, it's Referred to as God's land or the land of the gods. It is maybe somewhere in the area of the Horn of Africa, maybe Somaliland, maybe Eritrea. But it's a long way and it's hard to get to. So the expedition that Hatshepsut sends out basically have to to build big seagoing ships on the Nile, then flat pack them and carry them across the desert for hundreds of kilometers to get to the Red Sea and then rebuild the flat packed ships, get the ships, even though they're probably cleaving to the coast, they have to sail on the open sea, which for an ancient Egyptian is pretty scary. And then they go, they do their trading, they bring the stuff back, they bring back like living animals, monkeys, giraffes. It's like a kind of Noah's Ark. Gold incense trees, panther skins. All the nice smelly, exotic things to be enjoyed by Hatshepsut and Amun and the elite, of course. But what a feat could you imagine? Of course, in the ancient world, without modern communications, anything could have happened to this expedition. And so Hatshepsuts may be just waiting around in the palace and then when word comes, they've come back and they've brought all this stuff. And we know there are recorded expeditions to punt in the time of Hatshepsut's dim and distant ancestors time, but she really goes for it and she has this recorded in her mansion of millions of years at Deir El Bakri. So, yeah, really, really interesting, really an interesting bit of international relations, if you like.
- [38:14]
Emily Brifix Campbell
Are there any amazing achievements or other interesting extras that we should talk about?
- [38:19]
Dr. Campbell Price
I mean, things might interest because people like as little firsts. So Hatshepsut, I think, essentially invents the Valley of the Kings. So she has several tombs because at several points in her life she has different status. So when she's a princess, maybe she's expecting to be buried somewhere. When she's the queen, the king's chief wife, she expects to be somewhere else. When she's the pharaoh, she decides, okay, I need to essentially exhume my father and be buried with him. And this has got historical precedents. So she has his in hers sarcophagi and she uses religious texts on the burial chamber of this chamber, the texts of the Amduat that are never figured in inscriptions before. So she starts all of that. She has ideas in her building program. Another fun thing, she's really into sphinxes. Now, of course, there had been sphinxes in the reigns of previous kings, but although when we go to Egypt now You can, you can walk down great avenues of sphinxes but they are all later kings. Hatshepsut is the first attested ruler who has, you know, dozens and dozens of these sphinxes at her template Deir el Bakri. So she has at least, I don't know, 70 of these, maybe as many as 120 sphinxes. So she really does things for the first time that we think of as quintessentially pharaonic. But she's the one who really goes back.
- [39:48]
Emily Brifix Campbell
As we come towards the end of the episode, we should start coming to a close on Hatshepsut's life. You mentioned there that there is an element of uncertainty about the end of her rule. What happens there.
- [39:59]
Dr. Campbell Price
As with so many things, there's a lot of uncertainty attends of what actually happens. I mean, I suspect there was a lot of, you know, literal backstabbing in the Egyptian court. We know from some insights that assassinations are not terribly uncommon. We know from the Ptolemies that they are a real bloodthirsty bunch of. So I think we've got to allow that there was some potential struggle for power. But maybe Hatshepsut died a natural death. Assuming she was, gosh, maybe in her 20s when she comes to the throne. She not terribly old by modern standards. She's Maybe in her 40s when she dies, which is doing well for an ancient Egyptian. Recently some Egyptologists believe that Hatshepsut's body has been identified. There was some confusion with a lady called Sitre in who was Hatshepsut's wet nurse, which was a very high status role if you are breastfeeding a royal baby, especially a baby that became the pharaoh. But I'm not convinced it was to do with the discovery of a tooth from the mouth of this mummified body in a box. And the box had Hatshepsut's name on it. It's like, I don't know, finding a tooth In a George VI's commemorative coronation test and assuming that the truth has come from George vi. So we're not absolutely sure. As we've covered already, she is officially written out of the list of pharaohs. So when Ramesses II comes to list all the kings of Egypt, Hatshepsut does not feature there. But as I said later Egyptians know who she is. And I suspect Thutmose III ensured that she had a very respectful bearing. So I think we've got to assume that like 99% of ancient Egyptians, her body just does not survive.
- [41:48]
Emily Brifix Campbell
Sadly we've said how her Memory has been messed with essentially from her rediscovery up to now. How have Egyptologists, archaeologists, historians looked at her since?
- [42:01]
Dr. Campbell Price
It's interesting that Hatshepsut in her rediscovery is known since the kind of get go of Egyptology as such, at least Western Egyptology. And I think memory of her persisted in ancient times into more recent times. So the undoubtedly significant French Egyptologist Jean Francois Champollion, who began the translation process of hieroglyphs based on the Rosetta Stone when he visited Egypt, with his knowledge of the signs which had been lost for a number of centuries, he is able to recognize for the first time in over a millennium that the grammatical structure of the inscriptions at Hatshepsut's temple at Deir el Bakri don't quite make sense. So there are male and female pronouns. So he is the first to recognize Hatshepsut as a distinct historical kind of anomaly, I guess. And he calls her le Roi Reine, literally the King Queen. So she has been known since the very beginnings of European Egyptology. And so, yes, the Victorians are very suspicious of her. She's rehabilitated, I think more in the mid 20th century and now. I mean, she is a pop culture figure in a way. I mean, I think knowledge of her is better now because her temple is very accessible to tourists and books have been written about her. But did you know Tina Turner believed she was Hachepsut reincarnated?
- [43:32]
Emily Brifix Campbell
I didn't know that, admittedly.
- [43:33]
Dr. Campbell Price
Check it out. Google it. Tina Turner had her own not insignificant Egyptology collection. She went to Egypt, had these kind of spiritual experiences and really believed she was Hatshepsut born again.
- [43:45]
Emily Brifix Campbell
So we're seeing a Hatshepsut revival.
- [43:48]
Dr. Campbell Price
I think she deserves a proper film. Forget another Cleopatra film you need because there's so much evidence, as we've said, and there's a lot of drama. You know, things happen in her life that are quite dramatic and I think it would be a great story for the big screen.
- [44:05]
Emily Brifix Campbell
That was Egyptologist Dr. Campbell Price speaking to me. Emily Brifix Campbell is curator of Egypt and Sudan at Manchester Museum and a fellow at the University of Liverpool. If you're curious to find out more about ancient Egypt, be sure to check out the series Campbell and I spoke about at the top of this episode, Ancient Egypt. Big questions wherever you get your podcasts or you can watch the full video versions now on the History Extra Podcast YouTube channel.