Her full name is “The Horus, mighty by his Kas (doubles), the lord of East and West, abounding in years, the Good Goddess, the Pious Lady, the Golden Falcon, devine in her risings, the king of Upper and Lower Egypt, Kamara, the Daughter of Ra, Khnumit Amon, Hâtshopsîtû”. That is why I will be using Hatshepsut to refer to the female Pharaoh because Hâtshopsîtû is hard to type and looks hard to say. Keep in mind that Egyptians believed in the purity of royal blood because Pharaohs were the equivalents of gods, this lead to inbreeding.
Thutmose I (also known as Thoutmôsis I) and Queen Aahmes are the father and mother of Hatshepsut. Her father was son of Amenôthes I and a woman of non-royal rank named Senseneb. Aahmes was the daughter of Amenôthes I and Aanhotpou who was of royal blood. Being the daughter of a king and princess validated her right to the throne. In Egypt, lineage is traced through the mother. This royal blood put Hatshepsut before her half-brother, Thutmose II, and her nephew, Thutmose III. Thutmose II is the son of Thutmose I and a concubine. Thutmose III is the son of Thutmose II and by proxy is of lesser status.
In Progress
Like most Pharaohs, Hatshepsut created a story about her divine birth, validating her right to rule, by claiming to be the daughter of the god Amon. The story goes that Amon summons nine gods of Heliopolis plus Menthu of Thebes, Horus and Hathor. Amon makes an announcement that a princess will be born and the gods agree to protect her. Thoth gives Aahmes’ name to Amon who then takes the shape of Thutmose I and enters her bedroom. Khnum, a god of pottery makes the princess. Thoth, Anubis and Seshait give her a long life and Hatshepsut is baptized by Horus and Amon. The baptism part most likely happened with the parts of Amon and Horus being played by priests dressed in masks.
Hatshepsut became Pharaoh in the Eighteenth Dynasty of the New Kingdom. She was appointed as successor to Thutmose I because of her superior royal blood in comparison to her half-brother, Thutmose II. At her coronation she was given a royal name by priests, which is the lengthy bit of text at the top. Hatshepsut ruled with Thutmose II for 14 years until his death. She then acted as regent for Thutmose III who was too young to rule.
Deir el-Bahri is Hatshepsut’s funerary temple, designed for funerary rites and commemorative ceremonies. It’s about a mile away from her actual tomb which is in the Valley of the Kings. Her tomb is much smaller than her temple which is the opposite in scale of Pharaohs of the Old Kingdom (e.g. pyramids). The walkway of Deir el-Bahri used to be lined with sphinxes that ran all the way to a temple on the Nile. Myrrh trees were planted in the temple’s garden. The ramp leads to a floor that has shrines to Anubis and Hathor. On the top there are large royal statues, behind is a hall with chapels dedicated to Hatshepsut, her father, Amon and Ra-Horakhy ( a powerful combination of the sun god Ra and Horus).
It was uncommon for a female Pharaoh at the time and Hatshepsut knew her gender would be an obstacle. The hieroglyphs refer to a female but the statues and engravings depict a male, sometimes even with a Pharaoh’s ceremonial beard. Sadly, many of the engravings of Deir el-Bahri were destroyed by Coptic monks, Amenôthes IV and the Ramessides who all opposed her rule. They sometimes destroyed her face and often replaced it with the portrait of Thutmose II.
Lily Wilkinson
Naville, Edouard, Howard Carter, and Theodore Davis. The Tomb of Hâtshopsîtû.
London: A. Constable and, 1906. Print.
Stokstad, Marilyn, Michael Watt. Cothren, and Frederick M. Asher. Art History. 4th ed. Vol.
Combined. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall/Pearson, 2011. Print.
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