Temples, Tombs & Hieroglyphs_ A Popular History of Ancient Egypt - Barbara Mertz [74]
They were heavy titles for a small boy, and the weight of the Red and White Crowns was a burden no infant could assume. Again, the situation had precedent, but in this case the mother of the king was no fit person to assume the regency. A commoner to administer the affairs of the Two Lands? That was against tradition, particularly when Egypt had so fitting a regent available in the person of the Great Royal Wife Hatshepsut, Wife of the God, Daughter of the former King and his Great Wife.
So far, the affair had been conducted in a perfectly respectable and dignified fashion, consistent with tradition and—as the Egyptians might have said—“in keeping with maat,” the universal order of justice and correctness. Hatshepsut was now dowager queen and regent of Egypt, as we would say; the Egyptians had no equivalent titles, and Hatshepsut simply retained the ones she had used when her husband was living.
Then, a few years after the little king had climbed the high stairs to the throne, the universal order received a shock that rocked it to its foundations.
Came forth the king of the gods, Amon-Re, from his temple, saying: “Welcome, my sweet daughter, my favorite, the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Maatkare Hatshepsut. Thou art the king, taking possession of the Two Lands.”
THE KING OF UPPER AND LOWER EGYPT
The Egyptians were tolerant people, and they were seldom troubled by inconsistencies. But here was an astounding event, so unusual that the very structure of the language rebelled against it. The word we translate from the hieroglyphs as queen literally means “king’s wife.” There are a number of words that refer to the king; the most common was originally the title of the king of Upper Egypt only, but when it appears alone it is translated as king. The king was also called “sovereign” or “His Majesty.” His titles included “King of Upper and Lower Egypt” and “Lord of the Two Lands.” During the first years of the Eighteenth Dynasty we find the famous word pharaoh as a title of the king. (It comes from two Egyptian words meaning “great house,” and originally referred to the palace.)
Titles of the Egyptian king Above, left to right: king; sovereign; his majesty Below: pharaoh
The point is that all these titles were masculine. Egyptian has two genders, the feminine ending being a t; and there were no words for a reigning monarch that were feminine in gender. The bewildered scribes were forced to some strange expedients in order to deal with Her Majesty, King Hatshepsut. They usually employed the feminine pronoun, but now and then, in the middle of one of the long, flattering texts that they could have written in their sleep, they would forget, and a he or his might creep in. Sometimes they added the feminine ending to the word for lord or majesty. But they still had to face such grotesque descriptions as “the (female) Horus.”
Hatshepsut’s statues and reliefs show her in both roles: as a woman, wearing female dress and the queen’s crown, and as a king, in a man’s kilt (and body!) wearing the king’s crown and the artificial beard. The dichotomy carries over into other spheres: two tombs, one in a remote valley where other queens’ tombs were located, and the other in the Valley of the Kings; two sarcophagi, one for a queen and one for a king.
Can her seizure of the kingship be regarded as an usurpation? Strictly speaking, no. Thutmose III was not deposed. He kept his titles and appears on various monuments with his coruler; but when the two are shown together there is no question as to which is number one, and the fact that she is there at all, in a king’s crown and body, could be seen as usurpation of a sort.
What ever the strength of her will and personality,