Temples, Tombs & Hieroglyphs_ A Popular History of Ancient Egypt - Barbara Mertz [76]
Except for the little error of the male babies, this sequence makes an impressive story. How impressed anyone actually was is open to question. What ever the combination of propaganda and power, Hatshepsut succeeded not only in gaining the throne but in holding it for more than twenty years. Under her reign the land prospered. She built magnificently all over Egypt and Nubia, particularly at the Temple of Amon at Karnak, where one of her huge obelisks, the largest to be quarried in Egypt up to that time, still towers into the sky. These tall, four-sided spires were usually erected in pairs near the gateway, or pylon, of a temple. The obelisk form suggests majesty and ambition, and the ancient Egyptians were not the only ones to appreciate these qualities. The Washington Monument is an obelisk, and many of the biggest Egyptian obelisks were carried off by foreign conquerors to augment the grandeur of their native capitals, from London to Constantinople. The second obelisk of this pair of Hatshepsut’s collapsed in antiquity. When they were first erected, both monuments were ornamented with fine gold. The inscriptions on the sides and base of the obelisk state that the queen measured out the precious metal by the bushel, like sacks of grain.
From this, and from other evidences, we can be fairly sure that the female king’s acccession did not interrupt the flow of wealth into Egypt. There are some references to military campaigns, in Nubia and Syria, but I am inclined to take them with a grain of salt. The scenes on her surviving monuments do not show her leading the charge or bashing captives on the head. They feature religious activities and, in one case, an economic triumph—a trading mission to the distant, almost fabled, land of Punt.
No one knows exactly where Punt lay; the latest guesses put it somewhere on the Somali coast. The products of this country included goods highly coveted by the luxury-loving Egyptians—apes and ivory, gold and spices—and dwarfs, like the one Harkhuf brought to his king during the Old Kingdom.
The scenes showing Hatshepsut’s expedition to Punt, which was organized and led by Nehsi the Nubian, occupy more of the wall space at the Deir el Bahri temple. The great ships are shown setting out, with sailors hanging like monkeys from the rigging. When they finally reached Punt they were greeted by the astounded natives, including the wife of the chief—an enormously fat woman accompanied by a very small donkey, presumably her means of transportation. (The Egyptians undoubtedly thought this was very funny; even in so solemn a venture as the Punt expedition, they could not resist poking fun at inferiors.) After a successful trading mission the ships returned, bringing not only gold and ivory, but also a collection of myrrh trees, zealously tended on the long journey, to adorn the terraces of the temple of Amon and the queen.
All this energy—the expedition, the obelisks, and other undertakings—were carried out to the glory of Amon. “Her Majesty did this because she loved her father Amon so much, more than all other gods…. I have done this from a loving heart for my father Amon.” It looks as if Hatshepsut were trying to propitiate someone—the god or the priests or both.
We have mentioned the great obstacle of her sex, and the sullen weight of tradition, which Hatshepsut had to overcome in her quest for power. But we have not yet discussed another handicap, which makes her success truly inexplicable. All the time Hatshepsut was wielding the scepter so energetically, there was another king of Egypt in the background. He was to be one of the greatest and most forceful kings who ever ruled Egypt, a conqueror who, in breadth of vision and martial prowess, may legitimately be compared with the great Alexander. To be sure, Thutmose III was only