Temples, Tombs & Hieroglyphs_ A Popular History of Ancient Egypt - Barbara Mertz [83]
This is historical fictionalizing, of course. There is a difference between a theory and a possibility; neither should contradict known data, but an honest theory ought to have some little something in the way of proof behind it. Unless new facts come to light, there never can be a theory about Hatshepsut’s fall because there is no evidence of any kind. You can see why Egyptologists occasionally turn to fictionalizing for lack of anything more solid. As a feeble justification for my own predilections in that direction, I can only add that I’m not the only one.
There were other reigning queens in ancient Egypt; some of them even assumed the king’s titles. But none ruled for a generation without opposition, and none held the throne during the adulthood of a man like Thutmose III. They have come down to us as equals, each unique in his or her own sphere. None of his successors tried to tarnish Thutmose’s glory, and his designs on Hatshepsut’s name and fame were foiled by the leveling forces of time and by the brilliance of modern scholarship. The masonry with which he encased her mighty obelisks collapsed, and archaeologists put the pieces of her shattered statues back together. They stand today in the museums of Cairo and New York, and on the terraces of her temple.
THE HATSHEPSUT PROBLEM
Scholarly feuds are a lot of fun for laymen, and even for the scholarly world itself, with the possible exception of the combatants. The spectacle of two dignified and learned gentlemen belaboring one another over a misplaced verb form or a piece of broken pottery, with adjectives which should be restricted to political debates, is inherently ridiculous and consequently entertaining. In point of fact there is nothing more absurd about the subjects of “Gelehrtenduelle” than about the causes of many wars, when one considers the stakes involved; but the tragedy of warfare, which removes any possibility of humor unless it be of a macabre variety, is missing in the academic battles. They rarely descend to violence, except that of a verbal nature.
One of the most hard-fought skirmishes on the battlefields of academe was waged around the turn of the last century on the Hatshepsut question. Let not the unwary reader be misled as to the nature of the question. The problem in Egyptological minds was not why Hatshepsut did what she did, or how she got away with it; it was basically a problem of what happened, and when. The historical sequence which I have given above is now the accepted view, but it was not arrived at without a good deal of Sturm und Drang. I mention it primarily because it is a good example of how illogical a scholar can be when he becomes enamoured of a theory. Besides, there’s a funny story connected with it.
The protagonists in the battle were Kurt Sethe on the one hand and Edouard Naville on the other. Sethe was one of the best Egyptologists Germany ever produced, which is saying a good deal. In appearance Sethe was the popular stereo type of a scholar—small in size and solemn of manner, though capable of deep and genuine warmth toward his close friends. The Swiss Naville was Sethe’s antithesis, being a big, burly man with a jovial personality. Beneath the joviality, however, was a stubbornness which his opponents might reasonably have termed “bullheadedness.” When the solemn German and the bullheaded Swiss met in conflict, they met head-on.
Sethe’s interpretation of the facts was based on the assumption that when King A’s name is erased from an inscription and replaced by the name of King B then King B must have followed King A. This sounds reasonable. But when Sethe applied the rule to the succession of the Thutmosid kings, he came up with the following sequence:
Thutmose I
Thutmose III
Thutmose III and Hatshepsut ruling jointly
Thutmose III ruling alone after having deposed Hatshepsut.
Thutmose I and Thutmose