to meet Hatshepsut, a powerful woman who became Pharaoh of ancient Egypt and then almost disappeared from history. Unearth the mystery of the Queen Pharaoh. It's one of the stories of the ages, one of the Ancient Mysteries.
Before we unlock the future, we must find the keys to the past. I'm Leonard Nimoy, join me and open the door to Ancient Mysteries beginning now here on A&E. Her name was Hatshepsut.
Over 3,000 years ago, she did the unthinkable when she defied convention and had herself crowned Pharaoh of male dominated Egypt. This daring power play brought her control of the richest most powerful country on Earth. She was a woman who played by her own rules.
Did she defy convention again and take a common man as her lover and what was it in her personality that inspired such loyalty and devotion in some and such fear and loathing in others? In the end she may have gone too far. With a male leaders who followed her did everything in their power to obliterate her name from history.
What sin could she possibly have committed that would fuel such hatred? [music playing] Who was Hatshepsut? She's been called the first great woman in history.
She might also be called history's first great woman of mystery. So much effort was made to erase her name from the annals of Egyptian history after her death that tracing her life of 3,000 years ago has become a great detective story, one where modern archeology and history meet. This much we do know.
Her power play was extremely daring and the stakes were exceptionally high. Ancient Egypt during the 18th dynasty was at its absolute zenith. Its influence stretched all the way to Babylon.
The prize of Egypt included the world's strongest army, richest economy, and the eternal Nile. [MUSIC PLAYING AND WATER RUSHING] Once on the throne, she was not a token pharaoh instead she blossomed into a great monarch. In the 3,000 year history of ancient Egypt, her name is consistently mentioned as one of its greatest leaders.
When Hatshepsut grabbed the throne of Egypt, she also entered into the most exclusive men's club in the world. Egypt's mighty religious hierarchy. As Pharaoh, she was allowed into the innermost sanctum of their pagan religious cults.
With the high priest of the nation and his attendance, she worshipped the god Amun in ceremonies few other women had ever seen. Her hand was everywhere across the land. Standing high above the mighty temple of Karnak is Hatshepsut's obelisk.
It is the tallest one in the temple. As a Pharaoh, she claimed to be a deity herself and this obelisk is symbolic of her relationship to the sun gods. Across the Nile is her temple, one of the most beautiful structures in Egypt and one of the most unique buildings in all antiquity.
Most of the male Pharaohs built with strength in mind like The Great Pyramids, Hatshepsut's temple is different. It has a subdued elegant quality to it not often seen in Egyptian monuments. Even more intriguing is what lies close by this temple.
Archeologists have found a tomb whose entrance is off to the side. Once opened, the passageway leads hundreds of feet underground. OK.
LEONARD NIMOY: At the end of the tunnel, is the tomb of a man named Senenmut. Senenmut was a common man often rumored to be her lover. Was there as one of the great love affairs of history?
Did she defy everyone and break all the rules to have this man? Did she scandalize her country with this affair of the heart? Did Hatshepsut grant permission for this common man's tomb to be dug here so they could be close together even in eternity?
This is a great mystery, but perhaps even more intriguing is how she held onto her power. For breathing down her neck was perhaps Egypt's most ambitious warrior pharaoh to be. Thutmose III often called the Napoleon of Egypt.
Thutmose III was her nephew and the person she pushed aside when she claimed the throne for her own. What power does she wield over him that would keep him at bay for what some scholars think was a period of over 20 years? Armies couldn't stop him, empires fell to his sword, but this small woman kept him under her thumb.
How did she do it? The ultimate mystery though is what became of her. As Pharaoh, she was the most visible person on the planet.
The most famous person in the world, yet scholars are at a loss as to how she died and what happened to her body. She had several tombs constructed for her burial yet they're completely empty today. The bodies of many other Egyptian leaders have come down to us in the form of mummies but there is no officially verified record of her mummy.
Did enemies dispose of her body in an act of vengeance? Just as shocking of the attacks on her name and her image. At her temple, her statues be headed and mutilated beyond recognition.
Archeologists have found a huge dumping ground where it seems every statue that could be found of her was rounded up, smashed, and buried in a mass grave. All over Egypt her name was erased from official records. At the temple of Karnak, someone went to a great deal of trouble hacking out her image bit by bit from the temple walls.
What could have inspired this hatred? Who went to all this trouble? Political enemies, jealous males, a conservative society intent on putting a headstrong woman in her place?
Whatever the case, they failed. Archeologists have unearthed enough evidence to at least partially tell her story. The pieces to the puzzle are coming together and the mystery is coming into focus.
The world of Egyptian royalty that Hatshepsut was born into was one of the most elite and privileged man has ever known. Never before and rarely since has any group of people wielded such all encompassing power. The lifestyle they created for themselves was one of spectacular grandeur.
Still life at that period was very luxurious and very comfortable. Even by modern terms I would think none of the gadgetry that we think is necessary for success of course, but the food was good compared to that of the peasants. Beautiful accommodations, beautiful clothing, beautiful jewelry.
LEONARD NIMOY: Humility and self-sacrifice did not seem to be part of the Pharaoh's makeup. In earlier dynasties, they had built massive pyramids as monuments to themselves. In Hatshepsut's time, they worked at erecting gigantic temples meant to honor their gods.
They of course also dedicated vast parts of these buildings to their own memory. Egyptian pharaohs were great at self-aggrandizement and they were great at propaganda and they didn't think of it that way. History was something that you wrote to suit your own purposes.
LEONARD NIMOY: It seems they spared no expense when it came to their own well-being. Every day items found in their palaces were often encrusted with precious stones. At burial, their coffins was sometimes made of gold.
Some pharaohs even went so far as to claim status as gods themselves. What is even more remarkable about this is the fact that so many of the people were willing to believe them. The pharaohs power was so all encompassing that it never occurred to most of the common people to doubt the ruler.
As daughter of a pharaoh herself, Hatshepsut was an important part of this world from birth. Power and privilege surrounded her every move and she was able to observe from a special position the workings of the Ferrani court. She couldn't have had a better role model than her own father, pharaoh Thutmose I, who ruled from around 1524 BC.
He was one of the greatest conquerors that Egypt ever had and he took the borders of Egypt to the Euphrates River in Babylon and he took the borders of Egypt in the South down past the fourth cataract in Libya and nobody went any further. LEONARD NIMOY: Records concerning girls formal schooling in the royal court are sketchy. What type of education might have Hatshepsut had?
We know that literacy and the ability to write was considered to be a major part of advancement in ancient Egypt. It was a matter of tremendous pride and culture and refinement to be literate. And so we assume that anybody in the royal family, especially a woman who is to be a pharaoh or a regent would in fact be literate.
That she would have been highly trained in reading and writing. LEONARD NIMOY: She surely knew her father ruled the greatest empire on Earth. What would she have seen have been told about the country as a girl?
What goals would have been put in her head? Members of the royal family did travel. They went upstream, downstream, back and forth.
They spent some time in Memphis, which was one of the capitals of Egypt, probably sometime in the temples of Heliopolis. They would have seen therefore the outstanding monuments of their predecessors. But all Egyptian pharaohs wanted to build largely, they wanted to leave monuments to their names.
LEONARD NIMOY: Her own route to the throne was one of the most amazing combinations of chance, luck, brains, ambition, coincidence, and scheming in the history of royal power plays. It was also the result of complex royal bloodlines. Some believe power in ancient Egypt was kept within royal families by intermarriage.
It was not uncommon for a brother to marry a sister, a father to marry a daughter, or any number of combinations. Polygamy was also common. A King often claiming several women as wives and many more as concubines.
The royal family were the only ones to the best of our knowledge who practice brother sister marriages and in some cases, apparently father daughter. That would seem to me also to bear out the notion that it was necessary for a King to marry a woman of the royal blood. But you can get a lot of good arguments going with Egyptologists on that particular subject.
LEONARD NIMOY: The Egyptian royals saw nothing immoral or sinful in these acts. They were merely keeping their right to rule which was their blood safely within the family. It has nothing to do with incest as a modern concept.
It wouldn't have occurred to them that this was a sinful shocking thing to do and it's not another royal families in other parts of the world. The idea being I think that the royal blood is thereby preserved, controlled, and kept within the royal family. LEONARD NIMOY: In keeping with this practice, Hatshepsut married her half brother Thutmose II.
As a pharaoh, he was only a shadow of the man their powerful father had been. His reign was mostly uneventful. Thutmose II died a young man around 1504 BC.
His demise left a huge problem for the royal family. Apparently, the only eligible male heir he had sired was a young boy not yet 12 years of age, Thutmose III. The boy had been born to one of his secondary wives and not Hatshepsut.
Yet because Hatshepsut was the ranking dowager queen of Egypt, it was decided that she would serve as regent with the boy until he came of age. It is not necessarily the young King's mother, but it is always the most senior queen that is in existence at that time and Hatshepsut was the senior queen. She was not the only wife, she was the senior queen of Thutmose the second.
So she becomes naturally and properly and legally the regent for the young King. LEONARD NIMOY: Life as regent seemed to appeal to her. Power seemed to appeal to her.
Yet it is hard to believe that she have a plan to be pharaoh in the beginning. It was a totally unrealistic goal for a woman. But as regent walking through this huge labyrinth of power, perhaps she began to see how the glittering prize of being the full leader of the country could be grasped.
How the impossible dream of becoming the sole ruler of Egypt could be hers. What would she do? [music playing] LEONARD NIMOY: Many accounts say Hatshepsut was brilliant in her role as regent of Egypt.
Fate and heredity may have brought her the job, but it was natural talent that brought her success. There is much debate though as to whether her woman's touch change the way Egypt was ruled. Did it become a more peaceful nation with a woman leader or was it business as usual?
I don't believe that women are necessarily any more nurturing than men when they get power and I won't mention any names of current ladies or recent ladies in the recent past, but they're pretty tough most of them. LEONARD NIMOY: One also wonders how the general populace took to having a woman in charge. The man in the street didn't have the right to comment on this sort of thing.
He had no political power as such. They didn't rebel and beat at the gates of the temple. I suspect they talked about it behind the back a lot, but there was no vocal demonstration of confusion or will.
LEONARD NIMOY: Although she didn't have to answer to the man on the street, there were other concerns. Like all good politicians, she had to delicately balance and juggle the various governmental military business and religious players involved in the day-to-day operation of the country. If you don't get the support of the people who are working for you, then obviously you cannot be a powerful King.
But if you have got the support of your people, then obviously they will get things done for you. And the more enthusiastic they are, the better they work. LEONARD NIMOY: One of the most powerful factions she dealt with with a priest at the temple of Karnak.
Egypt was a profoundly religious country. The Egyptians believed the power of the pharaoh and economic well-being of the country emanated from the god Amun. Egyptian deities took many different forms.
It is believed that one embodiment of Amun that was worshipped at Karnak was in the form of a small gold idol. When she came to power, Hatshepsut was allowed to join in the ritual worship of this god. These religious ceremonies were closed to the general public and even most members of the royal family were excluded.
But as regent, Hatshepsut was allowed into the inner domain of the god and the priests who attended him. Handled diplomatically, she may have formed an extremely strong bond with these priests. A bond that would help her consolidate even more power in the future.
Another unique area she would have had to deal with was the military. As a woman probably hadn't had any military training, this may have been an area she struggled with. There is some evidence, however, that on her orders, successful military campaigns were carried out in Nubia and Peloton.
Perhaps the most intriguing person in her life was a man named Senenmut. Everybody wants to know about Senenmut. Senenmut was the man who is most closely associated in the popular mind certainly with hardships.
He was one of her greatest officials. He was a man of humble birth. We know his parents and they were commoners.
He rose to power because he was a talented man and probably as an administrator. And this is true that in Egypt people could do this. If you could get connected with the court in some way or to come to someone's attention and you were a person of ability, you could rise to considerable power.
LEONARD NIMOY: Senenmut rose to the position of overseeing the Karnak temple complex, an incredible accomplishment for a man of humble origins. Hatshepsut was known for defying convention. Did she break the rules again and have an affair with this common man?
If so, was the relationship carried out clandestinely? This again is pure speculation, I would think she'd like someone as a friend. The King had all the concubines he wanted.
The King could have a lot of wives. I think in Hatshepsut's place, just pure speculation, it would have been nice if she'd had a friend or two around shall we say. LEONARD NIMOY: Senenmut in what seems to have been with her through many stages of her life.
He even for a time is believed to have tutored her daughter. One question that has never been fully answered is how big a role if any, did Senenmut play as an advisor to Hatshepsut in the day-to-day running of the kingdom? Was he a power behind the throne?
Even if he wasn't advising her, it is clear he acted under her orders. She sent him on a number of jobs. Now, this is a typical thing for a typical efficient Egyptian official to do.
To be sent on jobs and to fulfill the Commission in the best possible way so that the King or the Queen is delighted with the way in which you've done your job. It's a meritorious society, so you have to succeed by merit. If you're not good, out.
And with Hatshepsut, he obviously performed very efficiently. LEONARD NIMOY: Another mystery is what was happening to young Thutmose III during this time. Even though he was too young to lead, he was still the ruler of the land with Hatshepsut acting on his behalf.
How was he maturing towards the day when he would take over full control of the country? He is still a boy. He must have had some military training.
Again, most of the young men of the royal family and I would imagine the young noblemen too we're expected to learn to use a bow, to drive a chariot, and to do the other things that any young nobleman would do. So he must have had some military training. He would have had his priestly training.
LEONARD NIMOY: One also wonders how Hatshepsut treated her stepson. There are two kings, but there's no one and no two and he was number two. There's no indication she had anything against him that she had any unpleasant aspirations toward doing away with him.
Again, this is historical novel stuff but it wouldn't have been that hard I don't think to dispose of a rival. But why should she? She had the power and she was doing what she wanted to do.
LEONARD NIMOY: Although she seems to have been fair to the boy, she also must have realized that with each passing year he was getting closer and closer to the day when he would take over complete control of the throne himself. This was not an idea that appealed to her. She could see it slipping away from her hands forever and I think by then she was a woman who enjoyed power, who was an excellent ruler.
Hindsight has shown us that and therefore did not want to give up what she had. She might have been doing it for Egypt's benefit as much as for her own, but obviously she enjoyed exercising power and she wasn't going to give it up. LEONARD NIMOY: No one has been able to pinpoint the exact date she made her move towards becoming the undisputed ruler of Egypt.
The day she metamorphosis into herself from Queen regent to Pharaoh of all the land. All we know is that it was a brilliant power play. She had learned her lesson as well and had mastered the art of Egyptian politics brilliantly.
All those years watching her father rule, all those years observing court intrigues, all those years seeing how the temples operated and military functioned. In the end, she knew who to coax, who not to cross, and when to move. She also knew the most powerful weapon in her arsenal was her own birthright.
As Egyptian royalty, she claimed the throne by way of blood. Not just the blood of her father, but also that of the gods. She had inscribed on the walls of her temple, a series of reliefs showing the god Amun coming to her mother in order to engender her.
The god came in the form of her father, Thutmose I. But of course it was a god Amun and that meant that Hatshepsut was the daughter of the god. Therefore, she was the royal heir blessed by the gods.
LEONARD NIMOY: By declaring herself a deity, she was almost unapproachable. How could anyone dare defy an order from a god? No one did, but crowning took place.
Young Thutmose III was pushed into the background for the time being. Egypt was hers. What would she do with it?
The time period surrounding Queen Hatshepsut's reign from around 1,500 BC bore witness to other significant events. In distant China, the silk culture blossomed. For centuries, the ancient Chinese knowledge of silk production remained a closely guarded secret and in Crete civilization began to grow rich through trade and conquest.
Pharaoh's word was law. The idea of democracy or group rule would have seemed absurd to the ancient Egyptians. As part god ruling on this Earth, the pharaoh could dream and be quite sure that those dreams would come true.
Hatshepsut's dreams involved growth. She was a builder. Today, 3,000 years after her reign, structures she erected still stand and still impress.
She wants a Bill in a fairer and her monuments are stretch from the very far North right down to the South in Elephantine where they found-- the Germans found a temple not too long ago and buildings are turning up at regular intervals LEONARD NIMOY: Like any major pharaoh, she wanted to leave her on the great temple of Amun at Karnak. Egyptian leaders of this era felt indebted to this god who they believed resided in the temple. They went out of their way making additions to the building that they thought would be pleasing to the deity.
Perhaps her most spectacular addition to the temple was the great obelisk. Obelisk were symbols of the sun god and commemorate the relationship of the god to a reigning monarch. There were miracles of ancient construction ingenuity some of them rising over 100 feet in length.
Many of them were quarried hundreds of miles up the Nile at Aswan with a pharaoh's had massive quarries. Using primitive tools and backbreaking labor, they were cut from solid rock. The carving of obelisks was extremely difficult.
The tools were very weak. The Egyptians were using bronze at the time. It seems to be that obelisks were quarried using stone mall's, enormous blocks of granite, blocks of the same material that were simply pounded against the stone of the quarries until depressions could be sunk in all around the outlines of the obelisk and eventually, the shape of the obelisk itself would take form.
LEONARD NIMOY: Even though they were made of granite, they were extremely fragile. One mistake in cutting them could wipe out the whole project. This unfinished obelisk rests today at the Aswan quarry virtually unchanged since workers walked away from it over 3,000 years ago.
The huge crack that materialized at its tip made it impractical to proceed even a day longer. Legend has it Sentimond oversaw the quarrying of Hatshepsut's obelisk. He managed to do this within seven months, which is apparently a bit of a record and he advertised that on a graffiti that he left on the island of seal.
LEONARD NIMOY: Once quarried, the huge structures were moved to the river's edge and floated downstream to Thebes. This may have been the most treacherous part of the entire undertaking. Moving the obelisk into a boat must have been a very tricky operation to make sure that there was, the boat was not overweighted to make sure that was appropriate and ballast.
LEONARD NIMOY: Nile was much swifter and dangerous in ancient times than it is today. One mistake in balancing the boats or running the river could sink the whole project in a matter of seconds. Once safely at Thebes though, the obelisks were brought to the temple of Karnak with much fanfare.
One can imagine because of the size of Hatshepsut's obelisk that the celebration surrounding it was stupendous. And then, the most delicate job of all was at hand. Raising the huge needle without snapping it.
It is theorized that obelisks were tipped up on end by dragging them up enormous sand ramps until they would begin to balance on a single point along the center of their length. And then there would be allowed to slip carefully onto their great bases and they seem to have caught one edge along a groove made in the base. And once the edge of the obelisk hit that groove, then it was more or less in position and the tip could then be dragged upright by a series of ropes attached.
LEONARD NIMOY: It is believed Hatshepsut had the top of her obelisk covered with plates of gold so that it would shine with the burning intensity of the sun symbolizing for all to see her royal link with the gods. Across the river from Thebes, she had an ongoing building project, an awesome mortuary palace dedicated to her name. She allowed her architects free reign to invent and the time of Thutmose 3 and Hatshepsut becomes one of the high points of Egyptian architectural history.
LEONARD NIMOY: She would not be buried here, that ceremony would take place in a tomb dug into the nearby mountains. But this temple would serve as a symbol of her reign for all eternity. The temple remains today one of the most beautiful and unique in all antiquity.
It's a beautiful work of art. The concept of the temple at Deir el-Bahari is considered to be the most advanced and beautiful throughout the whole of Egyptian architectural history and we see these sorts of things continuing in temples throughout Egypt. LEONARD NIMOY: On the walls, artists depicted the story of her greatest accomplishments.
Off to the side and deep below the temple complex Senenmut build his tomb. The fact that it was constructed so close to Hatshepsut's temple is one factor fueling speculation about their possible love affair. Dr Peter Dorman of the University of Chicago has spent years researching Senenmut's life.
Amazingly, the chamber remains almost unchanged after over 30 centuries. This is a site few tourists ever get to see. This is an informal portrait of Senenmut left here about 3,500 years ago on a smooth area perhaps painted here by one of the last workmen to leave the tomb.
It shows just Senenmut, his shoulders, and his title great Steward of Amun, and the portrait looks really as if it had been painted yesterday. The climate of Luxor is almost perfect for this kind of preservation of pigment. LEONARD NIMOY: Deeper into the ground the tomb becomes more elaborate there is no body here but the chamber itself like the painting in the tunnel remains an almost pristine condition.
The burial chamber of Senenmut has as its focus a beautifully carved funeral a false door Estela, the most prominent feature is a pair of eyes representing the protective eyes of Horus and above this representation of Senenmut back to back with his hands raised in a gesture of adoration and these representations as you can see are completely intact. The ceiling is really one of the great wonders of the tomb. It's the earliest such astronomical ceiling from Egypt.
These figures with the red disks on their heads represent the lunar day deities of every lunar month. And in this part of the room, representation of the lunar calendar. LEONARD NIMOY: One curious thing about Hatshepsut's reign is how she presented herself to the public in statues.
Only the smallest fraction of the Egyptian citizenry would ever have seen Hatshepsut in person. For most of them the only real glimpse of what she looked like would come from statues of her. Curiously, she often chose to present herself in a masculine way.
She wanted the public to think she was as good as a man. She had her statues depicted first of all as a female ruler very respectable and sitting in a ladylike position and then she changed bits and pieces on the statue representations over the years until gradually she was completely dressed as a man with a male beard, a male kilt, no breasts, a male looking face. It's hard to say that she wanted the commoner people to think of her as male because we don't know what she really thought about that issue.
But she certainly did want them to have the impression that she was as good as a male pharaoh in every respect, including the way in which she was depicted. LEONARD NIMOY: This awareness of image also presented itself in other ways. She seemed to know the importance of a ruler having a sense of adventure.
One of the crowning accomplishments of her reign was sending an expedition to the distant land of punt. Traveling to punt was something few Egyptians had ever done. There is some question as to exactly where it was located but it may have been along the Ethiopian coast or perhaps the present area of Somalia.
To bring back treasures of the gods land including things like Panther skins, ivory, and in particular myrrh trees that could be planted in the temple gardens of Amun. LEONARD NIMOY: Scenes of the great expedition a carved on her temple walls. Perhaps like any great leader, she knew the glory that would come from a successful expedition.
Success follows success yet always present was the ever maturing Thutmose the third. What was he doing all this time? What did he think of her?
When if ever would she step aside and let him take his rightful place on the throne? She held on to power long after he came of an age to rule in his own right. How she did it is one of the biggest mysteries in archeology to me.
It had to have had something to do with her personality as a strong human being and also probably with machinations and cabals in the court itself of which we have no record Then suddenly, Hatshepsut was gone. The woman who became pharaoh also became one of the great disappearing acts of history. How she died and what happened to her body are two of the major mysteries of modern archeology.
At around 22 years into her reign, we suddenly find Thutmose III on the throne of Egypt and Hatshepsut nowhere to be found. The Egyptians of course knew what happened to her, we don't. We simply don't know how she died, it probably was a natural death.
We have no evidence to indicate otherwise. Among the mummies of the royal cache that were discovered about 100 years ago on the West Bank of Thebes, there is none that can be shown to be hers. So we don't really know what happened to her mummy.
Whether it was left to lie in state, or whether it was desecrated or whether it was carefully removed and preserved somewhere else. LEONARD NIMOY: The records we do have show Thutmose the third taking over and going on to great glory. One past historian has likened him to Napoleon not only because of his military conquest but because his mummy is fairly short.
He must have been a very active person. He was a great campaigner. Once he was on the throne of Egypt, he records almost annual campaigns from his 23rd until his 42nd reign year.
LEONARD NIMOY: The reason we've been left in the dark about Hatshepsut's demise and death is that most of the ancient records concerning her seem to have been methodically destroyed. Because of this, Egyptologists have been left with some huge gaps of evidence in solving the mystery of the Queen Pharaoh. Besides not being sure of how she died, we're also not sure of how she fell from power.
Was she murdered? Was she pushed aside in a palace coup? And why all the effort to erase her name from history?
The traditional story is that immediately after her death, an army of enemies perhaps instigated by Thutmose the third descended upon everything that bore her name and likeness and destroyed it. Thutmose was furious that this mere woman had dared to usurp his throne for so many years and the time had now come for a payback. The statues and reliefs in her temple were destroyed.
Some of them beheaded others bastion. The tomb where she was supposed to be buried was ransacked. Her body may have been removed at the same time.
At Karnak her name and image were methodically chiseled from the walls. This was the ancient equivalent of book burning in modern times or erasing tape. By eliminating her image and name, her enemies felt that they could also eliminate her memory.
The old theory was that Thutmose the third anger knew no bounds. His hatred of Hatshepsut was all encompassing yet recent discoveries have forced the revision in this long held belief. What archeologists have now turned up only adds more mystery to the case.
Yes, her image was destroyed, but it may have been nearly 20 years after the estimated time of her death. Why would Thutmose the third wait so long to avenge his anger? Certainly, Thutmose third did nothing to her monuments for a good many years after she died and that to me is again one of the inexplicable things.
There's no question but that her monuments were defaced afterwards. LEONARD NIMOY: The meticulous study of temple wall inscriptions and the dating of construction projects has forced a reassessment of the old historical perspective. One new theory on Hatshepsut presents possibly a less hostile relationship between her and Thutmose the third but an extremely sexist one nevertheless.
For some scholars are now starting to think that the obliteration of her name was fueled by something more than immediate personal revenge on the part of Thutmose the third. More than revenge he may have felt a need to rewrite history. Because it now appears he didn't start to attack her memory until nearly 20 years after her death, it may be that he decided at that time that there was a need to set history right from a traditional male point of view.
To put her in her place so to speak for all of eternity, the first thing he had to do was eliminate her version of history so he could write his own therefore all the destruction. This rewriting of history may also have involved more pharaohs than just Thutmose the third. For some of the other pharaohs who followed him even went so far as to eliminate her name from the official King's list.
These King lists were made up at various periods in Egyptian history. They reflect certain prejudices or trends of the time. I personally think that we cannot say exactly why she was left off the list rather it is, it may be a misogynist sort of anti-female pharaoh.
It could be the idea that she was not truly a King. I think we simply at this time cannot tell because so many of the records about Hatshepsut are contradictory. LEONARD NIMOY: She may have grabbed the throne and led the country with great skill, but in the end, old ways of viewing women died hard.
I think that women were not really considered to be the most appropriate people to rule Egypt and women were not held in high esteem. Mothers of kings were held in high esteem as long as women kept their place, they were given respect and they were looked after. And those are instructions that were given to men right from the very earliest times in ancient Egypt we believe.
LEONARD NIMOY: Ironically, the last laugh may be Hatshepsut's for during this century many artifacts from her reign have been unearthed. In 1922, a New York Metropolitan Museum of Art dig in Egypt began unearthing numerous Hatshepsut statues that had been mutilated and buried in a mass grave. With meticulous efficiency, the statues were pieced back together.
The result is her name and likeness is alive and well and has traveled far from the Nile Valley. Day prominently displayed in the fabulous Hatshepsut gallery at the Museum in New York City in a way it's only fitting. The discovery of the statues has allowed her to defy time itself.
While she was alive, she seemed to defy all the odds and even now in death after they tried to bury her legacy forever, she has returned from oblivion. Hatshepsut, the woman became Pharaoh.
