The following article, originally published in 1913, compares the ancient Egyptian Queen Hatshepsut to the suffragettes of the time. Indeed, the queen did have to struggle and manipulate her way into power and was often thwarted by her father and brothers who wanted the power of the throne all to themselves.
The Mrs. Pankhurst of Old Egypt
Odd New Discoveries About the Great Queen Hatshepsut
Who was First of the Militant Suffragettes of 4000 Years Ago
Even Wore a Beard Like a Real Man
Many new discoveries have been made by the Egypt Exploration Fund concerning Queen Hatshepsut, the remarkable woman who rules over Egypt 4,500 years ago. These discoveries more than justify the claim of Queen Hatshepsut to be called the Mrs. Pankhurst of her time.
Queen Hatshepsut gained full possession of the throne from which she ousted her worthless brother, assumed the garments of a man, extended the empire into far distant regions, erected the greatest temples and monuments of her time and gave the people the most efficient government they had ever known.
The latest work bearing on Queen Hatshepsut is the complete excavation of the great temple built by her at Deir-el-Bahri, west of the Nile, near Thebes. This building was erected at the base of a vast cliff which adds curiously to its grandeur.
The temple now stands practically perfect with terraces and courts restored. The wonderful colored reliefs commanded by queen Hatshepsut to record her career and glorify her sex are now visible to the world. The temple was constructed on three terraces and lies at the foot of cliffs that rise 400 feet sheer above it.
Buried in the temple are Hatshepsut; her father, Thutmose I; her brother, Thutmose II., and her half-brother, Thutmose III. It is noticeable that in all the decorations Hatshepsut occupies nearly the entire wall space. Her men relatives occupy only the minimum space necessary to depict them, and they are all represented standing, while the Queen is seated.
On the upper terrace of the temple is a shrine of Hathor, the cow goddess, the favorite divinity of Hatshepsut. On the wall painting within Hathor is represented in the form of a cow suckling a boy and protecting a man standing before her.
On the lower platform of the temple is a most interesting relief illustrating the methods used by the ancient Egyptians in transporting huge obelisks and monoliths. Three rows of boats tow the huge barge in which an obelisk is loaded.
The relief shows the pilots’ boats running ahead with the pilots taking the soundings, the taut cable, the swinging oars, the tender and the rear line of craft carrying officiating priests and the royal emblems of Hatshepsut.
In this way, with the aid of 2,000 men, the two obelisks erected in honor of Hatshepsut were carried to the temple of Amon at Karnak.
One of the many inscriptions to Hatshepsut on the walls at Deir-el-Bahri declares: “Hatshepsut, the divine consort, adjusted the affairs of the two lands by reason of her policies; Egypt was made to labor with bowed head for her.”
The magnificently colored reliefs of the temple show that Hatshepsut wore all the costume and regalia of a male Pharaoh. She wore a crown, dressed herself entirely in men’s garments and put on an artificial beard. The archaeologist informs us that an ambassador at her court would find the way to her favor is he addressed her as “His Majesty.”
Hatshepsut, through her mother, Queen Ahmose, was the heiress of the older line of Pharaohs, which had left no male representatives. From the beginning of her career she was confronted by a conspiracy of her father, Thutmose I., and her other male relatives, to deprive her of her rights, just as the modern suffragettes say they are being deprived of theirs. She compelled her father to surrender the throne to her, as he was not of royal descent and had no rights after his wife was dead. She was married according to the ancient Egyptian custom to her brother Thutmose II.
He endeavored to usurp the entire power, but Hatshepsut overcame him. First she forced him to acknowledge her as co-ruler, and her next step was to send him into retirement and assume all the honors and rights of the Pharaoh. She was styled “the female Horus,” and a woman ruled alone over Egypt for the first time.
Her father was still alive and plotted with her half-brother, known as Thitmose III., his son by a slave named Isis, to gain possession of the throne. Thutmose III. held the throne for three years, and then Thutmose II. emerged from retirement and secured the throne for himself, while keeping his wife in the background.
But Hatshepsut was not to be suppressed. She gathered her adherents together, and at first cleverly compelled her husband to acknowledge her as co-ruler. When she gathered sufficient strength she threw him off the throne.
Hatshepsut was now permanently established in power. The inscriptions tell us that “Egypt was made to labor with bowed head for her, the excellent seed of the gods. The bow cable of the south, the mooring stake of the southerners, the excellent stern cable of the Northland is she, the mistress of command, whose plans are excellent, who satisfies the Two Regions when she speaks.”
Her faithful followers were placed in all the high offices of the empire. It is conjectured that there must have been women among them, but the records do not speak certainly on this point. Her scribe Amenemhat, and his assistant, Aahmes, stood next to the queen, recording all her wondrous deeds. The most powerful of her adherents, Hapuseneb, acted as vizier and high priest of Amon, the great god. One scene depicts her father, saying before the assembled court on New Year’s day:
“Ye shall proclaim her word, ye shall be united at her command. He who shall do her homage shall live; he who shall speak blasphemy of Her Majesty shall die.”
Although she is represented in the sculptures in male attire, the ruins indicate that she enjoyed great feminine luxury. It is reasoned that she wore masculine attire on state occasions, and very delicate feminine finery on social occasions. She used her vast wealth to procure jewelry of gold and precious stones. In her tomb have been found a magnificent necklace of gold and amethysts a yard long and many strings of gold beads, gold necklaces and rings. There were also strings of amulets in the form of Hathor heads and gold hawks.
The perfume pots, the little pincers and magnificent mirrors that lay upon her toilet table have all been brought to light, proving that with all her wonderful virile statesmanship she was not above making herself as attractive as art could accomplish.
Her banquets were magnificent affairs, and the whole known world must have been searched to provide dainties and luxuries for them. In one relief we see her servants bearing twenty-one different kinds of meats. Wines were provided in corresponding variety and abundance, for this early suffragette was no prohibitionist.
Another of her great temples was at Buhen. It was built of beautiful sandstone, brought from Nubia, which her followers explored. The inscriptions indicate that Hatshepsut built this temple entirely, although her successor after her death tried to steal away the credit by writing his name on every wall. He even removed whole blocks of stone bearing her picture and placed his own portrait in their stead.
The square pillars were all sculptured with the queen receiving the symbol of life from the gods and goddesses. Many of the inscriptions are interesting, as showing the sentiments and ideas of the great queen. For instance:
“Oh, Horus, Lord of Buhen, may he grant life, prosperity, health, a ready wit, favor and love.”
When Hatshepsut died after reigning twenty-one years, her miserable brother, Thutmose III., who had hardly dared to show his head while she was alive, hastened to deface every one of her monuments, erasing her face and name wherever possible, and striving in every way to steal the glory of her great and beneficent reign.
Queen Hatshepsut was a great industrial and scientific pioneer. She carried on mines in the Sinaitic peninsula, a savage region, far removed from Egypt. In her own country she established factories that produced glazed ware and colored glass, which were novelties four thousand years ago.
One of the remarkable achievements of her reign was the scientific expedition which she sent to Punt, a country that is believed, on account of the animals depicted in the temple paintings, to have been on the coast of Abyssinia. On the return of the explorers Theban troops went out to meet them, and a great naval flotilla escorted them to the steps leading to the temple at Deir-el-Bahri.
This expedition made collections of the fauna and flora of Punt, including giraffes, baboons, panthers, hippopotami and horned cattle. All these things are shown in the reliefs at Deir-el-Bahri. The trees collected were painted on the lower terrace at Deir-el-Bahri. Trenches cut in the rock and filled with earth, which were evidently made for this purpose, have been found during the excavations.
Artists accompanied the expedition to make drawings of the strange animals, fish and plants of the country. In this respect Hatshepsut established an enlightened policy which Napoleon was the first among modern monarchs to follow.
Later Egyptian dynasties were very neglectful of Hatshepsut’s temple, perhaps because they were jealous of her sex. In the course of centuries a landslide buried part of the site, and then in early Christian times a convent was built on the highest terrace.
It was known in the early nineteenth century that the temple of Hatshepsut lay here, but through a curious accident in modern times the extent of the ruins was concealed. The early French excavator, Mariette, who went to work in 1858 on the upper platform, threw the earth and rubbish he dug up near the spot where he worked. In this way he concealed under tons of rubbish much more than he revealed.
The regal chapel of Thutmose I. and the inner court containing an immense white altar, the finest ever found in Egypt, were covered up by him. Another French archaeologist, Edouard Naville, went to work here in 1893, and after years of labor has completed his task.
Source: The times dispatch. (Richmond, Va.), 05 Oct. 1913.
