A fascinating profile of Hatshepsut, who became female pharaoh of Egypt 3,000 years ago. The males who followed her reign did everything in their power to obliterate her name from history. See more in Season 1, Episode 24, "The Queen Pharaoh."
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00:00The powerful woman who became pharaoh of ancient Egypt and then almost disappeared from history.
00:07Unearth the mystery of the Queen Pharaoh.
00:10It's one of the stories of the ages, one of the ancient mysteries.
00:15Before we unlock the future, we must find the keys to the past.
00:19I'm Leonard Nimoy.
00:20Join me and open the door to ancient mysteries beginning now.
00:39Her name was Hatshepsut.
00:42Over 3,000 years ago, she did the unthinkable when she defied convention and had herself
00:49crowned pharaoh of male-dominated Egypt.
00:53This daring power play brought her control of the richest, most powerful country on earth.
01:03She was a woman who played by her own rules.
01:06Did she defy convention again and take a common man as her lover?
01:11And what was it in her personality that inspired such loyalty and devotion in some and such
01:17fear and loathing in others?
01:20In the end, she may have gone too far.
01:25For the male leaders who followed her did everything in their power to obliterate her
01:30name from history.
01:33What sin could she possibly have committed that would fuel such hatred?
01:58Who was Hatshepsut?
02:00She's been called the first great woman in history.
02:04She might also be called history's first great woman of mystery.
02:12So much effort was made to erase her name from the annals of Egyptian history after
02:16her death that tracing her life of 3,000 years ago has become a great detective story, one
02:23where modern archaeology and history meet.
02:32This much we do know.
02:34Her power play was extremely daring and the stakes were exceptionally high.
02:40Ancient Egypt during the 18th dynasty was at its absolute zenith.
02:44Its influence stretched all the way to Babylon.
02:48The prize of Egypt included the world's strongest army, richest economy, and the eternal Nile.
03:01Once on the throne, she was not a token pharaoh.
03:04Instead, she blossomed into a great monarch.
03:08In the 3,000-year history of ancient Egypt, her name is consistently mentioned as one
03:13of its greatest leaders.
03:18When Hatshepsut grabbed the throne of Egypt, she also entered into the most exclusive men's
03:23club in the world, Egypt's mighty religious hierarchy.
03:30As pharaoh, she was allowed into the innermost sanctums of their pagan religious cults.
03:37With the high priest of the nation and his attendants, she worshiped the god Amun in
03:41ceremonies few other women had ever seen.
03:49Her hand was everywhere across the land.
03:53Standing high above the mighty temple of Karnak is Hatshepsut's obelisk.
03:59It is the tallest one in the temple.
04:03As a pharaoh, she claimed to be a deity herself.
04:07This obelisk is symbolic of her relationship to the sun gods.
04:15Across the Nile is her temple, one of the most beautiful structures in Egypt and one
04:21of the most unique buildings in all antiquity.
04:26Most of the male pharaohs built with strength in mind, like the great pyramids.
04:31Hatshepsut's temple is different.
04:33It has a subdued, elegant quality to it not often seen in Egyptian monuments.
04:44Even more intriguing is what lies close by this temple.
04:49Archaeologists have found a tomb whose entrance is off to the side.
04:55Once opened, the passageway leads hundreds of feet underground.
05:02At the end of the tunnel is the tomb of a man named Senenmut.
05:09Senenmut was a common man, often rumored to be her lover.
05:14Was theirs one of the great love affairs of history?
05:17Did she defy everyone and break all the rules to have this man?
05:22Did she scandalize her country with this affair of the heart?
05:28And had Hatshepsut grant permission for this common man's tomb to be dug here so they could
05:34be close together even in eternity?
05:38This is a great mystery, but perhaps even more intriguing is how she held onto her power.
05:43For breathing down her neck was perhaps Egypt's most ambitious warrior pharaoh to be, Thutmose
05:50III, often called the Napoleon of Egypt.
05:57Thutmose III was her nephew and the person she pushed aside when she claimed the throne
06:02for her own.
06:04What power did she wield over him that would keep him at bay for what some scholars think
06:09was a period of over 20 years?
06:14Armies couldn't stop him, empires fell to his sword, but this small woman kept him under
06:20her thumb.
06:21How did she do it?
06:25The ultimate mystery, though, is what became of her.
06:28As pharaoh, she was the most visible person on the planet, the most famous person in the
06:33world, yet scholars are at a loss as to how she died and what happened to her body.
06:41She had several tombs constructed for her burial, yet they are completely empty today.
06:48The bodies of many other Egyptian leaders have come down to us in the form of mummies,
06:53but there is no officially verified record of her mummy.
06:57Did enemies dispose of her body in an act of vengeance?
07:04Just as shocking are the attacks on her name and her image.
07:08At her temple, her statues were beheaded and mutilated beyond recognition.
07:14Archaeologists have found a huge dumping ground where it seems every statue that could be
07:18found of her was rounded up, smashed, and buried in a mass grave.
07:25All over Egypt, her name was erased from official records.
07:29At the temple of Karnak, someone went to a great deal of trouble hacking out her image
07:34bit by bit from the temple walls.
07:38What could have inspired this hatred?
07:41Who went to all this trouble?
07:44Evil enemies, jealous males, a conservative society intent on putting a headstrong woman
07:50in her place?
07:52Whatever the case, they failed.
07:56Archaeologists have unearthed enough evidence to at least partially tell her story.
08:00The pieces to the puzzle are coming together, and the mystery is coming into focus.
08:15The world of Egyptian royalty that Hatshepsut was born into was one of the most elite and
08:19privileged man has ever known.
08:22Never before and rarely since has any group of people wielded such all-encompassing power.
08:28The lifestyle they created for themselves was one of spectacular grandeur.
08:34Still, life at that period was very luxurious and very comfortable.
08:41Even by modern terms, I would think, none of the gadgetry that we think is necessary
08:46for success, of course.
08:48But the food was good compared to that of the peasants.
08:52Beautiful accommodations, beautiful clothing, beautiful jewelry.
09:00Humility and self-sacrifice did not seem to be part of the pharaoh's makeup.
09:05In earlier dynasties, they had built massive pyramids as monuments to themselves.
09:11In Hatshepsut's time, they worked at erecting gigantic temples meant to honor their gods.
09:16They, of course, also dedicated vast parts of these buildings to their own memory.
09:26Egyptian pharaohs were great at self-aggrandizement, and they were great at propaganda.
09:30And they didn't think of it that way.
09:32History was something that you wrote to suit your own purposes.
09:38It seems they spared no expense when it came to their own well-being.
09:43Everyday items found in their palaces were often encrusted with precious stones.
09:48At burial, their coffins were sometimes made of gold.
09:52Some pharaohs even went so far as to claim status as gods themselves.
09:56What is even more remarkable about this is the fact that so many of the people were willing
10:01to believe them.
10:03The pharaoh's power was so all-encompassing that it never occurred to most of the common
10:08people to doubt the ruler.
10:11As daughter of a pharaoh herself, Hatshepsut was an important part of this world from birth.
10:18Power and privilege surrounded her every move, and she was able to observe from a special
10:23position the workings of the pharaonic court.
10:28She couldn't have had a better role model than her own father, Pharaoh Thutmose I, who
10:33ruled from around 1524 B.C.
10:39He was one of the greatest conquerors that Egypt ever had.
10:43And he took the borders of Egypt to the Euphrates River in Babylon, and he took the borders
10:51of Egypt in the south down past the fourth cataract to Nubia, and nobody went any further.
10:57Standards concerning girls' formal schooling in the royal court are sketchy.
11:02What type of education might have Hatshepsut had?
11:08We know that literacy and the ability to write was considered to be a major part of advancement
11:14in ancient Egypt.
11:15It was a matter of tremendous pride and culture and refinement to be literate.
11:20And so we assume that anybody in the royal family, especially a woman who was to be a
11:24pharaoh or a regent, would, in fact, be literate, that she would have been highly trained in
11:30reading and writing.
11:34She surely knew her father ruled the greatest empire on earth.
11:38What would she have seen and been told about the country as a girl?
11:42What goals would have been put in her head?
11:44Members of the royal family did travel.
11:49They went upstream, downstream, back and forth.
11:53They spent some time in Memphis, which was one of the capitals of Egypt, probably some
11:58time in the temples at Heliopolis.
11:59They would have seen, therefore, the outstanding monuments of their predecessors.
12:04But all Egyptian pharaohs wanted to build largely.
12:07They wanted to leave monuments to their names.
12:11Her own route to the throne was one of the most amazing combinations of chance, luck,
12:17brains, ambition, coincidence, and scheming in the history of royal power plays.
12:24It was also the result of complex royal bloodlines.
12:29Some believe power in ancient Egypt was kept within royal families by intermarriage.
12:35It was not uncommon for a brother to marry a sister, a father to marry a daughter, or
12:40any number of combinations.
12:43Intermarry was also common, a king often claiming several women as wives and many more
12:49as concubines.
12:52The royal family were the only ones, to the best of our knowledge, who practiced brother-sister
12:56marriages, and in some cases, apparently, father-daughter.
13:00That would seem to me also to bear out the notion that it was necessary for a king to
13:04marry a woman of the royal blood.
13:05But you can get a lot of good arguments going with Egyptologists on that particular subject.
13:13The Egyptian royals saw nothing immoral or sinful in these acts.
13:17They were merely keeping their right to rule, which was their blood, safely within the family.
13:25It has nothing to do with...
13:28Incest is a modern concept.
13:29It wouldn't have occurred to them that this was a sinful, shocking thing to do.
13:33And it's known in other royal families in other parts of the world.
13:35The idea being, I think, that the royal blood is thereby preserved, controlled, and kept
13:44within the royal family.
13:47In keeping with this practice, Hatshepsut married her half-brother, Thutmose II.
13:54As a pharaoh, he was only a shadow of the man their powerful father had been.
13:59His reign was mostly uneventful.
14:02When Thutmose II died a young man around 1504 BC, his demise left a huge problem for the
14:09royal family.
14:10Apparently, the only eligible male heir he had sired was a young boy not yet 12 years
14:16of age, Thutmose III.
14:20The boy had been born to one of his secondary wives, and not Hatshepsut.
14:25Yet because Hatshepsut was the ranking dowager queen of Egypt, it was decided that she would
14:30serve as regent with the boy until he came of age.
14:36It is not necessarily the young king's mother, but it is always the most senior queen that
14:43is in existence at that time.
14:46And Hatshepsut was the senior queen.
14:47She was not the only wife.
14:49She was the senior queen of Thutmose II.
14:52So she becomes naturally and properly and legally the regent for the young king.
15:02Life as regent seemed to appeal to her.
15:05Power seemed to appeal to her.
15:08Yet it is hard to believe that she ever planned to be pharaoh in the beginning.
15:12It was a totally unrealistic goal for a woman.
15:15But as regent, walking through this huge labyrinth of power, perhaps she began to see how the
15:20glittering prize of being the full leader of the country could be grasped, how the impossible
15:26dream of becoming the sole ruler of Egypt could be hers.
15:31What would she do?
15:41Many accounts say Hatshepsut was brilliant in her role as regent of Egypt.
15:46Fate and heredity may have brought her the job, but it was natural talent that brought
15:51her success.
15:53There is much debate, though, as to whether her woman's touch changed the way Egypt was
15:58ruled.
15:59Did it become a more peaceful nation with a woman leader, or was it business as usual?
16:07I don't believe that women are necessarily any more nurturing than men when they get
16:11power.
16:12And I won't mention any names of current ladies or ladies in the recent past, but they're
16:17pretty tough, most of them.
16:23One also wonders how the general populace took to having a woman in charge.
16:29The man in the street didn't have the right to comment on this sort of thing.
16:34He had no political power as such.
16:37They didn't rebel and beat at the gates of the temple.
16:40I suspect they talked about it behind her back a lot, but there was no vocal demonstration
16:46of confusion or will.
16:51Although she didn't have to answer to the man on the street, there were other concerns.
16:57Like all good politicians, she had to delicately balance and juggle the various governmental,
17:02military, business and religious players involved in the day-to-day operation of the country.
17:12If you don't get the support of the people who are working for you, then obviously you
17:16cannot be a powerful king.
17:18But if you have got the support of your people, then obviously they will get things done for
17:24you.
17:25And the more enthusiastic they are, the better they work.
17:30One of the most powerful factions she dealt with were the priests at the temple of Karnak.
17:36Egypt was a profoundly religious country.
17:39The Egyptians believed the power of the pharaoh and economic well-being of the country emanated
17:44from the god Amun.
17:47Egyptian deities took many different forms.
17:49It is believed that one embodiment of Amun that was worshipped at Karnak was in the form
17:55of a small gold idol.
17:57When she came to power, Hatshepsut was allowed to join in the ritual worship of this god.
18:03These religious ceremonies were closed to the general public, and even most members
18:07of the royal family were excluded.
18:10But as regent, Hatshepsut was allowed into the inner domain of a god and the priests
18:15who attended him.
18:17Handled diplomatically, she may have formed an extremely strong bond with these priests,
18:23a bond that would help her consolidate even more power in the future.
18:28Another unique area she would have had to deal with was the military.
18:32As a woman who probably hadn't had any military training, this may have been an area she struggled
18:37with.
18:38There is some evidence, however, that on her orders, successful military campaigns were
18:43carried out in Nubia and Palestine.
18:48Perhaps the most intriguing person in her life was a man named Senenmut.
18:55Everybody wants to know about Senenmut.
18:58Senenmut was the man who is most closely associated in the popular mind, certainly, with Hatshepsut.
19:05He was one of her greatest officials.
19:07He was a man of humble birth.
19:09We know his parents, and they were commoners.
19:11He rose to power because he was a talented man, probably as an administrator.
19:17And this is true that in Egypt, people could do this.
19:20If you could get connected with the court in somewhere or come to someone's attention
19:23and you were a person of ability, you could rise to considerable power.
19:28Senenmut rose to the position of overseeing the Karnak Temple complex, an incredible accomplishment
19:35for a man of humble origins.
19:38Hatshepsut was known for defying convention.
19:40Did she break the rules again and have an affair with this common man?
19:45If so, was the relationship carried out clandestinely?
19:50This again is pure speculation.
19:52I would think she'd like someone as a friend.
19:54The king had all the concubines he wanted.
19:56The king could have a lot of wives.
19:58I think in Hatshepsut's place, just pure speculation, it would be nice if she had a friend or two
20:03around, shall we say.
20:07Senenmut seems to have been with her through many stages of her life.
20:11She even for a time is believed to have tutored her daughter.
20:15One question that has never been fully answered is how big a role, if any, did Senenmut play
20:20as an advisor to Hatshepsut in the day-to-day running of the kingdom?
20:26Was he a power behind the throne?
20:29Even if he wasn't advising her, it is clear he acted under her orders.
20:35She sent him on a number of jobs.
20:36Now, this is a typical thing for a typical, efficient Egyptian official to do, to be sent
20:43on jobs and to fulfil the commission in the best possible way so that the king or the
20:48queen is delighted with the way in which you've done your job.
20:52It's a meritorious society, so you have to succeed by merit, and if you're no good, out.
20:59And with Hatshepsut, he obviously performed very efficiently.
21:06Another mystery is what was happening to young Thutmose III during this time.
21:11Even though he was too young to lead, he was still the ruler of the land, with Hatshepsut
21:15acting on his behalf.
21:18How was he maturing towards the day when he would take over full control of the country?
21:23He was still a boy.
21:28He must have had some military training.
21:30Again, most of the young men of the royal family, and I would imagine the young noblemen
21:34too, were expected to learn to use a bow, to drive a chariot, and to do the other things
21:40that any young nobleman would do.
21:43So he must have had some military training.
21:44He would have had his priestly training.
21:49One also wonders how Hatshepsut treated her stepson.
21:55There are two kings, but there's number one and number two, and he was number two.
21:59There's no indication she had anything against him, that she had any unpleasant aspirations
22:04toward doing away with him.
22:06Again, this is historical novel stuff, but it wouldn't have been that hard, I don't think,
22:12to dispose of a rival.
22:13Why should she?
22:14She had the power, and she was doing what she wanted to do.
22:20Although she seems to have been fair to the boy, she also must have realized that with
22:25each passing year, he was getting closer and closer to the day when he would take over
22:30complete control of the throne himself.
22:33This was not an idea that appealed to her.
22:37She could see it slipping away from her hands forever, and I think by then she was a woman
22:43who enjoyed power, who was an excellent ruler.
22:47Hindsight has shown us that, and therefore did not want to give up what she had.
22:52She might have been doing it for Egypt's benefit as much as for her own, but obviously
22:56she enjoyed exercising power, and she wasn't going to give it up.
23:00No one has been able to pinpoint the exact date she made her move towards becoming the
23:04undisputed ruler of Egypt.
23:07The day she metamorphosized herself from queen regent to pharaoh of all the land.
23:14All we know is that it was a brilliant power play.
23:18She had learned her lessons well and had mastered the art of Egyptian politics brilliantly.
23:24All those years watching her father rule, all those years observing court intrigues,
23:30all those years seeing how the temples operated and military functioned.
23:35In the end, she knew who to coax, who not to cross, and when to move.
23:42She also knew the most powerful weapon in her arsenal was her own birthright.
23:47As Egyptian royalty, she claimed the throne by way of blood.
23:51Not just the blood of her father, but also that of the gods.
23:57She had inscribed on the walls of her temple a series of reliefs showing the god Amun coming
24:02to her mother in order to engender her.
24:05The god came in the form of her father, Thutmose I.
24:10But of course, he was a god Amun.
24:12That meant that Hatshepsut was the daughter of the god.
24:14Therefore she was the royal heir blessed by the gods.
24:22By declaring herself a deity, she was almost unapproachable.
24:27How could anyone dare defy an order from a god?
24:30No one did.
24:32The crowning took place.
24:34Young Thutmose III was pushed into the background for the time being.
24:39Death was hers.
24:45The time period surrounding Queen Hatshepsut's reign from around 1500 BC bore witness to
24:51other significant events.
24:53In distant China, the silk culture blossomed.
24:56For centuries, the ancient Chinese knowledge of silk production remained a closely guarded
25:01secret.
25:02And in Crete, civilization began to grow rich through trade and conquest.
25:14Pharaoh's word was law.
25:17The idea of democracy or group rule would have seemed absurd to the ancient Egyptians.
25:23As part god ruling on this earth, the pharaoh could dream and be quite sure that those dreams
25:30would come true.
25:33Hatshepsut's dreams involved growth.
25:36She was a builder.
25:38Today, 3,000 years after her reign, structures she erected still stand and still impress.
25:47She was a builder pharaoh and her monuments are stretched from the very far north right
25:53down to the south in Elephantine, where the Germans found a temple not too long ago.
26:02And buildings are turning up at regular intervals.
26:10Like any major pharaoh, she wanted to leave her mark on the great Temple of Amun at Karnak.
26:17Egyptian leaders of this era felt indebted to this god, who they believed resided in
26:21the temple.
26:22They went out of their way making additions to the building that they thought would be
26:26pleasing to the deity.
26:30Perhaps her most spectacular addition to the temple was the great obelisk.
26:36Obelisks were symbols of the sun god and commemorate the relationship of the god to a reigning
26:40monarch.
26:41They were miracles of ancient construction ingenuity, some of them rising over 100 feet
26:48in length.
26:53Many of them were quarried hundreds of miles up the Nile at Aswan, where the pharaohs had
26:58massive quarries.
27:00Using primitive tools and back-breaking labor, they were cut from solid rock.
27:07The carving of obelisks was extremely difficult.
27:10The tools were very weak.
27:12The Egyptians were using bronze at the time.
27:15It seems to be that obelisks were quarried using stone mauls, enormous blocks of granite,
27:21blocks of the same material, that were simply pounded against the stone of the quarries
27:27until depressions could be sunk in all around the outlines of the obelisk.
27:32And eventually, the shape of the obelisk itself would take form.
27:39Even though they were made of granite, they were extremely fragile.
27:43One mistake in cutting them could wipe out the whole project.
27:47This unfinished obelisk rests today at the Aswan quarry, virtually unchanged since workers
27:53walked away from it over 3,000 years ago.
27:57The huge crack that materialized at its tip made it impractical to proceed even a day
28:01longer.
28:03Legend has it, Senenmut oversaw the quarrying of Hatshepsut's obelisk.
28:10He managed to do this within seven months, which is apparently a bit of a record.
28:15And he advertised that on a graffiti that he left on the island of Sahel.
28:21Once quarried, the huge structures were moved to the river's edge and floated downstream
28:26to Thebes.
28:27This may have been the most treacherous part of the entire undertaking.
28:34Putting the obelisk into a boat must have been a very tricky operation to make sure
28:38that the boat was not over-weighted, to make sure that it was appropriately ballast.
28:46The Nile was much swifter and dangerous in ancient times than it is today.
28:52One mistake in ballasting the boats or running the river could sink the whole project in
28:57a matter of seconds.
28:59Once safely at Thebes, though, the obelisks were brought to the Temple of Karnak with
29:03much fanfare.
29:05One can imagine, because of the size of Hatshepsut's obelisk, that the celebration surrounding
29:10it was stupendous.
29:13And then the most delicate job of all was at hand, raising the huge needle without snapping
29:19it.
29:20It is theorized that obelisks were tipped up on end by dragging them up enormous sand
29:29ramps until they would begin to balance on a single point along the center of their length.
29:38And then they would be allowed to slip carefully onto their great bases.
29:43And they seem to have caught one edge along a groove made in the base.
29:49And once the edge of the obelisk hit that groove, then it was more or less in position.
29:54And the tip could then be dragged upright by a series of ropes attached.
30:01It is believed Hatshepsut had the top of her obelisk covered with plates of gold so that
30:06it would shine with the burning intensity of the sun, symbolizing for all to see her
30:12royal link with the gods.
30:15Across the river from Thebes, she had an ongoing building project, an awesome mortuary palace
30:21dedicated to her name.
30:24She allowed her architects free reign to invent.
30:28And the time of Thutmose III and Hatshepsut becomes one of the high points of Egyptian
30:33architectural history.
30:39She would not be buried here.
30:41That ceremony would take place in a tomb dug into the nearby mountains.
30:45But this temple would serve as a symbol of her reign for all eternity.
30:53The temple remains today one of the most beautiful and unique in all antiquity.
31:01It's a beautiful work of art.
31:03The concept of the temple at Deir el-Bahri is considered to be the most advanced and
31:10beautiful throughout the whole of Egyptian architectural history.
31:15And we see these sorts of things continuing in temples throughout Egypt.
31:23On the walls, artists depicted the story of her greatest accomplishments.
31:31Off to the side and deep below the temple complex, Senenmut built his tomb.
31:38The fact that it was constructed so close to Hatshepsut's temple is one factor fueling
31:43speculation about their possible love affair.
31:48Dr. Peter Dorman of the University of Chicago has spent years researching Senenmut's life.
31:58Amazingly, the chamber remains almost unchanged after over 30 centuries.
32:07This is a sight few tourists ever get to see.
32:14This is an informal portrait of Senenmut left here about 3,500 years ago on a smoothed area,
32:21perhaps painted here by one of the last workmen to leave the tomb.
32:24It shows just Senenmut, his shoulders, and his title, Great Steward of Amun.
32:29And the portrait looks really as if it had been painted yesterday.
32:33The climate of Luxor is almost perfect for this kind of preservation of pigment.
32:41Deeper into the ground, the tomb becomes more elaborate.
32:45There is no body here, but the chamber itself, like the painting in the tunnel, remains in
32:50almost pristine condition.
32:57The burial chamber of Senenmut has as its focus a beautifully carved funeral false door
33:02stela.
33:04The most prominent feature is a pair of ujjat eyes representing the protective eyes of Horus.
33:10And above this, a representation of Senenmut back-to-back with his hands raised in a gesture
33:17of adoration.
33:19And these representations, as you can see, are completely intact.
33:24The ceiling is really one of the great wonders of the tomb.
33:27It's the earliest such astronomical ceiling from Egypt.
33:31These figures with the red disks on their heads represent the lunar day deities of every
33:37lunar month.
33:39And in this part of the room, representation of the lunar calendar.
33:48One curious thing about Hatshepsut's reign is how she presented herself to the public
33:52in statues.
33:54Only the smallest fraction of the Egyptian citizenry would ever have seen Hatshepsut
33:59in person.
34:01For most of them, the only real glimpse of what she looked like would come from statues
34:06of her.
34:07Curiously, she often chose to present herself in a masculine way.
34:13She wanted the public to think she was as good as a man.
34:17She had her statues depicted, first of all, as a female ruler, very respectable and sitting
34:22in a ladylike position.
34:24And then she changed bits and pieces on the statue representations over the years, until
34:30gradually she was completely dressed as a man, with a male beard, a male kilt, no breasts,
34:38a male-looking face.
34:39It's hard to say that she wanted the commoner people to think of her as male, because we
34:46don't know what she really thought about that issue.
34:50But she certainly did want them to have the impression that she was as good as a male
34:54pharaoh in every respect, including the way in which she was depicted.
35:01This awareness of image also presented itself in other ways.
35:06She seemed to know the importance of a ruler having a sense of adventure.
35:10One of the crowning accomplishments of her reign was sending an expedition to the distant
35:14land of Punt.
35:17Expedition to Punt was something few Egyptians had ever done.
35:22There's some question as to exactly where it was located, but it may have been along
35:25the Ethiopian coast, or perhaps the present area of Somalia, to bring back treasures of
35:30the god's land, including things like panther skins, ivory, and in particular myrrh trees
35:36that could be planted in the temple gardens of Amun.
35:42Traces of the great expedition are carved on her temple walls.
35:46Perhaps, like any great leader, she knew the glory that would come from a successful expedition.
35:56Success followed success.
35:59Yet always present was the ever-maturing Thutmose III.
36:03What was he doing all this time?
36:05What did he think of her?
36:07Even if ever would she step aside and let him take his rightful place on the throne.
36:13She held onto power long after he came of an age to rule in his own right.
36:20How she did it is one of the biggest mysteries in archaeology to me.
36:26It had to have had something to do with her personality as a strong human being, and also
36:31probably with machinations and cabals in the court itself, of which we have no record
36:36whatsoever.
36:39Then, suddenly, Achepsut was gone.
36:49The woman who became pharaoh also became one of the great disappearing acts of history.
36:55How she died and what happened to her body are two of the major mysteries of modern archaeology.
37:02At around 22 years into her reign, we suddenly find Thutmose III on the throne of Egypt and
37:08Achepsut nowhere to be found.
37:12The Egyptians, of course, knew what happened to her, but we don't.
37:17We simply don't know how she died.
37:19It probably was a natural death.
37:21We have no evidence to indicate otherwise.
37:24Among the mummies of the royal cache that were discovered about 100 years ago on the
37:28West Bank of Thebes, there is none that can be shown to be hers, so we don't really know
37:34what happened to her mummy, whether it was left to lie in state or whether it was desecrated
37:39or whether it was carefully removed and preserved somewhere else.
37:45The records we do have show Thutmose III taking over and going on to great glory.
37:53One past historian has likened him to Napoleon, not only because of his military conquest,
37:59but because his mummy is fairly short.
38:02He must have been a very active person.
38:05He was a great campaigner once he was on the throne of Egypt.
38:10He records almost annual campaigns from his 23rd until his 42nd regnal year.
38:19The reason we've been left in the dark about Hatshepsut's demise and death is that most
38:23of the ancient records concerning her seem to have been methodically destroyed.
38:28Because of this, Egyptologists have been left with some huge gaps of evidence in solving
38:34the mystery of the Queen Pharaoh.
38:37Besides not being sure of how she died, we're also not sure of how she fell from power.
38:43Was she murdered?
38:44Was she pushed aside in a palace coup?
38:47And why all the effort to erase her name from history?
38:52The traditional story is that immediately after her death, an army of enemies, perhaps
38:57instigated by Thutmose III, descended upon everything that bore her name and likeness
39:02and destroyed it.
39:05Thutmose was furious that this mere woman had dared to usurp his throne for so many
39:09years and the time had now come for a payback.
39:15The statues and reliefs in her temple were destroyed.
39:18Some of them were beheaded, others bashed in.
39:22The tomb where she was supposed to be buried was ransacked.
39:25Her body may have been removed at the same time.
39:28At Karnak, her name and image were methodically chiseled from the walls.
39:34This was the ancient equivalent of book burning in modern times or erasing tape.
39:40By eliminating her image and name, her enemies felt that they could also eliminate her memory.
39:47The old theory was that Thutmose III's anger knew no bounds.
39:52His hatred of Hatshepsut was all-encompassing.
39:55Yet recent discoveries have forced a revision in this long-held belief.
40:01What archaeologists have now turned up only adds more mystery to the case.
40:06Yes, her image was destroyed, but it may have been nearly 20 years after the estimated time
40:12of her death.
40:14Why would Thutmose III wait so long to vent his anger?
40:22Certainly, Thutmose III did nothing to her monuments for a good many years after she
40:27died.
40:28And that, to me, is again one of the inexplicable things.
40:31There's no question but that her monuments were defaced afterwards.
40:41The meticulous study of temple wall inscriptions and the dating of construction projects has
40:46forced a reassessment of the old historical perspective.
40:51One new theory on Hatshepsut presents possibly a less hostile relationship between her and
40:57Thutmose III, but an extremely sexist one nevertheless.
41:08For some scholars are now starting to think that the obliteration of her name was fueled
41:13by something more than immediate personal revenge on the part of Thutmose III.
41:19More than revenge, he may have felt a need to rewrite history.
41:27Because it now appears he didn't start to attack her memory until nearly 20 years after
41:32her death, it may be that he decided at that time that there was a need to set history
41:37right from a traditional male point of view, to put her in her place, so to speak, for
41:44all of eternity.
41:50The first thing he had to do was eliminate her version of history so he could write his
41:54own.
41:55Therefore, all the destruction.
42:02This rewriting of history may also have involved more pharaohs than just Thutmose III, for
42:09some of the other pharaohs who followed him even went so far as to eliminate her name
42:12from the official king's list.
42:19These king lists were made up at various periods in Egyptian history.
42:22They reflect certain prejudices or trends of the time.
42:27I personally think that we cannot say exactly why she was left off the list.
42:31Whether it is, it may be a misogynist sort of anti-female pharaoh, it could be the idea
42:38that she was not truly a king, I think we simply at this time cannot tell because so
42:43many of the records about Hatshepsut are contradictory.
42:50She may have grabbed the throne and led the country with great skill, but in the end old
42:56ways of viewing women died hard.
43:01I think that women were not really considered to be the most appropriate people to rule
43:07Egypt and women were not held in high esteem.
43:12Mothers of kings were held in high esteem.
43:13As long as women kept their place, they were given respect and they were looked after.
43:20Those are instructions that were given to men right from the very earliest times in
43:24ancient Egypt, we believe.
43:30Ironically, the last lap may be Hatshepsut's, for during this century many artifacts from
43:37her reign have been unearthed.
43:42In 1922, a New York Metropolitan Museum of Art dig in Egypt began unearthing numerous
43:49Hatshepsut statues that had been mutilated and buried in a mass grave.
43:56With meticulous efficiency, the statues were pieced back together.
44:01The result is her name and likeness is alive and well and has traveled far from the Nile
44:07Valley.
44:10Today, prominently displayed in the fabulous Hatshepsut gallery at the museum in New York
44:18City.
44:23In a way, it's only fitting.
44:25The discovery of the statues has allowed her to defy time itself.
44:31While she was alive, she seemed to defy all the odds and even now in death, after they
44:37tried to bury her legacy forever, she has returned from oblivion.
44:42Hatshepsut, the woman who became Pharaoh.
45:12Hatshepsut, the woman who became Pharaoh.
45:42Hatshepsut, the woman who became Pharaoh.
46:12Hatshepsut, the woman who became Pharaoh.