From Grimal, A History of Ancient Egypt, 1992

PLATE 13 Sphinx of Hatshepsut. Eighteenth Dynasty, red granite, h. 1.64m, front view. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1931. [31.3.166]).

The Tuthmosids 209

'Text of the youth of Hatshepsu t', the fundamentals of which were reproduced by Turhmosis III at Karnak, is both a mythological and a political narrative.

In rh~ finl 5CC'm: Amun announces to rhe Ennead his inlenrion I() presenr Egypt wilh a new king. Tholh recommends to him Ahmose, Ih~ wife of Tutillnosis I. Amun vis ilS her and announces 10 her rhar ~he will give hinh to a llaughter by him whom she will call 'She who l:mbral'Qi Amun, the fo rcmoSl of women'. Then, at Ahmose's request, Khnum Ihc potter'Sod f:tshions on his wh«l ,he ehild and her doubJ~. Ahmose gives birth to her d:.aughter and prescnlS her to Amun. Amun arranges the edUCiuion of the child wilh Ihe help of Tholh and Ihe divioe nurse Harhor.

Thi~ is followed by !OCCnc,; of H:ushepsul's cortlllation. A(ler she has 1>«11 purified, Amun presents her to the gods of the Ennead. In their comp:tny sh~ travels to the nonh. She is th~n enthroned by Atum and receives the crowns and royal ritles. After being procJaim~d king by the gods, she mList still be crowned by mankind. Her human falher, TuthmOsi~ 1, imruduces Iler 10 the royal court, nominates hcr ;tOll has her no;lainll.: .. 1 as heir. As soon as her [ilulalure ha~ been announu:d she undergoes a {unher rite of purification . (Urk. IV 216, 1·265·5)

Harshepsut associated her father with her own funerary cult by dedicating a chapel [0 him in her temple at Deir el-Bahri. A sarcophagus of Tuthmosis I was found in her lomb (QV 20), despite the fact that one had a lready been found in Tuthmosis I's own tomb (KV 38). It is unfortuna tely not possible to ascenain whether Hushepsut took her concern for the legi timacy of her rule to the extent of transferring the body of her predecessor into her own tomb, for the mummy of Tuthmosis I eventually became pan of the Deir el-Bahri cache and was rei l1lerred in a third sarcophagus (Cairo, Egyptian Museum CG 61025 ) which was to be usu rped by PinudjeOl 400 years later.

Hatshepsut (Plate 13) reigned until 1458 BC, the twenty·second year of the reign of Turhmosis III, who then regained the throne. It seems that during her lifetime she faced less opposition than might have been expected, considering the fury with which her stepsoo later set out to erase her memory after her death. During her reign she rdied on a certain numhc:r o( prominent ligures of whom the foremost was a man called $cnenlllut (plate 14). Born of a humble family at Armant, he pursued during Hatshepsut's reign one of the mOSt amazing careers in :mcienl Egypl. He was 'spokesman' for the queen as well as steward of the royal family and superintendent of the buildings of the god AnulII . It was in Ihe la tter role that he supervised the transport and erection of the obelisks that the qu~n installed in the Temple of Amon· R!: al Karnak, as well as the con.~lruction of hcr mortuary tcmple at Deir d · Bahri; in frun! of Ihis he had a second tumb (IT .H.1 1 dug for

I'UT~ 14 SIIIIIIlI of Senen",ut mmmg Ne{e ... re. I';/ghttttlll! DynolSty. bloldt granite. h. O.76m. (Reprodllud (ourtesy of the Truslu4 of tl~ Brlflsh M"st'um, LOtIJon.)

The TUlhmosids 211

himself in addition to the one that he already owned at Sheikh Abd d·Qurna (IT 71).

Even in Senenmut's time there was spiteful gossip suggesting that he owed his good fortu ne to intimate relations with the queen. In fact it appears that his close connections arose from the role he played in the education of her only daughter Nderure, for whom on(' of his brothers, Senimen, acted as nurse and stewa rd_ Many statues associate the princegs with Senenmul. who was a cultu~d man_ His constructions show that he was an architect. but other dimensions of his career are suggested by the presence of an astronomical ceiling in his tomb at Deir eI-Bahri and aoout 150 ostraca in his 10mb af Qurna. including scveral drawings (notably two plans of the tomb itself). as well as lists, cal · culations, various reports and some copies of rel igious, funerary and literary texts including The Satire of the Trades, The Tafe of Sinuhc and The Instruction of Ammmcmes I (Hayes 1942). Senenmut was a ubiquitous fi gure throughout the first three-quarters of Hatshepsut 's reign, but he subsequently seems to have fa llen into disgrace for reasons which are not predscly known. It is thought that aher the death of Ne(erure, which perhaps occu rred in the eleventh year of Hatshepsut's reign, he may have embarked upon an all iance with Tudllnosis III which led Hatshepsut to discard him in the nineteenth year of her reign, three years ~fore the disappearana: of the queen herself.

At Deir eJ-Bahri Senenmut recreated the basic plan of the temple of Mentuhorpc II and positioned it in rclarion to the northern enclosure wall of Mentuhotpe's temple. The great originalit)· of Hatshepsut's complex lay in itS o rg:miMtion into a succession of tcrr:leu in which the changes in plan enabled the monument to harmonize with the natural amphitheatre of the difk The lower (fi rst) terrace was entered through a pylon probably fl anked by trees; an axial ramp with colon­nades on either side led up to the middle (second) terrace, raiS4.-d above the lower one by the height o f the colonnades_ Thcsc colonnades themsclves were flanked at their northern and southern ends by colossal Osirid statues_ The decoration in the south colonnade showed the ~· rcction of the Ka rnak obelisks, while that in the north showed scenes IIf hunting and fishing.

The middle terrace had the same plan as the lower: the south ,-oltllln(lde cont(lined the account of the expedition to the land of Punt, while the northern colonnade bore scenes of the divine birth and acted as a type IIf mommisi (m divine hirth-house)_ The no rthern part of the rnidd ll· Il·rr.ln· provided al:l:ess to a sam;tuary of Anubis with a chapd , ·ul mI ll tlw di((. Till· SmUhl'f!l end was hordered hy a steprc:d retaining w.1 1I _ Iktwn·n thl· rl- t ;\illirt~ W;lll ,lIld till' enclos ure wall ,I ras~aj.;e, .Iu-.. \\Ihk fmlll liu- I"wl-r h·rr;ll·l-. kd lip to ,I l·hap • .:1 lkdil·;Ul·ll III

2 12 The Empire

Hathor. The second hypustyle hall of this I-Ja rhor chapel could be reached directly by way of the colonnade on the uppermost (third) terrace, which was fronted by a perisryle hall_ To [he nonh of [he perisryle hall was a solar temple consisting of an ahaf in an open court and a fock-(:ut chapel in which Turhmosis I was shown worshipping Anubis. The main sanctuary of the whole temple - CUI into the cliff face and flanked by nicl1es containi ng stalUC$ of the queen - consisted of three chapels. the most important of which was the resting place of the sacred bark.

The royal entourage sti ll indud('d a High Priest of Amun, a man called Hapuscn(:b who was related to the royal family through his mother Ahhou:p. He was descended from an important fami ly; al­though his father. Hapu. was only a Icctor' prj'"St of Amun, his grand­father, Imhotep, had been Tuthmosi~ I's vizier. Hapuscneb carried out the construction of the temple at Deir d -Bahri and was thcn awa rded the office of High Priest of AlllUn. He later installed his son as Scribe of the Treasury of Amun_

Another important member..,£ HalshepsUl's courl was the Chancellor Nehsy who, in the ninth year of her reign, led an expedition to Punt in a revival o f a Middle Kingdom tradi tion. This expedi tion, recounted in great detail on the walls of HalshepsuT's mortuary temple, represenTed the high point of II foreign policy that was limiTcd to the exploit:ltion of the Wadi Magh::ara mines in Sinai and the despatch of one military expedition into Nubia. The queen appointed a new Viceroy of Kush called Inebni to replace Seni, who had held the post in the reign of Tuthmosis II. She was also assisted by various other officials, including the T re350rer Th ulniosc, who was buril'd in a 10mb on the west bank at Thebes (1T 110); the Chief Stew3rd and veteran Amenhotep (buried in IT 73 ), who ca rried out the erection of the two obelisks at Karnak; and Useramun, who was her vizier from the fifth year of her reign onwards_

When Tuthmosis III finall y regained the throne in about 1458 Be he still had thirty-three years of rule ahead of him, in which he was 10

carry OUI a poli tical programme that established Egypt as thl!' undis­puted master of Asia Minor and Nubia . During the reign of Hatshepsut the only military actions were to consolidate the achie,<ements of Tuthmosis I, whose prcvemive raid into Retjenu and Nahrin had enabled him 10 set up a boundary stele on the bank of the Euph ra tes_ In Nubia Tuthmosis I had extended Egyptian control 10 Ihe Island of t\rgo at the Third Cataract, where he built the fortress of Tnmhos. H<: was able to leave an inscription at Argo on what is known ::as thl' TOnlht)S Stele (Urk. IV 85 . 13- 14), describing an empire that l·xtl·mlnl frolll thl' Third Cataract to the Euphratl"S. Tuthmosis 11 had prl·stfvnl hi, f.u her·s empire with twO campaigns: olle crushing ;I r,·voh in Nllhi;l, in til \" tirsl

Yl·,lr of his reign, [In ,~ the other directed ag.1inst Ihe Shosu Bedouin of "," thern P[I]estine, which took him to Niy (later called Apamea and now Q[liat c\-Mudikh) in the r('gion of Nahrin.

THE GLORIO US RE IGN O f TUTHMOSIS III

Immediately after the death of Hatshepsut, Tuthmosis III found himself