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Maat-ka-Ra Hatshepsut |
last update:
26.03.2008
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History
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| The royal names of Maat-ka-Ra Hatshepsut
After her accession to the throne Hatshepsut was represented almost
during her entire reign in the traditional form of a male king. Her titles were however written grammatically in such a way that
her female sex was clearly recognizable A first look shows that the
construction of her titles follows traditional rules and consist of quotations of
the titles of earlier kings. This can be demonstrated on her Horus name: the name consists of
two parts, wsr.t and
kAw.
The male form of wsr.t, wsr = "powerful" was already used e.g. in the Horus name of Chefren (wsr jb), in the
Nebty name of Rahotep (wsr rnpt; 17. Dyn.), and in the Golden Horus name of
Sobek-hotep (wsr-bAw; 13.
Dyn.). |
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The part kA
(here in the plural form kAw)
was in use since the early 18. Dynasty. All Thutmosid kings, Thutmosis
I to III, used the surname kA
nXt = "strong bull". Since "strong bull"
was hardly suitably for a queen and could not easily transferred into a "suitable" female form ("strong cow"?)
it is assumed that Hatshepsut used the
kA to construct a connection to the royal Ka - particularly to the manifestation of the royal
Ka as the "first of all living Kas" (= xntj-kAw-anxw).
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Robins (Robins, G., "The Names
of Hatshepsut as King", JEA, 85, 1999) showed in his investigation that
her names were formulated in such a way that they contain references to various
goddesses, probably to stress the "divine" character of her
kingship and her legitimacy. The following sections show some of these references
as described by Robins.
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| The photos below show an amulet made of faience (glazed steatite, bright blue), today in
the Petrie-Museum, London. On side is inscribed with her Throne name
Maat-ka-Ra (left) and the other one with the Horus name Weseret-kau
(right). |
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| mAat-kA-ra
Petrie-Museum, London, UC11974 |
wsr.t-kAw,
Petrie-Museum, London, UC11974 |
| A closer look on the names of Hatshepsut shows that beside the first part
of her throne name: mAat-kA-Ra =
"Truth and Vitality, the Ra"
or
"True one of the Ka of Ra", also the other names in each case contain the name for a goddess
in the first section. Since this is the case in all names, it cannot
be a coincidental selection.
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The Nebty name: "wADt-rnpwt"
= Flourishing of Years" contains the goddess of lower Egypt,
Wadjet (wADt,
Uto).
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The Horus name: "wsr.t-kAw
= Powerful of Kas" contains the name of the goddess "Wosret"
(wsr.t). Since in the Nebty name contains the name of the goddess of
lower Egypt, one could expect the Horus name to contains - normally placed in the in front -
the goddess of upper Egypt, Nechbet. However, it contains the name of the
local goddess from Thebes, Wosret, that was also part of
the name of Senwosret (= S'en- weseret = "Man of the goddess Wosret").Most likely the name Wosret or Weseret is a surname of Hathor.
In addition, the use of the names of two goddesses in the Nebty and in the
Horus name results in a reference to the "duality" of Egypt,
by that repeating the same notion in "The Two Ladies" (nbtj) and in
"Lord of the Two Lands" (nsw bjtj).
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The Gold Horus name: "nTrt-Xaw
= Divine of Appearances" is the generic name for a goddess (nTrt)
and has no geographic reference.
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It must be emphasized that this type of wordplay as demonstrated by Robins
was only possible because Hatshepsut could make use of the grammatical
gender in writing her names.
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How old was Hatshepsut?
The ages of the many kings of ancient Egypt can only be estimated - this applies also to
Hatshepsut. Even the mummies of the New Kingdom which were identified did not
contribute very much to the determination of their age - in contrast, the attempts
to determine the age of a mummy with scientific methods served to
confuse the situation. The scientific determination of age resulted in remarkable contradictions to well-known historical data
(duration of the reign and/or life) from identified royals. This could mean either that the identification of
a mummy in question is false (mistakenly labeled during the rescue and restoration
in Dynasty 21) or that the present scientific methods are still incorrect - possibly also both applies.
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| Since the mummy of Hatshepsut was either not found or not identified so far
(see also "Where is the mummy?"), "physical data" for an estimation of
her age were not available.
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| The following estimation of her age at certain events in
her "career" should be regarded as a "minimum estimation" - starting
with different "basic" assumptions results in higher values.
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| The following estimation of her age at certain events in her
"career" should be regarded as "minimum estimations" - depending upon the
assumptions higher values would be the result. |
| This example is based on the assumption that Thutmosis I
married the mother of Hatshepsut, Ahmose, on the occasion of his accession.
Since Thutmosis I had been obviously already married at this time, it was
assumed that this marriage should legitimize his accession (see also "Genealogy"). Since it is generally admitted that Thutmosis I reigned for 13 years
(12 years, 9 months), Hatshepsut would be at minimum 12 years on her
father's death.
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| Hatshepsut has married her half-brother, Thutmosis II,
most likely on the occasion of his accession to the throne. It is not known how old Thutmosis
II has been on his accession but he is always called a "youngster".
Therefore, bridegroom and bride might have been in a comparable age.
The length of the reign of Thutmosis II is also uncertain but today the majority
of scholars accept a reign of only 3 years. If Hatshepsut has married
her husband at approximately 12 years, then she could have produced her
only daughter, Neferu-Ra, at 14. A longer reign of Thutmosis II - in former times
it has been set as high as 13 years - would naturally allow more time
for this event, but the fact that she took over the regency for her small stepson Thutmosis
III after the death of her husband, also implies s short reign of Thutmosis
II (if one assumes that he had married the mother of Thutmosis III after
his accession to the throne). |
| As discussed on the page "Accession
to the throne - but when??", Hatshepsut has taken full
pharaonic titles not later than "year 7, 4. Month of sprouting (Peret), day
2". Assuming an age of about 15 when she became "Regent" for Thutmosis
III then she was 22 in year 7. However, if she has taken full pharaonic titles early after
the start of the regency as discussed by some scholars - the earliest
date discussed is year 2 see also "Accession
to the throne - but when?"), then she was already "Lady of
the Two Lands" with 17. |
| The reign of Hatshepsut is set to approximately 22 years
(see also "End and Persecution" whereby
she has added the years of regency for Thutmosis III to her own regnal years.
Thus, if she has been 15 at the beginning of the regency than she was with
approx. 37 when the "Horus Maat-ka-Ra Hatschepsut" ascended to the sky
to unite with her predecessors. |
| However, if the mummy, which had been found on the floor of KV60, is
really Hatshepsut, then the investigations of the Egyptian Supreme Council of
Antiquities (SCA; Hawass, kmt 18-3, 2007) raise some questions. According to the data of the SCA this
lady deceased at the beginning or in the fifth decade of her life - that is, in
the estimations discussed above approximately 10 years are missing somewhere. |
| Furthermore, if the recent investigations on DNA establish a
relationship between Hatshepsut and the mother of Amenhotep I, Ahmose-Nefertari,
i.e. testify taht the mother of Hatshepsut was a member of the royal family,
than a completely different time table regarding her age might be established. |
| If one, as Desroches Noblecourt (2002) accepts that Hatshepsut was already
born in regnal year 12 of Amenhotep I, then she was at least 8
years old when her father became king (Amenhotep I deceased in his regnal year 21).
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| With a reign of 13. years for her father Thutmosis I she was at
least 21 years old at the accession of her husband, Thutmosis II, and at least
24 when he died. The latest date for her own accession to the throne is year 7
of the reign of her stepson Thutmosis III. So she seized power at least at an
age of 31 years. After a reign of approximately 22 years Hatshepsut deceases due
to this estimation approximately at an age of 53 years - which fits well with
the age of the mummy, which has recently been identified as those of Hatshepsut. |
| In connection with the reflections about the age of
Hatshepsut also another event is remarkable - in year 15 she celebrated
her jubilee ("heb sed" celebration). Surely, the entire reign of
Hatshepsut was "untypical" in some way, thus, a celebration of
the "heb sed" jubilee after 15 instead - as usual - after 30
years may also be simply regarded as "untypical". On the other hand, the
jubilee after 15 years is so much conspicuous that speculations about
the background are unavoidable. One attempt to explain the jubilees assumes that she started to count her regnal years with the day of her
father's death and, of course, by suppressing the regnal years of her husband, Thutmosis
II However, this would argue for a reign of about years of Thutmosis II and, thus, against the present
assumption of 3 years only.
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| Another attempt to explain the jubilee assumes that she
was born in regnal year 1 of her father. If so she could have celebrated
her "heb sed" jubilee by simply adding
up the 3 regnal years of her husband and 15 years of her own reign to
the 13 years of her father!
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| As many other things in Egyptian history also these attempts to
asses her age at certain events are based on assumptions. |
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