Early in her regency, Hatshepsut took the unconventional step of declaring herself co-ruler and moved quickly to adopt regnal titles. Meeting no censure, or ignoring it, she boldly proclaimed herself king of Upper and Lower Egypt. She ruled for twenty years as the pharaoh when, quite suddenly, she disappears from history. Did she die of natural causes? Did Tuthmosis III oust her in a bloodless coup, asserting his right to the throne? Tuthmosis appears to have taken his revenge as, at some time after her death, he decreed her name be obliterated and her images smashed. Hatshepsut had denied him the throne for two decades and he was possibly strongly motivated to remove any reminder of the woman who forced him to endure lonely, powerless years exiled in Memphis. Just how Hatshepsut managed to deprive her step-brother of his birthright, without creating a furore, is part of her mystique.
Hatshepsut’s contribution to Egypt’s monumental landscape is noteworthy. Her expansion of the temple of Amun-Re at Karnak helped promote the cult centre of the god into a national shrine. She erected two forty-seven metre obelisks in honour of her husband, commissioned the Palace of Ma’at between Karnak and Luxor and built a little architectural treasure, the Red Chapel, to house the barque of Amun. By far her most impressive legacy is her graceful mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahari, which is set dramatically against the backdrop of the towering escarpment of the Theban Hills. Later, Tuthmosis hatred became palpable. He ordered built walls around the two obelisks in an attempt to hide them and defaced or plastered over her name throughout most of her temple.
The queen took blatant, though essential, steps to create the appearance of the divine sanctification to her claim to the crown. Though Hatshepsut was a descendant of royal blood, being a female and adopting pharaonic rank demanded more to legitimise her hold of the throne than merely bearing the symbols of power and dressing like a man. The queen’s buildings were liberally endowed with inscriptions showing her dedication to the deities and the images she raised in honour of herself as the son of Amun are carefully descriptive of her close association to the god.
When she was just a royal wife, a less than spectacular crypt was quarried for her high above ground level in the south-western edge of the Theban necropolis. She abandoned this tomb during her reign and it is thought she built KV20 as her resting place but whether she was the originator of the tomb’s construction is a matter of conjecture. The most popular theory claims that her father commissioned the tomb for his own burial but died before it could be completed and then Hatshepsut took it over and extended it. Looking at the plan, it is easy to visualise the first chamber as the beginning of a series of rooms, including a burial chamber. By adopting her father’s work, Hatshepsut may have sought to add another endorsement of legitimacy to her rule, especially if her father had already been entombed in the upper chamber.
Her tomb, like her life, is enigmatic. It is situated high up at the end of the most easterly arm of the Valley at the foot of an artificially widened fissure in the escarpment wall. Richard reasoned that there must have been some, long destroyed, method of sealing the tomb against the entry of water as its entrance is like a drainage hole at the end of a funnel. It is hard to believe her builder was not aware of the threat flood water presented, although there is little indication the entrance was quarried in a manner to combat this hazard. We were discussing this aspect one afternoon when Elizabeth offered an observation.
“We know the tomb of Ramesses II was subject to at least ten major floods. The evidence gained by digging through the strata is clear but consider the infrequency. Ten floods in three thousand years made this a very rare event. The Valley was used as a royal cemetery for just over four hundred years, yet it is possible there was no cloudburst during its active life. The climate then may have been hotter and drier than it was later in Egypt’s history. Maybe, the ancient builders looked at the Valley, saw the effects of water damage – erosion and culverts - and thought that was either how the gods formed the valley or, more likely, considered the damage was purely historic and non-recurring.”
“You could be right.” Richard ventured. “Egypt appears to have been a land of constancy. I should imagine nothing much changed in climatic terms right throughout the three millennia of the ancient civilisation. The Nile flooded like clockwork, the desert didn’t advance, there weren’t any volcanoes to erupt and no record shows any natural cataclysm blighting the country other than the occasional failure of the inundation and the resulting famines. So maybe the Egyptians thought theirs was an unchanging land created in toto by Atum, their creator god. The political and religious upheavals may have modified the face of the government momentarily, though the whole system of government, art and even the basic elements of architecture remain largely unchanged. What you see is what you get.”
“That’s not totally correct. Architectural styles did vary,” I said. “Nevertheless, I should imagine rain was a very rare occurrence. Water, for the Egyptians, came from the river and not from the sky. There is another consideration. The Valley flooded in 1920 and 1994 and anyone who has anything to do with the place, is concerned about a repetition of the damage caused. It would be interesting to find out when the last floods occurred before the Twentieth Century. I wonder if there are any meteorological records that might show us a rainfall pattern in the Valley? For that matter, I should ask Abdullah if there is anything in ancient records mentioning floods and heavy rainfall. Did the Egyptians even have a word for ‘rain’?”
Liz replied “Dennis, you must study hieroglyphs more intently. Of course, the Egyptians had a sign for rain. Don’t you think it rained around the Delta?”
“I stand admonished. Forgive me, learning Arabic is time consuming enough. Another possibility. Imagine this. You are in Thebes and the heavens open. Would your first thought be to rush over the Nile and have a look at the Valley to check for rain damage? Even if someone, say workers from Deir al Medina, saw water pooled on the valley floor, what would they do about it? In the heat, water would have evaporated within a few days and I think it unlikely the temple had a damage control crew sitting around in Wellington boots and raincoats.” Richard offered “That’s a more logical solution. Even if water flooded into tombs, no-one was allowed to open them so any damage sustained would be hidden.”
Design work immediately started on a canopy for Hatshepsut’s tomb because an extensive rainfall, when it came again, would cause water to cascade into the tomb and ruin the restoration. Designing this particular device gave me reason to talk with Tamaam more frequently, an unexpected oasis in a world of drawings, cost schedules and material requisitions.
When Hatshepsut proclaimed herself pharaoh, there may have been only four other tombs in the valley necropolis, Ahmose, her father Tuthmosis I (KV38?), possibly one for her half-brother and husband, Tuthmosis II and that of Amenhotep I (KV39?). No tomb has been clearly identified as belonging to Tuthmosis II, hence the theory he planned KV20 as his burial site.
The layout of KV20 was essentially simplistic. The first unfinished chamber is about sixty metres from the entrance. The rest of the tomb is one long corridor, of some 150 metres, leading to two large chambers with three side rooms. It lacks the sophistication of later tombs, as subterranean tomb design was in its infancy when it was quarried.
What makes the tomb so different from all the others is its alignment, the steep angle of descent and its length. Its axis changes from east, then to the south and back towards the east in a clockwise direction with the burial chamber turning back towards the entrance but 97 metres lower. The tomb was known to the Napoleonic Expedition and later mapped by Belzoni, Burton, and Lepsius. It was only expertly excavated by Carter in 1903-04. Romer concluded the tomb was made for a predecessor of the queen, who usurped it and extended it for her use and the re-burial of her father.
KV20
Whatever the factual history, the tomb was undoubtedly ransacked in antiquity but by whom and when is unknown. There was an interval of about 360 years between Hatshepsut’s death and t
he mass pillage at the end of the Ramesside Dynasty. The mummies of Ahmose, Amenhotep I and Tuthmosis II, all of whom predeceased Hatshepsut, were found in the cache in DB320. The queen’s mummy and coffin remain undiscovered, although a chest bearing her cartouche was found in DB320, containing what may be one of her organs. Did the robbers assault her tomb or had her body been previously disinterred by Tuthmosis III in a fit of pique and re-buried in an unmarked grave? The entrance was so prominent it is unlikely the grave robbers would have overlooked it.
There had been no conservation work since Carter’s investigation. The tomb, which starts in limestone before hitting shale just after the first chamber, was completely devoid of decorations, save for fifteen limestone slabs inscribed with stick figure drawings from the Books of the Dead, which Carter found in the burial chamber and sent to the Cairo Museum. They may have been embedded in the walls as it wasn’t possible to decorate shale walls. Carter also removed the two red painted quartzite sarcophagi he found in the crypt. In 1994, it was flooded and the lower levels again filled with debris. On the bright side, it was a civil engineer’s dream. We didn’t have to worry about damaging decorations, the burial chamber was cleared and there would be no artefacts in the debris washed in during the last flood. However, the tomb was not without it particular problems. Staircases had eroded, ceilings and pillars collapsed and our old enemy, Esna shale, lurked down in the darkness.
Of course, there were a few trivial problems. Richard’s report confirmed it was home to thousands of bats, the air was acrid with their excretions and, due to the appalling condition of the tomb and its steep incline, it was an intolerable place. Just after the first chamber, the corridor nose-dived. We could expect a slope of around 40 degrees, ventilation was non-existent and debris had to be dug out and long hauled to the entrance. New construction material would have to delivered great distances into the lower chambers down the steep corridor. Reading reports from people who had ventured into the tomb warned us that this would not be a fun place in which to work but we could envisage the time when extreme activity adventurers would clamour to ‘go down the mine.’
On a more serious note, our work would preserve one of the most amazing tombs in the country and an outstanding example of the skill of ancient builders who excavated it, using little more than copper chisels, wooden mauls and wicker baskets. Unavoidably, we needed a field trip, despite the reluctance written deep on the faces of my colleagues and I was not that keen myself. The corridors were, on average, only two metres square, much narrower than in most tombs, there was not natural light, crumbling stairs, the prospect of bats, stifling air and the possibility of rocks falling on our heads, none of which offered a powerful incentive to make the inspection.
Richard, who had spent most of his adult life underground, was the least worried. Elizabeth worked in offices or open field sites and she admitted to suffering a tinge of claustrophobia, even in the better lit and larger tombs. I was less concerned by virtue of my previous occupation, which compelled me to spend many hours inside confining metal ducting, walking through dam walls and other constricted places but the prospect of going 210 metres underground into a pest hole didn’t warm my heart. However, the inspection couldn’t be avoided, so I gritted my teeth and asked Richard to assemble sets of caving gear. I rang Yousef to see if he would accompany us - an invitation he immediately declined - or find us an Egyptian who knew the tomb. He promised to locate someone to guide us, remarking, with a touch of smugness, he would ask Allah to protect us in our descent into the Underworld. This from the man who recently complained to me about being endlessly stuck in his office.
The day of our inspection dawned brightly. Yousef had found a local who knew the tomb and his description of the joys awaiting us was enough for Elizabeth to promptly excuse herself from the mission. Richard arrived with breathing apparatus, hard hats, torches and a mass of climbing equipment. As we suited up, I asked what we should do if we found bats in the corridors. His advice was cryptic “Keep your head down and mouth closed.” Khalid, our jovial and loquacious guide, laughed and cackled like a child at a fun fair. He scorned our heavy climbing boots though he donned a respirator and hard hat.
“Are we ready?” he asked. He offered a prayer to Allah and I thought about beseeching a variety of gods to still my pounding heart. A much relieved Elizabeth waved us a cheery goodbye as we advanced, heavily encumbered, into the entrance. The short, smooth floored access way was narrow. It led to a longer, wider corridor with the decayed remnants of a flight of stairs down its left side. At the end of the first irregularly cut chamber, the long corridor descended steeply in a gentle curve. At this point, we first encountered shale. Beam holes had been cut into the walls for the placement of timber braces used to lower the sarcophagi by ropes, an operation that must have been very genial work for the labourers as they sweated and strained to manoeuvre several tonnes of a heavy, unwieldy quartzite box down a steep incline in semi-darkness. The corridor cut through a second small chamber and continued downwards, vestiges of the original staircase barely evident, before bending eastward with the angle of descent dipping sharply. By torchlight, I noted the ceiling had collapsed for most of its length.
There was a sudden noise above the rasp of my breath in the respirator. “Bats. Get down” yelled Khalid. I froze and Richard pulled me to the ground. I hate bats and suddenly there were thousands of them flying overhead, screeching in the dark as they took fright at our intrusion. Khalid threw stones down the corridor in an effort to dislodge the vermin from of their roosts in the lower levels of the tomb. I almost panicked but Richard put his arm over my back and steadied me. This was not my idea of jollity and I was badly frightened. Our helmet lamps didn’t offer much light and, as I looked downwards, I could not see more than about five metres ahead of me. We were way below the penetration of sunlight and lost in Stygian darkness. I took my face mask off for a moment to catch my breath and instantly regretted it as my nostrils were assailed by the stench of ammonia rising up from the bats’ excrement.
With the departure of the last of the filthy creatures, we resumed our descent into Hell. Climbing ropes were in constant use as we abseiled down the slope, each footfall placed with care on the unstable, befouled and stinking floor. When we finally reached the entrance to the antechamber, I was soaked in sweat, no longer sure of my orientation and again on the edge of panic. We could talk to each other by means of the microphones in our head sets and Richard kept re-assuring us all with calming remarks. Khalid didn’t seem to be fazed as he knew what to expect or he was a sewage worker in real life. I began to wonder whether our decision to repair this tomb was a wise one but this thought didn’t deter the engineer in me considering how to tackle the job.
At this point, flood debris blocked our progress. I bent down to examine the material under my feet. Beneath a layer of encrusted guano, it was hard packed and blows from my pickaxe told me digging out this mass would to be difficult and noisome work. All the horizons were shale and broken pieces mounded up everywhere. The walls and ceiling were badly fretted and cried out for stabilisation. We couldn’t see much of the burial chamber nor the side rooms but the environment duplicated Siptah’s chambers. At last. I heard Richard telling us it was time to return to the surface. “Thank God” I replied “I am scared out of my wits” not caring who learnt of my discomfort.
The ascent to the surface gave us another taste of the difficulty inherent in this amusement palace. As most of the stairs had crumbled away, the climb back was very hard going. Fortunately, the absence of decorations on the shale walls would allow us a free hand to widen and add height to the corridors. I was never so glad to get out of a place. I rushed out of the entrance, flinging off the respirator and took in gulps of the fresh air as did Khalid and Richard. We were sweaty, very dirty and probably smelt like a fowl house.
“Had fun, boys” said Elizabeth innocently. She held a camera to her face and was busy taking candid snapshots of the intrepid band of brothers
. Richard was looking a touch pale and even Khalid was quiet. “Phew, you stink’ she said when I got close enough to make a grab for her camera. “Don’t you dare come near me. You are covered in bat guano” she said backing off quickly. “I saw them flying out of the tomb and disappearing into a cave up on the escarpment. Come, Brave Hearts, I think you all need to have a shower and a stiff drink.”
When we got to the jeep, I started to climb into the driver’s seat but was promptly told by Elizabeth to sit in the back with Richard and Khalid. ‘Very nice’ I thought, a lot of respect was being shown to the Project Director, even if he stank like a skunk. With immense relief, we drove away from the pest hole back to our headquarters, to shower, dress and reunite on the veranda. Khalid refused the offer of a drink and excused himself but Richard and I put down the first glass of beer with alacrity. Once we had calmed down a bit I said “What on earth possessed Hatshepsut to build a tomb like that? That was the most fiendish place I have been in my entire life.”
“Well, Dennis, I’m sure the Queen wasn’t going to make a royal visit down into the tomb whilst she was alive. Her motivation was probably only to dig something deep with an inaccessible burial chamber. I wonder if her builder hoped the long unstable corridors would ultimately collapse and permanently entomb her under the rubble? She knew she was unpopular with Thutmosis and thought he might try to dis-inter her body. If her tomb corridors collapsed, she would have denied him the pleasure.”
The Golden Falcon Page 22
