The Woman Who Would Be King: Hatshepsut's Rise to Power in Ancient Egypt

by Kara Cooney

  We might wonder if Thutmose III felt shut out of this close circle created by Hatshepsut, her daughter, and Senenmut. The latter’s role as tutor must have fostered a tight relationship with the princess, and his many jobs for Hatshepsut certainly kept the bureaucrat in constant contact with the female king. Indeed, some of Senenmut’s earliest statues created during Hatshepsut’s regency,29 when Thutmose III was a sole but infant king, include no mention of the boy at all, a not-so-subtle testament to what Senenmut thought of the new king’s importance in relation to his mistress.

  Most of Hatshepsut’s story thus far has been tied to Thebes, not only because so many of her temples and texts have been preserved in its desert sands but also because this was, in truth, the base of her power. Hatshepsut’s royal family was buried at Thebes, in what we now call the Valley of the Kings. Her priestess position as God’s Wife of Amen was centered in Thebes. Amen’s temple of Ipet-Sut at Karnak had grown to become one of the richest and most influential religious institutions in the land. But Egypt was a much larger political entity, essentially an oasis expanse stretched from north to south over hundreds of miles and inhabitable only where the Nile cut through and inundated its desert sands. Hatshepsut would have known that control of Thebes was not enough. She needed to ensure that she had all the provinces and local governors in line, that taxes were collected, that temples were maintained and priests were happy with their income, that government and judicial activity was happening as it should. To do this, Hatshepsut needed to contend with the dozens of governors and mayors of the forty-two regions up and down the Nile and in the delta. She thus employed numerous royal heralds who traveled throughout Egypt and abroad with authority to speak for the king and, probably, to bestow his favors upon loyal officials.

  She also had to focus sharp attention on the administration of Nubia, a land of gold mines and stone quarries, but also the home of a subjugated people full of resentment and hostility. The Egyptian viceroy of Nubia bore the formal title King’s Son of Kush; because of the extensive and dangerous travel required, it was a stressful position that was frequently vacant. However, the risky job promised a huge payoff in return: Nubia controlled more cold hard exchangeable wealth, in the form of gold and other minerals, than anywhere else in the known world. The vast distances between Kush and the royal court, or the Egyptian army, were temptation enough for many an administrator to take more than his due. Free access to the most fungible wealth available in the ancient world seemed to seduce many of the Egyptian men put in charge of Nubia; as a result, removal from office was common and demanded with impunity. Hatshepsut, however, seems to have handled these potential pitfalls with care and attention and kept a firm hand on the men who administered Nubia for her.30

  In year 5 of Thutmose III’s reign, Hatshepsut made a crucial appointment to her government. She designated a man called Useramen as vizier in the south.31 The vizier acted as the king’s lieutenant in all administrative, military, and economic matters. Useramen was stationed at Thebes, and Hatshepsut seems to have relied on him for her most important state business.

  The vizier worked closely with the treasurers, monitoring the security of the storerooms holding all the household goods and wealth and administering the tax income that was the palace’s lifeblood. Hatshepsut knew that Useramen would require strong working relationships with Senenmut and Ahmose Pennekhbet. The three men must have been thrown into one another’s company a great deal, but the nature of their interactions—friendly or hostile or suspicious—remains unknown.

  Useramen acted as the lieutenant of Hatshepsut, not Thutmose III. This southern vizier must have been invested in Hatshepsut’s well-being, because, if someone had wanted to see Hatshepsut dead, Useramen could have easily arranged it. He also controlled Hatshepsut’s communication with the rest of Egypt: he was the main conduit, through a legion of royal heralds, between the capital cities and the local rulers spread out across the Two Lands. The royal heralds reported directly to Useramen and kept him abreast of all activities throughout the country; he then distilled, filtered, and relayed this information to Hatshepsut in person. He could easily have deceived Hatshepsut on large and small matters, but there is no evidence of such subterfuge or the need for it. We can imagine the two of them together in her smaller audience hall working out plans of action for specific troubles and issues. As always, Hatshepsut continued to choose her advisers shrewdly.

  Useramen also oversaw all southern military expeditions, all trade excursions, all taxes, and all royal works projects like temple building or the construction of the king’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings. He may have even organized trade with Syrian and Minoan palaces and encouraged contact with peoples whose existence had never before been acknowledged by the elites in Thebes. Contact with the Keftiu of Crete, for instance, was considered so exotic and fashionable that every Theban official who kept up with the trends included a scene in his tomb chapel of these Minoan men in their colorful woolen garments, holding luxurious commodities.

  Useramen must have been a close and trusted confidant and supporter of Hatshepsut. She appointed him after five years of regency, when she was probably in her early twenties, mature enough to know her own mind and abilities and experienced enough to have been betrayed more than once by undependable and self-interested officials. Useramen’s loyal service was abundantly rewarded with bonuses, a fine tomb, and rich monuments. He kept her unorthodox position as regent safe. He kept her family safe. He kept her money safe. And he kept tribute and taxes flowing into the palace. In return, Hatshepsut compensated him with things more valuable than money, such as secret and, to the Egyptians, profoundly powerful texts only available to priests of the highest initiation that thus far had been inscribed only in the tombs of kings. Useramen actually had the otherwise-royal Book of Amduat painted in his burial chamber,32 which ostensibly gave him the same access to the mysteries and powers of the solar barque as the king and chief priest. All the evidence indicates that Useramen’s constancy was crucial for Hatshepsut to maintain her dominance during the early reign of Thutmose III, and she gave whatever was required to secure it.

  Hatshepsut did not overlook her state temples: indeed, she put the staffing of Egypt’s temples at the top of her agenda; she must have known it was a key to her success and one of the pillars of Thutmose III’s young kingship. She was instrumental in professionalizing Egypt’s religious arm. Temples that had previously functioned with short-term service by local elites were now staffed with full-time administrators and priests trained specifically for a life in religious service. These men had access to vast sums of cash and grain, but these were resources taken from the stores of the gods, not the wealth of the king. By all accounts, a veritable army of religious men rose under the rule of Hatshepsut, and she likely saw political wisdom in creating a legion of devoted godly supporters. Many of these priestly offices became hereditary and were passed down from father to son, thus increasing the position’s long-term value. High-level priestly appointments were Hatshepsut’s to give as she chose. For instance, she or her mother, Ahmes, may have appointed Hapuseneb as High Priest of Amen during the latter years of Thutmose II. He oversaw the construction projects at Karnak and Luxor, massive works funded by the hoards of gold streaming in from Nubia, and he set in motion Hatshepsut’s aim to create the most lavish and awe-inspiring monuments the world had ever seen.

  Hatshepsut kept her eyes on the problems of the present moment, but at the same time she had a responsibility to consider eternity. Egyptians traditionally constructed their tombs during their lifetime, and Hatshepsut was no exception. Accordingly, probably while Thutmose II was still alive or soon after his death, Hatshepsut began a tomb for herself in a remote valley (the Wadi Sikkat Taka el-Zeida) in the far south of the vast Theban necropolis.33 To hold her body, she commissioned a precious sarcophagus of quartzite that was placed in the tomb to await her death. However, Hatshepsut would soon abandon this tomb and the priceless body container, commissioning a
new, bigger, and more beautiful sarcophagus.

  Hatshepsut had set all the pieces in place. She handpicked the tutors and nurses of the young king-in-training. She worked with loyal temple personnel grateful for her gifts and cognizant of the depth of her own religious capacities. She had Egypt’s financiers in her pocket; some of them even served as tutor to her daughter in her own home. She now needed to co-opt the venerable families of Egypt by appointing as midlevel officials young men who would continue to support her and her ongoing rule for the king. But here she was at a disadvantage: typically a prince raised at court would have trusted childhood friends with whom he had shared lessons and beatings and with whom he had grown up to be skilled in the ways of war and administration; later, were he to become king, he could rely upon these fast and tested friends. Hatshepsut had no such intimate companions, no pool of men of known character to be handpicked to serve as new officials, and Thutmose III was obviously too young to have any of his own. Raised as a princess, Hatshepsut was likely separated from the young men who were now candidates for office, and yet she needed them to fill many positions: royal butlers, priests, overseers of stables, fan bearers (bodyguards), overseers of works, royal barbers, and physicians. Hatshepsut seems to have solved the problem with a combination of intimidation and money. Upstart lieutenants may have been kept in line with threats to their lives and livelihoods—a rare occurrence, most likely, but one visible in her later texts about disloyalty being treated with death. Spreading around money was easier than bullying. With economic co-option built into their political system and with tribute pouring in from Egypt’s recently expanded empire, new officials could be assured of great payoffs in exchange for their support of this unconventional and drawn-out regency.

  While Hatshepsut was shoring up her power with the appointment of trustworthy men, Thutmose III was no longer a baby. Now more than halfway through his first decade, his position as boy king had been protected by Hatshepsut, which gave him the luxury of gently growing into his position. We can imagine him hanging around the palace and watching Hatshepsut work with her loyal and well-rewarded men. He would have spent a great deal of time in the temple and throne room with her as business was being conducted, perhaps a small boy sitting on a gilded throne too big for him, next to his regent’s own, smaller seat.

  What was it like to be a child in these formal circumstances and with such high stakes on the line? Thutmose III must have been a healthy boy; he survived when so many died. But we have little insight into his character as a child: Did he laugh often and get into trouble in the audience chamber? Was he scolded by the High Priest of Amen during sacred temple rituals when he swiped a piece of the Great God’s food for his own enjoyment? Did the vizier Useramen take him under his wing and explain complicated tax proceedings during the annual grain count, or did the treasurer Senenmut regale the young king with stories of how difficult it was to quarry stone for the obelisks of Amen’s temple?

  Thutmose III’s relationship with all these officials must have been stimulating and constantly evolving. They knew he was king, a true son of Thutmose II and grandson of the great campaigner Thutmose I, and as such that he must be treated with respect. But a young boy can still act like a brat, a trickster, or a silly fool to be taught a lesson. As he got older and settled into more responsibility and decision making, Thutmose III must have demanded more consideration and authority from his officials. But for now, he was just a child. And it seems he did what he was told to do. Meanwhile, Hatshepsut was negotiating a few more steps forward in her own career.

  At about this time, Hatshepsut was laying the delicate groundwork to relinquish the position of God’s Wife of Amen, the very role that had given her access to power few women ever knew. Evidence from early Karnak monuments of this period shows Hatshepsut as the King’s Great Wife offering wine vessels to the god, while behind her Nefrure, her daughter, stands as a high priestess. This is the first time we see Nefrure labeled as God’s Wife of Amen.34 It’s hard to know when Hatshepsut gave up her God’s Wife title, but it seems to have been within these first five years of regency; perhaps she even shared the position with her daughter during a transitional period.

  Hatshepsut was in her early twenties, and strange as it may seem to us, she was probably too old to act as the sexual exciter of the god anymore. Perhaps she was expected to pass this role off to a younger female who could continue to facilitate the rebirth of the god every morning. Hatshepsut’s loss of this vital position may have been the alarm inciting her call for even more power, to claim a defined and definite authority that she could never possess as regent.

  Indeed, Hatshepsut’s training of Nefrure may have gone hand in hand with her own future plans to maintain rule. Her choice of Nefrure as the next God’s Wife was politically astute. The girl was her daughter, but she was also Thutmose III’s half sister. Hatshepsut was taking another step forward by transferring the office to her own daughter, linking the holder of the God’s Wife post to the current ruler, Thutmose III. But without that temple office, Hatshepsut was herself left floating in a limbo of ill-defined and poorly justified authority. With Thutmose III growing taller and more aware with every new year, Hatshepsut needed to lay the foundations for another type of power.

  FIVE

  The Climb Toward Kingship

  In the ancient world, having a woman at the top of the political pyramid was practically unheard of. Patriarchal systems ruled the day, and royal wives, sisters, and daughters served as members of the king’s harem or as important priestesses in his temples, not as political leaders. Throughout the Mediterranean and northwest Asia, female leadership was perceived with suspicion, if not outright aversion. Mesopotamia, for example, preserves only one example of a female political powerhouse predating Hatshepsut: Kubaba, a tavern keeper, of all things, who, according to The Sumerian King List, consolidated power in the ancient city of Kish in the twenty-fifth century BCE during a time of never-ending war and crisis. Hatshepsut probably had little knowledge of this formidable woman, given her education’s lack of focus on foreign kings. She had models of strong female leadership from her own soil.1

  Even though Egyptian cultural and political systems sometimes tolerated women in power, at least when compared to other ancient societies, only a few women were able to climb to the very top and rule all of Egypt. One of the oldest examples was the great queen Merneith, who took charge of the political system when Egypt’s kingship was new, around 2900 BCE. A King’s Mother who likely ruled on behalf of her young son, Den, Merneith was so powerful that she earned a tomb alongside the other First Dynasty kings in the royal cemetery of Abydos, complete with hundreds of human sacrifices, as was the style in those very early days of dynastic rule. She was never associated with the kingship in a formal manner that is preserved for us, but her power was so great that archaeologists uncovering her tomb assumed it belonged to a male ruler, until inscriptions proved otherwise. Merneith used her regency to take on real power, and once she had it, evidence suggests that she did not relinquish her hold on authority until her death. Merneith provided Hatshepsut with a useful case study, and we can only wonder if the Eighteenth Dynasty queen had more details of the historical reality that we lack.

  Then there was Sobeknefru, daughter of King Amenemhat III of Dynasty 12, who ruled around 1800 BCE. Three hundred years before Hatshepsut was born, Sobeknefru served as the first true female king of Egypt, an astounding achievement given the odds against it. The Egyptians developed no word for “queen” in the political sense, just the phrase hemet neswt, “wife of the king,” a title with no implications of rule or power in its own right, only a description of a woman’s connection to the king as husband.2 Thus female rulers of Egypt, like Sobeknefru, took on the masculine title of “king.”

  Clothing was more problematic, and Sobeknefru depicted herself wearing not only the masculine headdress of kingship but also the male royal kilt over the dress garments of a royal wife, garbing her feminine self with the trap
pings of a masculine office.3 However, Sobeknefru’s reign lasted a mere four years, and she was unable to save her family’s lineage or establish any norms for future female kingship. After her death, Egypt descended into the weak and ephemeral kingships of the Thirteenth Dynasty.

  Hatshepsut would have thus known that formally defined female rule was rare, even in Egypt where it was sometimes tolerated. And she likely learned that women in power were usually unsuccessful, born into crisis and ending their time in chaos. Hatshepsut probably did not think of such a position for herself initially. If not inconceivable, it would certainly have seemed unworkable with a king already on the throne. But against all odds, sometime around year 7 of Thutmose III’s reign, the impossible happened. She was crowned as king. Hatshepsut clawed and scraped her way to that end goal, claiming royal prerogatives and powers as she went, until she realized her coronation, an expensive and overwrought affair memorializing the power that she had already amassed. As one Egyptologist describes it, her coronation was “the day on which her de jure iconography caught up with her de facto authority.”4

  The “facts” that are left to us concerning Hatshepsut’s reign are far from certain. The exact timing of her ascension has been disputed by Egyptologists, some arguing that it happened as early as year 2, most claiming year 7.5 Almost all of our surviving historical documents concerning Hatshepsut’s rise to kingship are religious in nature, and many date to after her coronation, clouding our understanding of her gradual, competent, and calculating ascension. The evidence does contain clues of political realities nonetheless.

  In year 2 of Thutmose III’s reign, while Hatshepsut was acting only as regent, she made her first steps toward more political power. Reliefs carved at Semna temple in Nubia show her in the company of the gods, and here, the description of her actions—as an heir, as a builder, as a ritual officiate—are those of a masculine king. The goddess Satet, the guardian of the Nubian southern lands, says, “She is the daughter who has come forth from your [limbs]. With a loving heart you have raised her, for she is your bodily daughter.”6 Hatshepsut’s titles of God’s Wife and King’s Great Wife are not overreaching; they are suitable, in all respects, for a queen. But this relief still represents a clever step forward for Hatshepsut: she shows herself performing the role of a king, without formally naming herself as such. In year 2, she was already laying the groundwork.