An inscription in the temple of Karnak reads thus, it is as it were the deed of gift of the royal father Tahutmes I to his favorite child, and addressed to the god Amen: “I bestow the Black Land and the Red Land upon my daughter, the queen of Lower and Upper Egypt Ma-Ka-ra, living eternally. Thou hast transmitted the world into her power, thou hast chosen her as king.” Hatshepsut claimed divine origin in that the god Amen had taken upon him the person of her father and in an especial manner considered herself the daughter of the god. Hatshepset spelled with the e means “the first among the favorite women,” but the queen changed the e to u and later called herself Hatshepsut, which signifies “the first among the great and honorable nobles of the kingdom,” which she considered more befitting her exalted position.
The Eighteenth Dynasty is included in the Golden Age of Egyptian history, and in no period was its power more widely felt, its individual monarchs more remarkable or its architectural and literary remains grander or more impressive.
Before his death Tahutmes I seems to have had celebrated the marriage of his two children,[126] his daughter of twenty-four and his son of seventeen. All things combined to put Hatshepsut in the first place, her more royal heritage, by the mother’s side, her father’s devotion to her, her superiority in years and her more striking talents, while Tahutmes II was perhaps both physically and mentally her inferior. Death at last had severed the tie which bound father and daughter together, but no such tender feeling seems to have existed between the two now occupying the throne, hers was the dominant will, hers is the prominent figure. After this she frequently wore male attire and the dress and ornaments belonging to a king, and doubtless, had it been a matter of choice, she would have been a man.
She styles herself “King Horus abounding in divine gifts, mistress of diadems, rich in years (not a claim the modern lady is ever anxious to establish) the golden Horus, goddess of diadems, queen of Upper and Lower Egypt, daughter of the sun, consort of Ammon, daughter of Ammon, living forever and dwelling in his breast.” Another inscription reads, speaking of her by her name Cheremtamun, “He has created (her) in order to exalt his splendor. She who creates beings like the god Chefr’a. She whose diadems shine like those of the god of the horizon.”
She used both the male and female sign and the title, “daughter of the sun.” As the sphinx bore sometimes a male, sometimes a female head, so this strange and wonderful woman assumed now the one, now the other character. A curious life this old Egyptian history brings before us, so permeated as it was with the constant[127] thought of death and its belief, real or assumed, in the actual intercourse with a race of superior beings, gods, and yet set forth in the lowest images of the brute creation. To the poor and uneducated doubtless as in all idolatrous countries, the semblance seemed the reality and their thought did not pierce beyond the image before them, but the more intellectual and spiritual minds must have rent the veil of sense and stretched out longingly to the infinite beyond, if peradventure they might “feel after and find” the truly godlike.
Hatshepsut did not at once set to work, like the early kings, to build a pyramid in which she might herself be interred. Mundane subjects at first occupied her, and later she built a memorial to her father in the form of an obelisk which described his powers and virtues, and temples for the worship and to the glory of the gods.
Probably the regulation of the country and the administration of internal affairs occupied the earliest years of Hatshepsut’s rule, after the death of Tahutmes I, but in them she was also preparing for the expedition which was one of the great features of her reign and took place in its ninth year. Punt, a country on the eastern bank of the Red Sea, had been, to some extent, known to the Egyptians in the earliest times, those of Chafre’ of the Fourth Dynasty. “Under the name of Punt,” says one writer, “the old inhabitants of Kemi meant a distant land washed by the great ocean, full of valleys and hills, abounding in ebony and other rich woods, balsams, spices, precious metals and stones and of animals,[128] hunting-leopards, panthers, dog-headed apes, etc.” It was the Ophir of the Egyptians, the present coast of Somali, perhaps the land in sight of Arabia, but separated by the Red Sea.
Old traditions said that it was the original seat of the gods, and from it had travelled the holy ones to the Nile valley, at their head Amen, called Kak, as king of Punt, Horus and Hathor. This last was the queen and ruler of Punt, Hor, the holy morning star, which rose to the west of the land. The god Bes also was peculiarly associated with the country. Under the last king of the Eleventh Dynasty is said to have taken place the first journey to Ophir and Punt, and the envoys sent were attended by three thousand men and brought back spices and precious stones. After that it seemed to relapse in the popular imagination into a sort of fairyland which was inhabited by strange serpents.
Like a new Columbus the great queen decided to attempt the rediscovery and exploration of these distant shores. Amen of Thebes, the lord of gods, it is said, had suggested the thought to her, “because he held this ruler so dear, dearer than any other king who had been in this country.” Pictures and accounts of this expedition were afterwards placed in illustration on the walls of the temple of Deir-el-Bahari, built by the queen, and the inscription concludes with the statement that nothing like it had been done under any king before. “And,” says an authority on these subjects, “it speaks the truth. Hatasu showed her people the way to the land whose products were later to fill the treasuries not only[129] of the Pharaohs, but also of the Phoenicians and the Jews.”
It was a peaceful expedition, perhaps the only one that had ever been sent forth, this voyage of discovery, nearly sixteen hundred years before the Christian Era; but of course great preparations and even some military ones had to be made that in case of unexpected attack they might be prepared. Ships were built for the expedition, and doubtless years passed between the time of the first conception of the enterprise and its execution.
An inscription by the picture of the squadron thus describes it. “Departure of the squadron of the Lord of the two Worlds, traversing the great sea on the Good Way to the Land of the gods, in obedience to the will of the King of the gods, Amen of Thebes. He commanded that there should be brought to him the marvellous products of the Land of Punt, for he loveth the Queen Hatasu above all other kings that have ruled this land.”
A canal connecting the Nile with the Red Sea which has been attributed to Seti I Miss Edwards claims as an engineering feat of Hatasu, as it would shorten the length of the voyage rather than to take the almost inconceivably long trip around the west coast of Africa, the Cape of Good Hope, the Mosambique Channel and the coast of Zanzibar.
The ships, five in number, were large and stately for the time. They are described as having a narrow keel with stern and prow high above the water, seventy feet in length and with[130] no cabin accommodations. A raised platform at either end, with a balustrade, probably afforded some shelter to the officers. A single mast supported the spreading sail, there were no decks and the hull was fitted with seats for the rowers. After the Old Empire all large boats were adapted for sailing, as well as rowing. Other vessels of this or a little later time were one-decked galleys with thirty oars, with seats and shrines and the stern ornamented with figures of animals. The cabin of those of royal or high rank was a stately house, with roof and pillars, sides brightly colored, in the fore, large paintings and the stern a gigantic lotus. The blade of the oar was like a bouquet of flowers with the head of the king at top, the sails the richest cloth of gay colors. A royal vessel of this description belonged to King Thothmes III, Hatasu’s successor and was called “Star of the two countries.”
Another description speaks of war ships having the poop twisted, with armed mariners in helmets of brass, with four short masts and on each a large castle containing bowmen with steel-headed arrows. Upon the prow a sort of fortress, the soldiers carrying long spears and oval shields decorated with hieroglyphics in brilliant colors. Above the rowers large black Ethiopians in steel cuirasses and long swords. The captains in variegated armor and accompanied by a thousand soldiers and three hundred rowers. The prow ornamented with a lion’s head and colossal shoulders across a broad gilded image of the feathered globe of the sun, the emblem of Egypt[131] and the inscription, “Mistress of the World.” But Hatasu’s fleet was going on a peaceful errand and required no such panoply of war. Experienced seamen managed it, while soldiers, ambassadors and, some say, even ladies, accompanied it and bore with them a variety of presents to win the friendship and favor of the inhabitants of this strange land. The envoys had a small guard of soldiers, but all included did not number more than two hundred and ten men.
The voyagers were met with a friendly welcome and returned with stores of treasures. The inhabitants of Punt lived in little round shaped huts, built on stages and reached by ladders, all under the shade of spreading palms. A picture on the wall of the temple shows the prince of the land Parihu by name, with his wife, Ati or Aty, the latter fat and ungainly (though probably considered a specimen of great beauty by her countrymen), with a donkey to ride upon, followed by two sons and a young daughter, the last giving promise of rivaling her mother in rotundity of outline. Gold, spices, ivory, incense bearing trees, to the number of thirty-one, precious gums, used in the service of the temple, and various animals were brought back to Egypt as a result of this most successful journey. The return was celebrated by a high festival in the temple. Hatshepsut or Hatasu appeared in fullest royal attire, adorned in the richest manner, a helmet on her head, a spotted leopard skin covering her shoulders and her limbs “perfumed like fresh dew.” She offered incense to the god Amen, as his priestess, bearing[132] two bowls full and weighing out gold with her own hand. This was before the sacred boat of Amen Ra, with a ram’s head at each end, and carried by high priests, also in leopard skins. The Naka, or incense bearing trees, were borne in tubs, and the weights for weighing the precious metals were gold rings in the shape of recumbent oxen.
Later, as was his iconoclastic wont, Rameses II destroyed some of these pictures and inscriptions and inserted his own name.
Although the name of Tahutmes II, husband and co-ruler with the queen, is not specially mentioned in connection with this great expedition, he shared in the after festival. He, too, designated by his court name of King Menkhefer-ka-ra, offered incense in the boat of Amen, carried on the shoulders of men. “Thus,” says Miss Edwards, “to the sound of trumpets and drums, with waving of green boughs and shouts of triumph, and followed by an ever gathering crowd, the great procession takes its way between avenues of sphinxes, past obelisks and pylons, and up one magnificent flight of steps after another till the topmost terrace of the Great Temple is reached, where the Queen herself welcomed them to the presence of Hathor, the Beautiful, the Lady of the Western Mountain, the Goddess Regent of the Land of Punt.”
At what period is not exactly known, but of course earlier than this, since he is believed to have designed the beautiful temple of Deir el Bahri, the queen called to her assistance the services[133] of the architect Senmut, whose statue is in the Berlin Museum. He, it is implied, usurped the place in Hatasu’s affection which rightfully belonged to her husband, but of this it is not possible to speak with any degree of certainty or authority. We only know that he was a man of great ability in his own line, of intelligent mind and skillful hand, and was highly appreciated by her majesty. In an inscription in the Berlin Museum he says his lady ruler made him “great in both countries” and “chief of the chiefs&rdqu............