So she surely had in herself a combination of characteristics that could aid and encourage her to "Go Very Far", in her lifetime !..
In fact, when one goes on reading much of the gigantic total amount of writings that center on Hatshepsut's life events and achievements, he may in the end get convinced with the following impressed conclusion about her prehended character :
" Hatshepsut's personality bore a certain 'pack' of stirring and dangerous traits, that reminds us of other well-known feminine historical characters from the Near East, .. like : "Zenobia" - the Powerful Queen of Tadmur ; "Balqeis" - the Clever Queen of Saba'a ; "Cleopatra XII" - the Titularity-Resistant Monarch of Ptolemaic Egypt ; and "Zuleykha" - the Plot-Deviser Wife of Egypt's Major-Noble and 'Dear-To-His-King' "Butifaar" ".
Each of them all .. had managed to hold her own for a long time, amidst .. A World Dominated By Strong Men In Its Most ! .. They amazingly succeeded in leaving their considerable special impacts and 'finger-prints' on the Near-Eastern History, as it's known... And they all could make numbers of their contemporaneous men anxious and worried ! ..
... And so has been "The Summit Of Noble Women", .. or "Hatshepsut" ...
During her younger-youth period of life, that preceded her accession to the "Highest Power Office" of a liberated, re-unified and extended Egypt, she showed something like an 'unyielding avaricious lust' for grabbing the throne, with an extraordinary degree of 'uncaring' for the terrible consequences that might happen to her closest relatives. Hence, her disgraceful attitude could heavily add to the streak of 'worryingly tragic' events and accidents, that happened during the time of Dynasty XVIII. --The conglomeration of them is viewed as fit to be re-presented in some 'dark' play-scenes at a "Greek Amphitheater" !
But in order to be fair-enough about the reality of her person, and her actual personal responsibilities for the 'mishaps' of her family, .. we record that certain studies tell us about : some newly revealed 'onsets' and 'causing-factors' of Hatshepsut's characteristic behaviour !
They collectively make, in-turn, the afore-mentioned rejectable and sad behaviour of hers .. seem much more 'understandable' and less 'artificial' !
Until we come to deal extensively with that very interesting partial-subject, we temporarily evince that some little-known 'tidings' about Hatshepsut's family, on re-examination, strongly inspired us about a Hatshepsut that had been "Afraid-Of-A-Repeated-Sad-Women-Future", and a one that had been "Escaping-A-Contineous-Process-Of-Female-Victimization"...
And all of that happened chiefly because of the Pharaonic Traditional Suppressive Rules And Restrictions.
Going back to our main-line here, for now, we register that the reviewing and examining of the 'worryingly tragic' events and accidents of Makere's life story, .. have showed to be well within the scoping-circle of the "I.O.M.O." partial studies, that which deal with the issue of "Upper And Lower Punts" :
- According to M. M. Fuyyaad : After a magnificent ceromony was held in Heliopolis for the young Hatshepsut, by her father King / "T'hutmos - I", Hatshepsut thereafter stepped another daring step, when she demanded from her father, to get married to her [!] .. In aftermath, he succumbed for what she had infused to him... Then, she convinced him that her brother "T'hutmos - II" had had a bad health and had been of weak will, and should be considered 'frail' in view of holding the burdens of reigning. She inspired him to declare that he had chosen her as his 'heir-apparent', for the throne [!] .. Subsequently, he didn't hesitate at putting her wish in-effect, and gathered the princehood elite, the honourables
and the generals, .. and orated in front of them : " THIS IS MY DAUGHTER HATSHEPSUT, WHO WAS SELECTED BY AMUN-RAA. SHE IS MY HEIR-APPARENT, AND SHE SHALL SUCCEED ME TO THE RULE. THEREFORE, OBEY HER AND UNITE UNDER HER PREDOMINANCE. AND KNOW, THAT HE WHO SHALL OBEY HER, SHALL LIVE HAPPILY, AND HE WHO SHALL BE CONTUMACIOUS AGAINST HER, SHALL PERISH ". ._._._. Thereafter, Hatshepsut's mother [ Queen / Ahmos ] died, .. and as she had been of the descension of the Pharaohs who had expelled the "Hyksous", and founded the eighteenth dynasty, .. the position of her husband "T'hutmos - I" became shaken, because he had not attained
the rule except for the advantage of his marriage to her. Hatshepsut made use of this opportunity and plundered the throne from her father [...]. ._._._. After a period of conflict against her father and brother, she prevailed at the end, due to the support of the clergy and the institutions that were keen in preserving the monarchial succession traditions. "T'hutmos - I" died, thereafter, and then his son "T'hutmos - II". So the reign turned to a stable state, in the hands of Hatshepsut.
- According to Bruno Holioua : The inspection comes in the first place ; Through it the body is examined... ._._._. The matter is related to the search, firstly, for the wounds' scars that exist on the skin envelope, and have the appearance of some dark rigid layer, that is also ridged, because of the resin and the wax that were used by the mummifiers. And hence, the examination of the mummy of "T'hutmos II" evinced the presence of skin papules, each having an area of 1mm x 1mm, and spread over the surface of the chest, the shoulders, the arms, the hands, the buttocks, the legs and the feet. Nothing was in good shape except the face, the palms of hands and the bottom-sides of feet.
Twain assumptive diagnoses, valid for explaining these dermic troubles of T'hutmos II, were reached. These expressed either dermal vesicles of relation to a disorder of the metabolism, ._._._. or an alteration of skin-colour due to inflammations. ...
- According to Sameh Arab : Knowing that she is a usurper, Hatshepsut forged much evidence to justify her legitimacy to the throne. The first of which might have been her alleged claim of a true co-regency with her father Thotmose I. In the 8th pylon of el-Karnak Temple and on the 11th northern column, "Thotmose I" was depicted expressing his gratitude to Amon for giving kingship to him and his daughter. Meticulous study of the writings showed that they superimposed over a prior, skillfully defaced, text. ._._._. After her death, "Thotmose III" replaced her name by that of "Thutmose II", ... ._._._. In contrast, she never mentioned her husband "Tuthmose II" in any inscription, and his sarcophagus was left at the Valley of the Kings. ._._._. In this text, in extreme boasting, she
announced the theme of her reign, which is no less than a complete rebuilding of the land of Egypt. She described herself as the one predestined by an oracle of Amon since the moment of creation to restore the ritual purity of the temples.
- According to Peter F. Dorman : Even her own contemporaries recognized that Hatshepsut had spent years as the chief queen of Tuthmose II and that her royal monuments were forced to ignore this inconvenient interlude. ._._._. Even before she formally assumed full pharaonic titulary, the rock-cut cenotaph of Senenmut at Gebel Silsila gives us an initial hint of her ultimate intentions. On the lintel of the entrance portal, her ties to Tuthmose II have already been severed; she is named not as queen, but as potential heir to the throne: "Live, the king's firstborn daughter, Hatshepsut, may she live, beloved of Amun, lord of the thrones of the two lands, king of the gods". Thus her claim to the throne as a
male-portrayed pharaoh derived from the most conservative basis one could imagine: she was the eldest surviving heir of Tuthmose I. The motives for her gradual assumption of kingly power (and depiction) remain largely unknown. In view of the many intermediate iconographic stages Hatshepsut tried out over such a protracted period of time, it is hardly accurate to describe her actions as a usurpation or a power grab, with or without the help of a meddlesome coterie of supporters. Both Ineni's biography and Senenmut's graffito indicate that Hatshepsut was the effective ruler of Egypt from the death of her husband. The question was not the wielding of power but how to represent it in a public context. It is not impossible that Hatshepsut's experimentation with iconography was prompted by the necessity of effective rule during a prolonged regency, and that the strictures of functioning solely
as a queen were inconsistent with that role. Her fictive claim to the throne through her father, Tuthmose I, served to grant her a certain legitimacy, but might also have proved ideologically problematic to her male successors. ._._._. On the other hand, the revision of Hatshepsut's monuments, which took place at least twenty years after her death, reflects a changed attitude toward her unorthodox public image, but not necessarily a personal condemnation of the queen herself.
- According to Caroline Seawright :
Though this seems a little drastic, there was obviously bitter feelings against Hatshepsut. No-one knows if she was murdered, died or retired from politics to let Thuthmose III and her second daughter rule, but she disappeared when Thuthmose III became Pharaoh in his own right. Her body has not been found, so it is difficult to prove one way or another.
Congrous with these accounts, the "I.O.M.O. Theory" puts forth a comprehension of Hatshepsut's life-story parts, those that are generally known-about but partially-missing from our records ( for example: due to subsequent erasing ). This comprehension also deals, convincingly, with the detected powerful psychological motives, that made Hatshepsut so much evincive of her reckless abundance and intrepidity, .. that were well-shown on course of her "elution" pilgrimage-trip to "PU'NAT'", through the quite-dangerous and vast waters of the "Indian Ocean"...
With careful reading we may seize that the twain collective comprehensions : Of Hatshepsut's Known-News, And Of The Explanatory "I.O.M.O.", .. simply 'conduplicate-well', with each other !
The "I.O.M.O." Theory profoundly recognizes that the obscure and unprecedented 'royal-journey', to the peaceful and venerated Punt, by the Egyptian Ruler herself, on top of her notables, artists and "marines", .. had been accomplished in a very rare historical incident by Hatshepsut for nearly obligatory and stressful reasons ( in her own way of percieving matters ). As we have read above, some historizing sources inform that "Ma'at-Ka-Raa" had taken the throne from other members of her family and held-on to it, with the use of some obreptitious, adulterine and conspiratorial tricks ! There should have been, in congruity with these opinions of course, clear signs at her time of reigning, that signified the fact
that the Egyptian people ( or Egyptian 'men' ) were not internally fully-content with her throne-accession. Although not openly contumacious in front of her, .. they were naturally grumbling and hissing, at her previous aggressive-doings and piercing-acts, that which had partly damaged the lives of some of her closest relatives !
Some sources expressed a suggested thought about Makere's utilisation of - and benefiting from - her Charismatic Influence on others. This partial-study doesn't rule that out... However, and despite that, the ruled-by-her Egyptians might still have been sarcastingly garrulous toward her, as a result of her insatiable and "pushy" life-style. The general character of egyptian citizens and "fallaheen" ( modern-egyptian word for 'peasants' ), ancients and moderns, allow that to happen on a widespread scale !
Very naturally, this characteristic popular way of reacting in Egypt, was highly applicable to happen .. with respect to Hatshepsut's Feminine Grab Of Power, and the related Anti-Masculine Hyperactive Thrusts of her... Also, her felt Suspectful Secret-Plots with the priesthood, and her rumoured Behind The Scenes Relations with some top state-officials, could naturally fall well into that same 'popular rejection stream' ! ..
Since "Ma'at-Ka-Raa" had been evidently of recorded high mental capabilities, she is seen in the research-work of the "I.O.M.O." Theory .. to have been very much able to perceive and understand the real attitudes of her people, that were paid internally toward her. .. And moreover, she seems to have been perceiving and understanding that she had been, in reality, always mocked and falsely-praised all the way through !..
Thereby, she must have been living under some acute and tremendous .. psychological and nervous pressures.
By this defintion, the "Theory" points to a most important motive, now greatly thought-of to had been fundamental in compelling the defamed Hatshepsut to go on such a very long and considerably risky expedition-visit, to the "Supreme Purication Shrine" of "PU'NAT'". That most important motive should be :"HATSHEPSUT'S ACUTE AND STUBBORN PHYSICAL ILLNESS" !
But is it possible in our modern time to detect and 'diagnose' Hatshepsut's physical illness ?.. If we 'dare' to say here that it is possible, we will surely be 'yelled at' with something like : "And how on earth can that be achieved if we couldn't be sure about finding her body ?!"...
It would be a very difficult project, of course, but nevertheless we have already covered here a considerable percentage of its needed processes. We have, for instance, some striking archaeological evidence that is evincive of the very same physical disorder, that is figured by this "I.O.M.O" partial-study.
One of the helping approaches may be in trying to make some kind of an 'artificial-literature-substitution' for the "great hiatus" of Hatshepsut's life chronicles, known to many egyptologists and many many Dynasty XVIII biographers. -- As a try to re-construct the very probable atmosphere and circumstances that prelusively surrounded Makere's body and soul, when she was seeking recovery and getting ready to sail for Pu'nat' for that purpose, .. we resort to the art of imagined "historical-fiction".
The following hypothetical story, of-course, doesn't depend on any 'witnesses' nor 'documentaries', but still it may be seen by some readers to be 'very likely to have happened', nearly 35 centuries ago .. :
"Makere's Unknown Crises"
" After many years of very ambitious 'sorties', and acts of hardly-restrained jumpiness, that came from the 'turmoiling-for-power' HATSHEPSUT, .. her long series of selfish-plots and disgraceful doings, finally came to an end. The Highest Power Office in Egypt, became under her command. Prior to that, she seemed as if she wouldn't quinch her volatile inner-attitude towards some members of her own family, whom she saw as her 'deprivers' of acceding-to-throne, .. and hence, her 'threateners' to her high self-composure and self-liberation. Finally, they all became dead. They died one after another, in one of the longest and most obscure death-streaks of royalties, in all history. In aftermath, she couldn't resist a strange feeling of relief, when
it intruded her mind and sensibleness. Now and only now, she is not to fear any Royal Family Male-Suppression. And now at last, she can enjoy her 'natural feminine life', without any hampering at all from the terrible Pharaonic Palatine Rules, that compel royalty women and girls to succumb for the worst kinds of Endogamy and Polygamy.
Hatshepsut's mother Queen/ "Ahmos", like tens of other Egyptian Queens, was not to declare openly any objection or resentment for the practices of her husband King/ T'hutmos I .. towards other women. The frequently-adopted view of a grave-difference between an Egyptian Pharaoh and His Wife was expressed in the usage of completely ill-proportuned scales for the twain statues of a king and his queen, .. even when they were combined or intermingled by the sculptor. Thereby, a frail and kind-hearted queen like Ahmos had no sensed 'real-power', to courageously face her reigning husband and retain her 'feminine pride', inside her royal premisis.
Hatshepsut herself, at a young age of 15, had been 'ordered' by her 'unkind' father "T'hutmos I" .. to get married to her half-brother "T'hutmos II", who had suffered from a terrible heridetery skin desease. Royal teenage girls like Makere were frequently viewed by the Pharaonic System to be better 'prompt', for a marriage that saves the "Blue-Blood" ! The desease of T'hutmos II worsened by time and produced a lot of pus. Apart from the visual misease, Hatshepsut feared she might suffer from a possible contagious transmission. In a progressed phase, his case had been so awful-looking and widespread over his body, to the extent of making him 'unapproachable', in the eyes of his wife. But yet, she had to show only 'sheepish obedience', and learn to be patient with such a misdight situation for as long as it takes.
A half-sister of Hatshepsut's, at the very young age of 12, had been 'handed-over' by her 'heartless' father T'hutmos I .. to an old and greedy military-officer, just to be added to his 'pack of women' at his grand place. Despite being only a child, the little girl amazingly took the decision not to play the role of a 'succumbing chicken'. Remarkably witty like her sister "Ma'at-Ka-Raa", the girl resorted to a long streak of 'tricks' to cheat her new 'master', and side-step the 'executions' of his disgraceful and dislikable 'meetings'. With a lot of burden and anxiety, she scored a strikingly durating success, .. in her 'art' of avoiding him as frequently as possible. She was greatly helped by her two substitute-mothers : The Officer's Other Older 2 Wives !
Abusing royal-palace women and girls, for "pharaonic" reasons and motives, traditionally kept on happening until the time of Dynasty XVIII. Although somewhat illogical, the viewings and treatments of the susceptible queens-to-be and princesses, in the "New Kingdom" .. were nearly adopted so as to resemble those of the "Archaic Kingdom" without any important changes !.. Hence, it had been natural for scores of those queens-to-be and princesses, to have wishful thoughts about becoming somedays : Some Barely Common Women And Girls From The Ordinary Streets !!
... But as of 'now', all such long-living sufferings and sad situations were not to be resumed. The 'Royalty Reformer' Ma'at-Ka-Raa is now the bearer of Egypt's Crown, and in control of this country, its system and its 'ideology'. Neither she nor any lady of the palace .. will anymore be a prey to the unfair and destructive 'Masculine-Pharaonic' constrictions and orders. With the power being given to "The Summit Of Noble Ladies", Egypt has now a new and greatly improved 'Feminine-Pharaonic' ruling system... And according to it, all royal ladies of the Hatshepsutian Regime, would from now on .. earn and retain their natural rights of enjoying many 'Freedoms'... Including of course what is termed with "The Freedom Of Marriage-Choice".
When that eventually occurred, she had a period of some 'non-warring' and restful time, during which she enjoyed : Directing the greatly-obedient egyptian people .. in combination with some generous aiding to them ; The loyalty and praise of a wide-scale elite of Egypt's V.I.P.s ; Controlling the national wealth, the policies, and to some extent, the special ways of thinking and doctorines of the Egyptian Civilization ; The large-scaled fanciful food-plus-drink regales and the outgoing for bloodless chasings of wild animals !
During a relatively short period of only few years length, .. her sensation of power-gripping, self-loving and feeling of personal charisma, were passing through a steady phase of un-shakable "Crescendo". The image of her "Ego", seemed to have really accomplished the meaning of her most famous name : "Hatshepsut", or "The Summit of Noble-Ladies" !
But what had seemed like the most comfortable, delicious and enjoyable feminine-life on earth, was unexpectedly subjected to a sudden start of an abruptive series of acute 'strokes'...
During the late times of numerous nights, when most inhabitants of the royal-palace were ordinarily asleep, .. she would suffer one of her newly-emergent, horrible and obscure 'attacks'. When it happened, she would have a sudden awaking, .. with a screaming and then a murmuring, .. followed by an air-gasping, .. a shuddering and an exuding of plentiful sweat...
Without any felt fore-warnings .. the 'fair', youthful, healthy and promising queen .. has started to be attacked by gravely freightening nightmares. To a shocking extent, their 'scenes' were repeated during her sleeping times, .. and un-fadingly, they kept on coming over and over again. A terrifying nightmare together with its accompanying stroke-spells .. would leave her : misdight, drained and nearly languishing... And as her screams were heard by many of the palace inhabitants and staff, her maids and servants hurried to her sleeping-wing at the time of every nightmare... And within just a few days time, news about the afflicted poor queen went spreading all-over Egypt.
Awed, stunned and depleted, when awake during the day-times that followed the late-night strokes, Makere figured-out quickly that she was passing through a crumbling and an embarassing crisis, and that she needed some specialized and professional treatment at once. She thought she'd better consult a supreme convention of high-caliber physicians, loyal healer-priests and proximate noblemen and noblewomen. She summoned them to her palace, .. and they immediately started their sincere and extensive tries to save their 'friendly' and 'beautiful' Female-Pharaoh. For weeks, the 'know-how' members of the "convention" went on trying every possible method they knew, that was available in the 18th Dynasty Egypt, to cure Queen/ Hatshepsut, .. but without any recognizable satisfactory success.
Long weeks passed and the un-yielding terrifying nightmares with their adjoining sudoriferous attacks, kept on exhausting the physique and the spirits of the defenseless Makere. Moreover, during the awaking day-time, she gradually developed an 'on-and-off' condition, of seeming 'as if afraid' of some invisible entity. While alone in her special-wing or in a remote place of the palace garden, she at times got 'dashed' with a worrying state, in which she appeared gazing in-fear, shivering and withstanding an accelerated heart-beat. Accompanying that stage of her illness was a strange habit of uttering - in a 'nervous' way - a lot of strange words, at sometimes of her insisted-on solitude.
As her case worsened, she was also 'gripped' by the usual deppression, that frequently adjoins such terrible 'psychiatric' cases. Added to that, was a loss of appetite to a freightening-degree... Even when she agreed to eat, she would make some strange 'fasting-like' acts, like the elimenation of the meat-cutlets and some vegetables too from her dish. She also spilled away any presented 'reddish' fluids...
At some point : reaching any sort of sensed heal and recuperation .. became like a 'wishful dream', in her severely 'detruded' mind.
At the time of her crowning, as a sole ruler of Egypt, she had enjoyed a wave of merriness and enchantment feelings, .. but now all of that has been washed away and substituted with an adverse tide of vanity and dejection sensations.
The skilled portentous physicians and experienced healer-priests of Egypt managed not to snatch Makere from her gruff and stubborn case. They all failed in their various and condensed tries that were under-taken over a months-long period of time. In reaction to that, she began to assize her condition of gruesome poignancy as 'un-curable' by their 'mislippened' ways. Amidst her mulled and torpid mental state she still could think in a "Quixotic" style that was mingled with a facts-facing mode ! She deduced that leaving herself to their un-successful experimental courses would not in the end bring back her shockingly terminated liveliness, pleasure, and elevated consuetude.
In a sad tragic scene, Hatshepsut summoned the notable-members of her case-treatment 'consulto', and declared that she had become extremely bored and fed-up with their haphazard un-appetible 'animal-extracts' and 'mixtures of cultivation-drugs', and their unreliable 'utterance spells' that were dedicated to the 'old' provincial-dieties. She said their hitherto attempts of treating her case had left her with even more pain and exhaustion than before. She informed them that she wouldn't tolerate any more disgraceful-approaches by them to herself, .. by which she was to appear to her people like some 'experimentation field'. She dismissed them all, with an order that they would leave her alone, till 'she' might manage-up what 'she' should do concerning her case and its impact on her capabilities to rule the countries, enrich their enterprises and safeguard them.
She thought of suicide...
Her mind went on revising the "tape" of her life : She recalled how she had been unfaithful and hostile towards her kind-hearted and loving mother, Queen/ Ahmos, with the outragious and naughty approaches she had done towards her father, King/ T'hutmos I. She accused herself of gravely depriving her mother from her husband's affection and 'marital-concentration'. She remembered how she had cheated and seduced her father in order to lure him to grant her with his throne. She found herself guilty of stirring a dangerous conspiracy at urge from the hiddenly-rebelious priesthood, against their own Pharaoh. She retrieved in her mind how she had been unmerciful and heinous with respect to the worsening painful health-case of her brother T'hutmos II. She condemned herself of abandoning him in his agony, and thus bearing some responsibility
for his seemingly-premature death...
So, .. she thought of suicide...
Only a few days time passed whilst she kept-on enduring the vicious-circle of rebounding gravely sad memories with self-reproaching and self-tormenting, .. she decided to "go to meet her victimized-folks"...
Alone in her chambers, one evening, she wrote with her left hand a 'farewell-will' on a papyrus sheet to Egypt's people and noble-elite. She then poisoned her drink, .. and lifted the golden-cup with her trembling left hand to her mouth...
But she couldn't drink it... The cup fell from her hand to the ground and her left arm just dangled aside, motionlessly... And horribly even more, she quickly discovered that the whole left-side of her body had become unmovable...
Hearing Makere's startling moanful weeping from outside the royal chambers, a queen's maid hurried inside, and screeched a piercing cry as she saw "Her Majesty" dreadfully stretched on the floor...
Not a single human-being in the whole of the royal palace, did not cry, wail or shed tears for her sake, .. that night of Egyptian Royal Tragidy... ".
Written By : Wa'el Fekry
{ To Be Continued }
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