Hatshepsut - part 2
Jan 15th, 2007 by Lee (admin)
Although there were no wars documented during her reign, Hatshepsut proved her sovereignty by initiating expeditions to the land of Punt, known now as Somalia, in search of the ivory, animals, spices, gold and aromatic trees that Egyptians loved.
These expeditions are well documented in the hieroglyphic inscriptions on the walls of her temple. Hatshepsut, in a further bid to be recognized as a legitimate queen, constructed a fabulous temple in the Valley of the Kings by a tall plateau at Deir-el-Bahri, across the Nile from Thebes.
Hatshepsut was an excellent politician, and an elegant stateswoman with enough charisma to keep control of her entire country for twenty years. These traits, plus her experience, could only carry her so far though. She used two devices to ensure the legitimacy of her position.
The first was to emphasise not only her relationship to her father, Tuthmose I, but also her favour from that ever popular ruler. She claimed to have been handpicked by her father, above her two brothers and her half-brother. Additionally, in her temple are written the words of Khnum, the divine potter who sculpted the forms of the gods: “I will make you to be the first of all living creatures, you will rise as king of Upper and of Lower Egypt, as your father Amon, who loves you, did ordain.” This assertion has validity, as other texts indicate.
Her second, pompous, claim was more doubtful, however - she claims a direct divine lineage. As in the previous passage, she claims Amon is her father. On the walls of her tomb is inscribed a story detailing the night the Theban god Amon-Re approached her mother, Aahmes, in the form of Tuthmose I.