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What Did the False Beard of Hatshepsut Actually Mean? - Hatshepsut and the Ritual Performance of Egyptian Kingship | Sleepy Facts About History · Sleepy Facts About History

• 0:04
  Welcome to Sleepy Facts About History. Most people
• 0:13
  who have heard of Hatshepsut carry one of two
• 0:15
  images in mind. Either she was a woman who ruled
• 0:19
  Egypt by pretending to be a man, or she was a
• 0:22
  tragic figure erased from history by a vengeful
• 0:25
  stepson. Both of these popular stories are wrong.
• 0:30
  They misunderstand how Egyptian kingship actually
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  worked, and why her memory was ultimately attacked.
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  This episode explores the real history of Hatshepsut,
• 0:41
  a woman who performed the established rituals
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  and duties of the pharaoh so thoroughly that
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  her unprecedented reign became intelligible to
• 0:49
  her contemporaries. The narrative examines how
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  she gradually assumed the full titulary and regalia
• 0:56
  of the royal office, demonstrating her legitimacy
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  through massive building projects like her mortuary
• 1:02
  temple at Deir el -Bari, and a major trading
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  expedition to Punt. It also addresses the deliberate
• 1:09
  destruction of her monuments decades after her
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  death. Rather than an act of personal revenge
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  by Thutnoser III, this erasure is best understood
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  as a dynastic strategy to prevent future female
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  claimants from using her successful reign as
• 1:25
  a precedent. I wanted to understand why the traditional
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  stereotypes about Hatshepsut persist when the
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  actual historical record is so much more interesting.
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  Some questions sound simple until you try to
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  answer them, and figuring out how a woman occupied
• 1:43
  the highest royal office in ancient Egypt requires
• 1:47
  setting aside modern assumptions about gender
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  and power. Join me to explore how a rigid ritual
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  system was stretched to accommodate a female
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  pharaoh, and how that same system was eventually
• 1:59
  turned against her. Hatshepsut did not disguise
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  herself as a man to steal a throne. She was not
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  erased from history by a vengeful stepson. Both
• 2:14
  stories are too simple. Both miss what actually
• 2:18
  happened. What remains is stranger and more instructive.
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  It is the story of a woman who performed every
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  ritual of Egyptian kingship so thoroughly that
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  her reign became unremarkable. It is also the
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  story of a political system that, two decades
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  after her death, found her very legitimacy dangerous
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  enough to dismantle. Most people who have heard
• 2:44
  of Hatshepsut carry one of two images in mind.
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  Either she was the woman who ruled Egypt by pretending
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  to be a man, complete with false beard and masculine
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  costume, or she was a tragic figure erased from
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  history by a vengeful stepson who could not tolerate
• 3:03
  a woman on the throne. Both of these images are
• 3:07
  wrong. They are not entirely without origin.
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  There are statues. There was an erasure. There
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  was a stepson. But they misunderstand what actually
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  happened and why it mattered. The real story
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  is more interesting precisely because it is more
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  difficult. It requires us to understand how Egyptian
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  kingship actually worked. Kingship was not a
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  job held by a person. It was a set of rituals,
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  titles, monuments and divine relationships that
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  had to be performed correctly. Hatshepsut did
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  something unprecedented. She ruled as pharaoh
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  for roughly two decades. It was the longest and
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  most successful female reign in ancient Egypt.
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  But she did not do this by deception or disguise.
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  She did it by gradually adopting every established
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  form of Egyptian kingship. She performed them
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  so thoroughly that her reign became intelligible
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  within the system it had seemed to exclude. Then,
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  decades after her death, that same system of
• 4:20
  memory and monument was turned against her. This
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  was not out of personal hatred. It was out of
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  dynastic necessity. To understand this, we need
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  to begin in Thebes in the early 15th century
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  BCE, in the Egypt of the 18th dynasty. This was
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  a kingdom recently reunified after generations
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  of fragmentation. Foreign rulers called the Hyksos
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  had controlled much of Lower Egypt during the
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  Second Intermediate Period. The dynasty's founders
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  had expelled them. They had re -established central
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  authority. They had begun expanding Egypt's influence
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  abroad. Thebes, in Upper Egypt, had become the
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  imperial capital. It was dominated by the vast
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  temple complex of Amun at Karnak. The pharaoh
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  was not merely a political leader. He was the
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  living Horus. He was the son of the sun god Ri.
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  He was the mediator between the gods and humanity.
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  He was the guarantor of Mart. Mart was the Egyptian
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  concept of cosmic order, truth and justice that
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  held the universe together. This was not symbolic
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  in a loose modern sense. The pharaoh's ritual
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  actions, his building programs, his military
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  campaigns, his offerings to the gods were understood
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  to literally maintain the order of existence.
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  The annual flooding of the Nile depended upon
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  the king's correct performance of his duties.
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  The turning of the seasons depended upon it.
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  The rising of the sun each morning depended upon
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  it. Into this world, Hatshepsut was born around
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  57 BCE. She was the daughter of Thutmose I and
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  his great wife Amos. This made her fully royal
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  on both sides. She married her half -brother
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  Thutmose II. By him, she had one daughter, Neferure.
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  Thutmose II died young, probably after only a
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  few years on the throne. He left a son. Thutmose
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  III. But this son was born to a secondary wife
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  named Iset. The boy was a child. The normal response
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  to a child king in Egypt was a regency. The normal
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  regent was the mother or another close royal
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  female. Hatshepsut, as the senior royal woman,
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  the god's wife of Amun, and the widow of the
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  previous king, stepped into this familiar role.
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  She was not yet pharaoh. She was acting on behalf
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  of the young Thutmose III until he came of age.
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  But something unusual happened. Rather than remaining
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  in the regency and eventually handing power to
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  the adult king, Hatshepsut gradually assumed
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  the full titles, regalia and public forms of
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  pharaoh herself. This did not happen overnight.
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  The evidence suggests a slow transformation.
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  It probably unfolded across several years in
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  the early part of the Most of the Third's reign.
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  She began with the titles she already held. She
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  was the king's daughter. She was the king's great
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  wife. She was the god's wife of Amun. She added
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  to these titles. Eventually, she adopted the
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  complete five -fold royal titulary. This included
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  the Horus name, the two ladies' name. the golden
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  Horus name, the throne name or pre -Nomen, and
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  the birth name or Nomen. A throne name was Maat.
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  The name means Maat is the car of Ri. It was
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  a standard formulation that placed her within
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  the theological framework of kingship. She was
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  depicted in reliefs and statues wearing the Namese
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  headdress, the royal kilt, and the false beard.
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  These were all the established regalia of the
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  pharaoh. Inscriptions referred to her with masculine
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  grammatical forms. This was because the language
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  of kingship was masculine. The crucial point
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  is that these were not disguises. The false beard,
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  the Nimi's headdress, the masculine grammar were
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  not attempts to make her look like a man to people
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  who did not know she was a woman. Everyone knew
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  she was a woman. She had been queen for years.
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  Her daughter Neferuri appeared with her in public
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  contexts. What Hatshepsut was doing was occupying
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  the office of Pharaoh. The office had established
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  forms that did not change based on who held it.
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  The Pharaoh wore certain things. The Pharaoh
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  was called certain things. The Pharaoh was depicted
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  in certain ways. These forms were understood
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  to be ritually effective, not merely decorative.
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  To be pharaoh was to perform these forms correctly.
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  Hatshepsut performed them. We can see this transformation
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  in the material record because it was not instantaneous.
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  Some statues from early in her reign show her
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  in female dress and form. Others from later show
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  her in the full male regalia of kingship. Some
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  images blend the two. They show the body and
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  costume of a male king, but with facial features
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  that contemporary viewers would have recognized
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  as hers. The famous seated statue from Deralbari,
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  now in the Metropolitan Museum, shows her in
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  the traditional pose of a pharaoh. She is seated
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  in limestone, wearing the nemes, with the false
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  beard attached to her chin. But the face is recognizably
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  her own. It is not an attempt to look like a
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  man. The inscription makes no secret of her identity.
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  It calls her by her names and titles. The point
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  was not to deceive. The point was to perform
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  the office correctly. This gradual adoption of
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  pharaonic forms solved one problem. It showed
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  how a woman could occupy the office. But it created
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  another problem. She needed to demonstrate that
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  she could perform the functions of pharaohs successfully.
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  Egyptian kingship was not merely about holding
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  titles. It was about maintaining mart through
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  specific kinds of action. These actions included
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  building temples, conducting warfare, managing
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  trade, making offerings to the gods, and producing
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  heirs. Hatshepsut could not lead armies in person.
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  Or at least she did not choose to. But she could
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  do the other things. And she did them on a massive
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  scale. The central project of her reign was the
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  mortuary temple at Deir el -Bari on the west
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  bank of the Nile at Thebes. This temple was called
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  Jiza Jizaru, or Holy of Holies. It was designed
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  by her steward, Sinemet. It was built against
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  the dramatic limestone cliffs that rise above
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  the desert edge. The temple took the form of
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  three terraced platforms stepping upward from
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  the desert floor. Each level was connected to
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  the nicks by long ramps cutting straight through
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  the center. Colonades lined the terraces. Chapels
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  opened onto the courtyards. In those courtyards
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  had Shepsut's gardeners planted incense trees.
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  brought back from the expedition to punt these
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  trees were living proof of divine favor rooted
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  in egyptian soil the architecture was unlike
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  anything else in egypt but