The Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut at Dier El Bahari

The MORTUARY TEMPLE of HATSHEPSUT
       
Splendor of Splendors

 Riding my bike through a gorge of twisting pink rippled rock I noticed small caves occasionally where alabaster had been quarried from. It was not long before I saw facing me the stunning Temple of Hatshepsut. I stopped pedaling and slowly the bike cruised to a standstill, I wanted to let the experience of this really dramatic and impressive stage like temple with its gleaming white limestone colonnades seep into my bones. The Osiris statues of Hatshepsut smile down on the traveler in amused triumph holding the flail and whip, a symbol of power and fertility. It was incredible to stand and look at this hidden place of worship, admire it's breath taking simplicity of line and at the same time try and comprehend how such things could be accomplished thousands of years ago, a beautiful temple driven into and becoming part of the sheer pink and gold rock face that rises around it. This temple is the one thing above everything that testifies the strength and determination of a woman in a male dominated world.


Hatshepsut’s mortuary temple is dedicated to the Goddess Hathor (Het-Heru) 'Lady of Heaven' who was the daughter of Nut and Ra, the wife of Horus, and mother to Ihy, Hathor was also considered a mother Goddess and the Mother of the King. In her Human form Hathor unusually has the serene yet beautiful face of a woman yet her ears are those of a cow, one of the relief’s in the temple shows her in the form of a cow as the pharaoh suckles from her. Hathor was also honored as ' Lady of the Western mountain' this refers to the place of the setting sun and the realm of the dead, she was a Sky Goddess, a protector of cemeteries, a Goddess of the dead, a goddess of love, she presided over fate healing music and dance. Some of the columns on the highest level of the temple are made in the form of a sistrum; a musical instrument that is sacred to Hathor and was always used in temple rituals and celebrations. These columns are a representation of the sistrum handle and above this sits the head of Hathor which also has a representation of the metal loop of the sistrum.


Queen Hatshepsut Maatkare ‘Foremost of Noble Ladies, Truth is the soul of re' came to rule during the 18th dynasty, she was the favorite daughter of Tuthmosis 1, and was married to her half brother. When their father died her husband ascended the throne and became Tuthmosis 11 the 4th king of the 18th Dynasty. He married the courageous and energetic Hatshepsut to strengthen his right to the throne. Tuthmosis 11 only reigned for a year with Hatshepsut when he died, and so his son by a minor wife, Tuthmosis 111 was appointed heir.  Due to the young age of this boy king Hatshepsut became regent and reigned on behalf of the boy, who later grew up to become one of Egypt’s greatest military pharaohs, the French were so impressed by Tuthmosis 111 military skills that they gave him the name the 'Egyptian Napoleon' .

Hatshepsut was content  to reign as regent. In the early years.  During the reign of her father Tuthmosis 1 Hatshepsut had been allowed to be involved with the dealings of his government, which had obviously inspired her confidence and a strong will to get her own way in life, and so she initially used  the strength of her fathers favoritism to her benefit,  she  also held the strong position among the Theban priests as the mortal Gods wife of Amun,  this position alone offered her  a superior  power,  as to be the living wife of the God Amun Ra is higher than to be the wife of a king.,  with this power  and support of the priesthood of Amun, she was able to seize control, casting aside the young Tuthmosis whom she sent away to train as a priest and scribe and then later as a soldier. By the time of Hatshepsut’s death he had risen up the ranks of the army to the Rank of Commander in Chief. During his years away from Thebes Hatshepsut declared herself as Pharaoh and began to dress as a man, many statues represent her as a king with a false beard. On the mortuary temple walls her birth relief’s  portray that it was the divine intention of both her  earthly father Tuthmosis 1 and her heavenly father Amun that she would rule Egypt, In the birth Colonnade it declares: ‘Amen –Ra called for the god Khumn the creator and fashioner of the bodies of men.’ Fashion for me the body of my daughter and the body of her Ka, a great queen shall I make of her, and honor and power shall be worthy of her dignity and glory’  ‘Amun-Ra answered Khumn ‘It shall be done as you have said.  So Khumn fashioned the body of Amen-Ra’s daughter and the body of her Ka, the two forms exactly alike, and more beautiful than the daughters of men. He fashioned them with clay from the air of his potters wheel and Heqet goddess of birth with the frogs head, knelt by his side holding the sign of life towards the clay that the bodies of Hatshepsut and her Ka might be filled with life and breath, and so one of the greatest queens of Egypt was announced to the world.

Hatshepsut had a peaceful reign, she concentrated on trade rather than conquest, the walls of her temple shows her famous trading expedition to the Land of Punt, now known as Somalia. To indicate their willingness to submit to an Egyptian sovereign the people of Punt showered the Egyptians with gifts for Hatshepsut. Their gifts included gold and ivory, great heaps of precious balsams and incense for the temples, animals plants and trees for transplantation on the Egyptian soil,  this is recorded on the punt colonnade, where small African houses are shown standing on wooden stilts, beautiful tropical birds are carved flying across the sky and lots of varieties of fish are recorded

Hatshepsut’s name had reached as far as the circuit of heaven and encompassed the great circle (the sea) the best of myrrh was upon her limbs and her fragrance was of divine dew, whilst her odour was mingled with the land of Punt. Her skin was gilded with electrum that shone like the stars at night
Foreign lands were regarded as the personal property of The Goddess Hathor, and the goods that the Egyptians obtained from these countries were considered to be gifts from Hathor, so the return to Thebes with all the treasures from Punt would have been the cause for great celebrations. Now that her reign was strengthened and successful, Hatshepsut made plans with her architect Senemut to build herself a Mortuary Temple fit for a King, and so her unusual three storied columned temple rose up the side of the Theban Mountains of El Dier El Bahari. When looking at a map I realized that the temple with its entrance ramps is in direct line with Karnack Temple the House of Amun on the East Bank, Sheshat the goddess of the Cosmos guided the priests with her skills of the stars and heavens, to achieve such an accurate invisible line from Hatshepsut’s temple to Karnack temple. Originally Myrrh trees lined the entrance ramps and its lower terrace up into the temple; these were trees that had been sent from the expedition to punt and are shown being transported in large baskets on the reliefs in the temple. Polish Archaeologists have restored much of Hatshepsut’s Temple to its former glory.

Having brought prosperity and peace to Egypt Hatshepsut disappeared from all records as to her death or whereabouts leaving us with a mystery. Tuthmosis 111 was now a grown man and he claimed the supreme power that he had been denied for so many years, systematically he ordered Hatshepsut’s cartouches and monuments to be defaced or destroyed to curse her with permanent death, by doing this he was satisfying the ancient belief that whilst a person’s name existed or was still spoken, immortality would be gained so by defacing her cartouches he was denying her eternal life.  It was believed that Hatshepsut’s mummy had been buried with that of her father's Tuthmosis 1 in KV20, but when Howard Carter found their tomb on 1903 both their mummies were missing. Thirty years earlier  Ahmed Rassul was searching the hillside for a lost goat, he could hear it bleating and so he followed the sounds until he found himself stood at the edge of a shaft that the goat had obviously fallen into,  Ahmed climbed down a rope into the shaft, once inside the tomb he realized he had found a great collection of mummies, so he retrieved the goat and went in search of his brothers to tell them of his discovery, together the brothers decided that they needed a plan to  keep people away from the tomb and protect their discovery ensuring their wealth to come. They returned to the tomb and threw a dead donkey inside the shaft, the stench of the donkey as it decayed would erase any further curiosity from others, and possibly convincing any suspicious minds that a demon had woken in the tomb. Over the next ten years the tomb robbers prospered with their treasure trove that gradually made its way to the hands of collectors and auction houses. Eventually The Antiquities service realized that a tomb must have been found, and so Sir Gaston Maspero sent one of the museum staff Emil Brugsch to discover where the artifacts were coming from. Emile presented himself as a wealthy buyer which gained the trust of the traders, and finally led him to the Abd Rasul Brothers. The brothers were arrested and tortured and despite a severe beating on the soles of the feet they would not give their discovery away, eventually after a month they were released, but then the police harassed their family and the villagers at Quarna continuously until eventually one of the brothers confessed to the police where the tomb was to avoid any further harassment of themselves or the rest of the villagers.

Once the Rassul brothers confessed to knowing the whereabouts of the tomb they begrudgingly led Emile Brugsch to the cliffs at the side of Hatshepsut’s mortuary temple at Dier El Bahari and he was guided down a rope into a tomb where to his amazement he found not one mummy case but the remains of over forty mummies. The tomb is known as DB320 it had originally been the family vault of Pinedjem 1 a High Priest of Amun during the 21st dynasty who had declared himself a king. During his rule He had removed some of the kings from their own tombs, possibly to acquire some of their wealth,  after his death further kings moved them again and amidst all the confusion the kings all finally were found in this one vault, Some of the mummy cases held the bodies of the greatest pharaohs of all time, including Seti 1 whose empty sarcophagus had originally been found in his tomb by Giovanni Belzoni, Ramses 11 ‘The Great’, Tuthmosis 1, the father of Hatshepsut, who had also been the first King to be buried in The Valley of The Kings. His burial had been carried out in great secrecy and entrusted to a High Court Official named Ineni, Tuthmosis 11 and his son Tuthmosis 111 princes, princesses, court officials and royal grandchildren. Queen Nefatari’s mummy case was also found in the cache and took sixteen men to lift its weight and move it alone. The Coffin of Ramses 1 was found in this vault but his mummy was missing, it has since been discovered that the robbers had sold Ramses 1 to a Canadian man for seven pounds

After 3,000 years of seclusion the Royal mummies left Dier El Bahari  and were carried by donkeys and mules to the banks of the Nile where they were transported to Cairo. Women came to the riverbank and wailed in mourning for the deceased kings and their kin. Never in the history of any nation has there been such an awesome entourage of deceased royalty, the glory of Ancient Egypt rose again as their pharaohs traveled to safety in Cairo, their final resting place, where modern scientists now continue the work of some of the ancient priests to protect and preserve the mummies of their kings.

Eight anonymous mummies were also found in another cache in 1881.  I had wondered initially if one of the mummies from this cache was a tomb robber. He must have committed some form of sacrilege to the royal mummies to have been subjected to such  a heinous death, his coffin was  found abandoned in the  corridor alone, whilst the remainder of the  mummies were in the burial chamber, there were no  inscriptions on the coffin  to indicate the man's name and the coffin had also been sealed down to prevent escape, he was probably a noble as his ears had been pierced which is a sign of high birth or priesthood, yet his body was wrapped in a sheepskin, this is a ritually unclean burial, perhaps it was Pertwere, the son of Ramses 111  whose mother had instigated the harem plot,  his hands and feet were bound together,  his face was distorted showing him screaming in terror , and his genitals had been sliced off.  The High Priests would be satisfied  that this man would die in lingering torment   whilst his soul  would be cast into the chaos of eternal death instead of the eternal life that  Egyptians craved,  it would be considered a just punishment  for trying to usurp his fathers throne . 
The mummy of King Seqenere Tao 11 who had lived 300 years before Ramses The Great and had ruled Egypt under the Hyksos period of invasion was also found in the cache at Dier El Bahari, he had died of a violent death, blows from a battle axe had left a gaping hole in his skull, it has been suggested that he was betrayed by the un-named mummy whom the priests had condemned to the horrendous death in the un-named coffin. His son Ahmose 1 was also found in the cache, and his mummy now lies in the Warrior section of Luxor museum.

A second cache of mummies were discovered by Victor Loret in 1898, one of the mummies was given the title 'Elder Lady' as their were no means of identifying her, many years passed before her body was finally identified. When Tutankhamen’s tomb was cleared of all its wealth and finery, they came across a small box that held a lock of his grandmother’s hair. Tests were concluded in the 1970's on a piece of the hair and it confirmed that the 'Elder Lady' was the grandmother of Tutankhamun, the mother of Akhenaton, and the Great Wife of Amenophis 111- Queen Tiye, who was the daughter of a chariot officer and therefore a commoner so it was unusual that she was the Great Wife of a King. Amenophis obviously loved and respected his wife because he also had her depicted on statues with him, she embraces his leg on the colossi of Memnon
Once the excitement of finding the cache of the most famous of the New Kingdom Kings had dissipated, people then began to ask, ‘where is the mummy of Hatshepsut?’ In 1903 Howard Carter found an undecorated tomb that had been pillaged in antiquity, inside the tomb laid the mummies of two women, this tomb was not of much interest to Howard carter as it did not contain treasure that it was his ambition to find, so he resealed the tomb and wrote a few notes of its condition and whereabouts. Three years later Edward Ayrton entered the tomb that had been registered as KV60 to collect one of the women who was laid in a coffin so that she could be shipped to Cairo; the inscriptions identified her as Sitre, who was the nurse of Hatshepsut. The tomb was then sealed again leaving the remaining woman alone to the silence of more years in an empty tomb,  its whereabouts were then lost and the lady forgotten about until another eighty years had passed, and then in June 1989 an archaeologist named Donald P Ryan rediscovered the tomb again, rubble and sand were cleared away until he was able to climb down a staircase leading into the depths of the tomb where fragments of pottery wooden coffin pieces and mummy wrappings littered the floor. Arriving at the burial chamber he found the mummy of the abandoned lady lying in the middle of the room.  Although no inscriptions were found that could help identify the lady she was obviously of importance and high ranking as she had been buried in the Valley of the Kings, although the tomb she was found in was undecorated I began to wonder could Tuthmosis 111 have wished to deny Hatshepsut the pleasure and magical words with the prayers of a decorated tomb? That would assist her journey to an eternal life. In a niche Dr.Ryan also discovered a small piece of a face from a coffin, thieves had removed the gold foil covering, but this fragment had a notch at the chin which could have been used to hold a false beard,   Hatshepsut wore a false beard to represent herself as a pharaoh. The evidence found within this tomb suggests that one of these ladies could have been Queen Hatshepsut herself. I have always admired Hatshepsut, and I do believe that you can’t keep a good woman down, she deserves the best, and I wonder if that is also why her Osiris statues smile as they survey the land from the terrace of her mortuary temple, this queen has risen again and will take her rightful place.

In 2007 Dr. Hawas investigated four mummies that had been taken to the Cairo museum, two from KV60 and two from DB320, he also had a wooden box that bore the cartouches of Hatshepsut, which contained the liver of the queen, and also a tooth that had fallen from the mummy during preparations for burial, so the embalmers put the tooth into the box.  With modern technology cat scans and close dental inspection of the mummies, they found that the lady from KV60 was missing a tooth, but the hole left behind and the type of tooth that was missing was an exact match for the loose one in the box from DB320 Which therefore offers the proof that this is the mummy of Queen Hatshepsut. And so finally this Amazing Queen will take her place with other royalty in the Cairo Museum once more.

Finally I feel that I cannot ride away from this momentous cul-de-sac of strength without relating to you the story of loyalty and honor that I have been told of that once lay in the tombs  near to the ruins of Mentuhotep’s Mortuary temple at the side of Hatshepsut’s temple. In 2040 BC Mentuhotep fought and won a battle against the leaders of the North of Egypt. Many of his soldiers died on the battlefield for him, and so to honor them he had sixty of their bodies collected and buried in the tombs facing his mortuary temple. It was their courage and sacrifice that had elevated him to ruler of all Egypt, and united the Two Lands of Upper and Lower Egypt, he became the founder of the Middle Kingdom and his Mortuary Temple was the first to be built at Dier El Bahari until the architect Senemut raised the  larger Temple of Hatshepsut at it's side.