The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 01 : $b Prolegomena; Egypt, Mesopotamia
History
The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 01 : $b Prolegomena; Egypt, Mesopotamia
World history
From henceforth Hatshepsitu adopts every possible device to conceal
her sex. She changes the termination of her name, and calls herself
Hatshepsu, the “Chief of the Nobles,” in lieu of Hatshepsitu, the
“Chief of the Favourites.” She becomes the King Maat-ka-Ra, and on the
occasion of all public ceremonies she appears in male costume.
[Illustration: HEAD-DRESS OF AN EGYPTIAN QUEEN]
We see her represented on Theban monuments with uncovered shoulders,
devoid of breasts, wearing the short loin-cloth and the keffieh, while
the diadem rests on her closely cut hair, and the false beard depends
from her chin. She retained, however, the feminine pronoun in speaking
of herself, and also an epithet, inserted in her cartouche, which
declared her to be the betrothed of Amen--_Khnem Amen_. Her father
united her while still young to her brother Tehutimes, who appears
to have been her junior, and this fact doubtless explains the very
subordinate part which he plays beside the queen. When Tehutimes I
died, Egyptian etiquette demanded that a man should be at the head of
affairs, and this youth succeeded his father in office: but Hatshepsu,
while relinquishing the semblance of power and the externals of pomp
to her husband, kept the direction of the state entirely in her own
hands. The portraits of her which have been preserved represent her as
having refined features, with a proud and energetic expression. The
oval of the face is elongated, the cheeks a little hollow, and the
eyes deep set under the arch of the brow, while the lips are thin and
tightly closed. She governed with so firm a hand that neither Egypt
nor its foreign vassals dared to make any serious attempt to withdraw
themselves from her authority. One raid, in which several prisoners
were taken, punished a rising of the Shasu in central Syria, while
the usual expeditions maintained order among the peoples of Ethiopia,
and quenched any attempt which they might make to revolt. When in the
second year of his reign the news was brought to Tehutimes II that the
inhabitants of the Upper Nile had ceased to observe the conditions
which his father had imposed upon them, he “became furious as a
panther,” and assembling his troops, set out for war without further
delay. The presence of the king with the army filled the rebels with
dismay, and a campaign of a few weeks put an end to their attempt at
rebelling. Tehutimes II carried on the works begun by his father, but
did not long survive him. The mask on his coffin represents him with
a smiling and amiable countenance, and with the fine pathetic eyes
which show his descent from the Pharaohs of the XIIth Dynasty. By his
marriage with Hatshepsu, Tehutimes left daughters only, but he had
one son, also a Tehutimes,[3] by a woman of low birth, perhaps merely
a slave, whose name was Aset. Hatshepsu proclaimed this child her
successor, for his youth and humble parentage could not excite her
jealousy. She betrothed him to her one surviving daughter, Hatshepsitu
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