The Essential Works of George Rawlinson: Egypt, The Kings of Israel and Judah, Phoenicia, Parthia, Chaldea, Assyria, Media, Babylon, Persia, Sasanian Empire & Herodotus' Histories. George Rawlinson
held in high estimation, were their husbands' companions, not their playthings or their slaves, appeared freely in public, and enjoyed much liberty of action. One of the ancient mythical monarchs, of the time before Sneferu, is said to have passed a law permitting them to exercise the sovereign authority. Nitocris of the sixth dynasty of Manetho ruled, apparently, as sole queen; and Sabak-nefru-ra of the twelfth, the wife of Amenemhat IV., reigned for some years conjointly with her husband. Hatasu's position was intermediate between these. Her father had left behind him two sons, as well as a daughter; and the elder of these, according to Egyptian law, succeeded him. He reigned as Thothmes-nefer-shau, and is known to moderns as Thothmes the Second. He was, however, a mere youth, of a weak and amiable temper; while Hatasu, his senior by some years, was a woman of great energy and of a masculine mind, clever, enterprizing, vindictive, and unscrupulous. The contrast of their portrait busts is remarkable, and gives a fair indication of the character of each of them. Thothmes has the appearance of a soft and yielding boy: he has a languishing eye, a short upper lip, a sensuous mouth and chin. Hatasu looks the Amazon: she holds her head erect, has a bold aquiline nose, a firmly-set mouth, and a chin that projects considerably, giving her an indescribable air of vigour and resolution. The effect is increased, no doubt, by her having attached to it the male appendage of an artificial beard; but even apart from this, her face would be a strong one, expressive of firmness, pride, and decision. It is thought that she contracted a marriage with her brother, such unions being admissible by the Egyptian marriage law, and not infrequent among the Pharaohs, whether of the earlier or the later dynasties. In any case, it is certain that she took the direction of affairs under his reign, reducing him to a cipher, and making her influence paramount in every department of the government.
At this period of her life the ambition of Queen Hatasu was to hand her name down to posterity as a constructor of buildings. She made many additions to the old temple of Ammon at Karnak; and she also built at Medinet Abou, in the vicinity of Thebes, a temple of a more elaborate character than any that had preceded it, the remains of which are still standing, and have attracted much attention from architects. Egyptian temple-architecture is here seen tentatively making almost its first advances from the simple cell of Usurtasen I. towards that richness of complication and multiplicity of parts which it ultimately reached. Pylons, courts, corridors supported by columns, pillared apartments, meet us here in their earliest germ; while there are also indications of constructive weakness, which show that the builders were aspiring to go beyond previous models. The temple is cruciform in shape, but the two arms of the cross are unequal. In front, two pylons of moderate dimensions, not exceeding twenty-four feet in height, and built with the usual sloping sides and strongly projecting cornice, guarded a doorway which gave entrance into a court, sixty feet long by thirty broad. At the further end of the court stood a porch, thirty feet long and nine deep, supported by four square stone piers, emplaced at equal distances. The porch led into the cell, a long, narrow chamber of extreme plainness, about twenty-five feet long by nine wide, with a doorway at either end. At either side of the cell were corridors, supported, like the porch, by square piers, and roofed in by blocks of stone from nine to ten feet long. These blocks have in some instances shown signs of giving way; and, to counteract the tendency, octagonal pillars have been introduced at the weak points, without regard to exact regularity or correspondence. Behind the cell are chambers for the officiating priests, which are six in number, and on either side of the porch are also chambers, forming the arms of the cross, but of unequal dimensions. That on the left is nearly square, about fifteen feet by twelve; that on the right is oblong, twenty-seven feet by fifteen, and has needed the support of two pillars internally, which seem, however, to have been part of the original design. This chamber is open towards the north-east, terminating in a porch of three square piers.
The joint reign of Hatasu and Thothmes II. did not continue for more than a few years. It is suspected that she engaged in a conspiracy against him in order to rid herself of the small restraint which his participation in the sovereignty exercised upon her, and was privy to his murder. But there is no sufficient evidence to substantiate these charges, which have been somewhat recklessly made. All that distinctly appears is, that Thothmes II. died while he was still extremely young, and when he had reigned only a short time, and that after his death Hatasu showed her hostility to his memory by erasing his name wherever it occurred on the monuments, and substituting for it either her own name or that of her father. She appears also at the same time to have taken full possession of the throne, and to have been accepted as actual sovereign of the Egyptian people. She calls herself "The living Horus, abounding in divine gifts, the mistress of diadems, rich in years, the golden Horus, goddess of diadems, Queen of Upper and Lower Egypt, daughter of the Sun, consort of Ammon, living for ever, and daughter of Ammon, dwelling in his heart." Nor was she content with attributes which made acknowledgment of her sex. She wished to be regarded as a man, assumed male apparel and an artificial beard, and gave herself on many of her monuments the style and title of a king. Her name of Hatasu she changed into Hatasu-Khnum-Ammon, thus identifying herself with two of the chief Egyptian gods. She often represented herself as crowned with the tall plumes of Ammon. She took the titles of "son of the sun," "the good god," "lord of the two lands," "beloved of Ammon, the protector of kings." A curious anomaly appears in some of her inscriptions, where masculine and feminine forms are inextricably mixed up; though spoken of consistently as "the king," and not "the queen," yet the personal and possessive pronouns which refer to her are feminine for the most part, while sometimes such perplexing expressions occur as "le roi qui est bien aimée par Ammon," or "His Majesty herself."
The legal position which Hatasu occupied during the sixteen years that followed the death of Thothmes II. was probably that of regent for Thothmes III., his (and her) younger brother; but practically she was full sovereign of Egypt. It was now that she formed her grand schemes of foreign commerce, and had them carried out by her officers. First of all, she caused to be built, in some harbour on the western coast of the Red Sea, a fleet of ships, certainly not fewer than five, each constructed so as to be propelled both by oars and sails, and each capable of accommodating some sixty or seventy passengers. Of these thirty were the rowers, whose long sweeps were to plough the waves, and bring the vessels into port, whether the wind were favourable or no; some ten or twelve formed the crew; and the remainder consisted of men-at-arms, whose services, it was felt, might be required, if the native tribes were not sufficiently impressed with the advantages of commercial dealings. An expedition then started from Thebes under the conduct of a royal ambassador, who was well furnished with gifts for distribution among the barbarian chiefs, and instructed to proceed with his fleet down the Red Sea to its mouth, or perhaps even further, and open communications with the land of "Punt," which was in this quarter. "Punt" has been generally identified with Southern Arabia, and it is certainly in favour of this view that the chief object of the expedition was to procure incense and spices, which Arabia is known to have produced anciently in profusion. But among the other products of the land mentioned in the inscriptions of Hatasu, there are several which Arabia could not possibly have furnished; and the conjecture has therefore been made that Punt, or at any rate the Punt of this expedition, was not the Arabian peninsula, or any part of it, but the African tract outside the Gulf, known to moderns as "the Somauli country." However this may have been, it is certain that the fleet weighed anchor, and sailed down the Red Sea, borne by favourable winds, which were ascribed to the gracious majesty of Ammon, and reached their destination, the Ta-neter, or "Holy Land"—the "abode of Athor," and perhaps the original home of Ammon himself—without accident or serious difficulty. The natives gave them a good reception. They were simple folk, living in rounded huts or cabins, which were perched on floors supported by piles, probably on