Predecessors of Cleopatra

by Leigh North

She styles herself “King Horus abounding in divine gifts, mistress of diadems, rich in years (not a claim the modern lady is ever anxious to establish) the golden Horus, goddess of diadems, queen of Upper and Lower Egypt, daughter of the sun, consort of Ammon, daughter of Ammon, living forever and dwelling in his breast.” Another inscription reads, speaking of her by her name Cheremtamun, “He has created (her) in order to exalt his splendor. She who creates beings like the god Chefr’a. She whose diadems shine like those of the god of the horizon.”

She used both the male and female sign and the title, “daughter of the sun.” As the sphinx bore sometimes a male, sometimes a female head, so this strange and wonderful woman assumed now the one, now the other character. A curious life this old Egyptian history brings before us, so permeated as it was with the constant thought of death and its belief, real or assumed, in the actual intercourse with a race of superior beings, gods, and yet set forth in the lowest images of the brute creation. To the poor and uneducated doubtless as in all idolatrous countries, the semblance seemed the reality and their thought did not pierce beyond the image before them, but the more intellectual and spiritual minds must have rent the veil of sense and stretched out longingly to the infinite beyond, if peradventure they might “feel after and find” the truly godlike.

Hatshepsut did not at once set to work, like the early kings, to build a pyramid in which she might herself be interred. Mundane subjects at first occupied her, and later she built a memorial to her father in the form of an obelisk which described his powers and virtues, and temples for the worship and to the glory of the gods.

Probably the regulation of the country and the administration of internal affairs occupied the earliest years of Hatshepsut’s rule, after the death of Tahutmes I, but in them she was also preparing for the expedition which was one of the great features of her reign and took place in its ninth year. Punt, a country on the eastern bank of the Red Sea, had been, to some extent, known to the Egyptians in the earliest times, those of Chafre’ of the Fourth Dynasty. “Under the name of Punt,” says one writer, “the old inhabitants of Kemi meant a distant land washed by the great ocean, full of valleys and hills, abounding in ebony and other rich woods, balsams, spices, precious metals and stones and of animals, hunting-leopards, panthers, dog-headed apes, etc.” It was the Ophir of the Egyptians, the present coast of Somali, perhaps the land in sight of Arabia, but separated by the Red Sea.

Old traditions said that it was the original seat of the gods, and from it had travelled the holy ones to the Nile valley, at their head Amen, called Kak, as king of Punt, Horus and Hathor. This last was the queen and ruler of Punt, Hor, the holy morning star, which rose to the west of the land. The god Bes also was peculiarly associated with the country. Under the last king of the Eleventh Dynasty is said to have taken place the first journey to Ophir and Punt, and the envoys sent were attended by three thousand men and brought back spices and precious stones. After that it seemed to relapse in the popular imagination into a sort of fairyland which was inhabited by strange serpents.

Like a new Columbus the great queen decided to attempt the rediscovery and exploration of these distant shores. Amen of Thebes, the lord of gods, it is said, had suggested the thought to her, “because he held this ruler so dear, dearer than any other king who had been in this country.” Pictures and accounts of this expedition were afterwards placed in illustration on the walls of the temple of Deir-el-Bahari, built by the queen, and the inscription concludes with the statement that nothing like it had been done under any king before. “And,” says an authority on these subjects, “it speaks the truth. Hatasu showed her people the way to the land whose products were later to fill the treasuries not only of the Pharaohs, but also of the Phoenicians and the Jews.”

It was a peaceful expedition, perhaps the only one that had ever been sent forth, this voyage of discovery, nearly sixteen hundred years before the Christian Era; but of course great preparations and even some military ones had to be made that in case of unexpected attack they might be prepared. Ships were built for the expedition, and doubtless years passed between the time of the first conception of the enterprise and its execution.

An inscription by the picture of the squadron thus describes it. “Departure of the squadron of the Lord of the two Worlds, traversing the great sea on the Good Way to the Land of the gods, in obedience to the will of the King of the gods, Amen of Thebes. He commanded that there should be brought to him the marvellous products of the Land of Punt, for he loveth the Queen Hatasu above all other kings that have ruled this land.”

A canal connecting the Nile with the Red Sea which has been attributed to Seti I Miss Edwards claims as an engineering feat of Hatasu, as it would shorten the length of the voyage rather than to take the almost inconceivably long trip around the west coast of Africa, the Cape of Good Hope, the Mosambique Channel and the coast of Zanzibar.

The ships, five in number, were large and stately for the time. They are described as having a narrow keel with stern and prow high above the water, seventy feet in length and with no cabin accommodations. A raised platform at either end, with a balustrade, probably afforded some shelter to the officers. A single mast supported the spreading sail, there were no decks and the hull was fitted with seats for the rowers. After the Old Empire all large boats were adapted for sailing, as well as rowing. Other vessels of this or a little later time were one-decked galleys with thirty oars, with seats and shrines and the stern ornamented with figures of animals. The cabin of those of royal or high rank was a stately house, with roof and pillars, sides brightly colored, in the fore, large paintings and the stern a gigantic lotus. The blade of the oar was like a bouquet of flowers with the head of the king at top, the sails the richest cloth of gay colors. A royal vessel of this description belonged to King Thothmes III, Hatasu’s successor and was called “Star of the two countries.”