CAIRO: While a top archaeologist lauds the discovery of Hatshepsut’s mummy, an Egyptologist warns that there are two Hatshepsuts in ancient Egyptian history, who may have been confused with each other during DNA tests and CT-scanning.
Egyptologist Basam El Shammaa cautioned that the latest Ancient Egyptian chronicles issued in 2005 mentioned the names of two queens with the name of Hatshepsut, both belonging to the 18th Dynasty.
“The debatable queen Hatshepsut of El Deir El Bahari dropped the letter 'T' [from her name], which marks female names in Ancient Egypt, with the aim of bestowing the traits of a male royal on herself to enhance her legitimacy as the absolute ruler,” El Shammaa explains.
“Dropping the ‘T,’ her name became Hatshepsu,” says El Shammaa.
“The other queen carrying the same name is Meryt Ra Hatshepsut, wife of Tutmosis III, for whom Hatshepsut, the powerful queen, acted as a co-regent for seven years," El Shammaa adds, "Meryt Ra Hatshepsut was the mother of Amenohotep II and her name was mentioned on the edifice of Tutmosis III at Karnak Temple in Luxor."
Abdel Halim Nuredin, former director of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, argues that in the Ancient Egyptian language, the letter 'T' hardly mattered in the female gender, and that if the name Hatshepsut was spelled without a 'T,' it was probably due to lack of space and not the queen’s desire to have a male name.
“Meryt Ra was a young princess who hardly played any role, and this is why she is rarely mentioned. I doubt very much if she could have been confused with the powerful queen," Nuredin said.
He went on to describe the revelation of Hatshepsut’s identity as an exciting and important discovery, stressing that the available evidence made sense. “As a specialist, I cannot argue about the results of this research until new evidence comes up," Nuredin says.
But El Shammaa remarked that the statues of both queens, who belonged to the same family and lived in the same era, did not depict them as obese ladies. But Nuredin comments that “we cannot really go by the shapes of statues to judge the results of a research like this. You cannot identify mummies by the shape of their statutes — it could differ from reality.”
El Shammaa, however, remarked that these statues were sculpted in an age of ancient Egyptian history known for unflattering realism. “Not an inch on the face of that mummy suggests any kind of resemblance to these queens,” he stressed.
“The only obese lady that was mentioned in the chronicles of El Deir El Bahari was the queen of Pont. I am not offering evidence that she was buried in Egypt, but since the newly-identified mummy is fat, we should leave no stone unturned,” he elaborated.
The coffin of Hatshepsut was found without a mummy and the presence of the fat female royal next to the mummy of Hatshepsut’s wet nurse had always fuelled the assumption that it might be that of the glorious queen.
“No tell-tale evidence relating to this mummy suggests that it is the powerful queen’s other than her proximity to Hatshepsut’s nurse, which cannot be used as strong proof to establish her identity,” says El Shammaa.
Moreover, El Shammaa says that “the fact that part of the viscera was preserved in a canopic jar, with the liver and a molar in a different box, should raise doubts about whether both containers belonged to the same person. It was not the embalmers’ habit to keep parts of the viscera in different jars,” El Shammaa argued.
Many began to express opinions that wavered between support and doubt after it was announced that a molar found in a wooden box (not the canopic jar), which also sheltered the liver of the long-sought queen, fitted into a gap in the right jaw of the said mummy.
El Shammaa believes that the way the queen's name is spelled on the royal cartouche can provide a clue as to the soundness of the assumptions that led to the breakthrough discovery.
Efforts to clear the mystery about one of the most controversial female royals in the history of Ancient Egypt continued for more than a century after the mummy of her wet nurse was discovered in a Valley of the Kings tomb, along with an unidentified royal mummy. For years this mummy was thought to be that of Hatshepsut.
Over the years, however, Egyptologists failed to establish the identity of the mummy and the discovery of Hatshepsut, the only female royal that virtually ruled Ancient Egypt, has since been the obsession of Egyptologists.
Nuredin hopes that the latest discovery, coupled with modern technology, will encourage Egyptologists to conduct further research.
For one, even if Hatshepsut dropped the 't' from her name as a royal title for Pharaoh, that doesn't mean she could not keep it attached to her tomb inscriptions after she dies. Remember that names are very important in ancient Egyptian (and in many African) beliefs, especially concerning the afterlife. A person's true and full name being inscribed in their tomb when they die is crucial.
Also, the forensics examiners of the mummy alleged to be Hatshepsut say she became obese in the later part of her life when she was middle-aged and died that way. Certainly this doesn't mean she wasn't thin in her earlier years when she was younger. Most if not all of the statues we have show Hatshepsut as a young woman and thin, and since the artistic style during that time was realism, there should be little to doubt the depictions.
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