A Historian Reads: The Woman Who Would Be King

While on vacation I devoured Dr. Kara Cooney's most recent publication, The Woman Who Would Be King. Dr. Cooney, a practicing Egyptologist who teaches at UCLA, wrote this book as a biography based on her research in Egypt but also as an attempt to understand Hatshepsut's psychological development. In the preface, Dr. Cooney addresses that some of her conjectures may not be well received by the Egyptologist community but that it is necessary in places where there is no other evidence available. However, she defends her decision by explaining that her characterization of the Pharaoh is based on events, her actions, and Dr. Cooney's understanding of women in the ancient world.

The book begins by describing what life would have been like for the young princess living in the royal palace. Her family is new to the crown. Her father, Thutmose I, came to the throne after a power vacuum brought him into power. As a young child and royal family member, she would have been inducted into the religious practices and become witness to the political maneuvers required to run the kingdom. Her marriage to her half brother brought her the title of Wife of the King and Wife of the God. This marriage resulted in daughters but Thutmose II's concubine was able to produce the desired son. This son, Thutmose III, would play a large role in the life and career of Hatshepsut.

After the death of her husband/half brother, Hatshepsut began to position herself to take the throne. Her first action was to have herself declared co-regent. From here, she used national building projects, diplomacy, and political brilliance to cement herself (literally) as Pharaoh and supreme leader of Egypt. However, the young Thutmose III who she was able to keep under control would not stay young and impressionable forever. As he grew into a young man, he began to fight back and regaining his crown. After Hatshepsut's death, her successor would do everything within his power to remove her name, memory, and legacy from Egyptian record.

Dr. Cooney's writing is hypnotic. I found myself wanting the rest of the world to go away so I could devote myself to reading. Her ability to synthesize prose and history is envious and do not think for a second that Dr. Cooney is sacrificing education for entertainment. After finishing the book (that was a sad moment) I better understood what she meant in her preface. There is a lot of presumptions made but they are not unbelievable. Her characterizations of what Hatshepsut might have felt during ceremonies, childbirth, or in political debates makes logical sense and are part of what makes this book so enjoyable to read. Dr. Cooney humanizes the notorious Pharaoh and gives her flesh and blood emotions and desires. This is a book I will be reading over and over again!

Dr. Zahi Hawass- “Mummies have Magic”

   

On February 3^rd I attended a lecture at the San Diego Natural History Museum in beautiful Balboa Park. The world and TV famous Dr. Zahi Hawass (if you have seen any History Channel special on Egypt, you have seen him) came to San Diego as part of his book tour for his newest publication, “Discovering Tutankhmun: From Howard Carter to DNA.”

    Prior to attending the lecture I took the opportunity to revisit the current exhibit “The Discovery of King Tut.” This unorthodox exhibit allows visitors to explore the tomb of King Tutahkamun as archeologist Howard Carter would have seen it upon its discovery in 1922. However, the exhibit is made completely of recreations. This part seemed to upset a lot of people and I admit I was a bit shocked at the idea of paying to see fakes at first. Despite this initial hesitation, I visited the exhibit was pleasantly surprised.  To enjoy this exhibit you must first understand its purpose. This is NOT the King Tut treasures exhibit. This is the DISCOVERY of King Tut. Visitors are meant to learn about Howard Carter and his process of discovery. It’s a fascinating idea and it works well. Many know of the discovery but not of the effort it took to find, uncover, and then process the artifacts. The treasures were not just lying around in a neat and organized manner.

   The exhibit achieves this by walking guests through and showing recreations of what Howard Carter found and how he found them. The most impressive of this is the actual sized recreation of the four tombs that protected the sarcophagus. The display includes ropes and pulleys to give visitors an idea of the engineering it took to remove them carefully. Once you are done in the first half of the exhibit, you are ushered into the second half which provides you an opportunity to look at the artifacts up close. Here is where a minor but critical issue arose.

   I say this with all the respect in the world to the artists. The majority of the recreations in the exhibit are very well done. They were aged appropriately and there is a definite attention to detail. However this cannot be said of all the artifacts. Some looked lazily put together with gold leaf that was falling at the edges or paint jobs that look amateurish and brand new. There was clearly a team working on all these artifacts but it becomes obvious that some were not up to the task or got lazy by the end. Another issue I encountered was one I often find at museums, small children with their parents who are just not at the appropriate age to enjoy a museum. What made it worse was the audio guides given to each guest; after finding the way into some children's hands, they were being swung around and hit guests and or exhibits. It was something that, not only annoying to me and others, could have done serious damage.

   But finally, the lecture! Dr. Hawass is an entertaining academic with the power to make an audience as enthused as he is. This was not just a lecture of recent discoveries but also his way to call back tourists to Egypt. With the recent Arab Spring and Egyptian revolution, Egypt has suffered from a bad reputation as a dangerous place for tourists. Dr. Hawass fights against this mischaracterization of his country and explained that tourism is one of the best ways to save the Egyptian treasures that the world loves. He announced that plans to construct the largest museum in Egypt in underway to house the King Tut archive, a job that needs foreign tourism to be successful.

  However, the main theme of the lecture was the exciting recent discoveries made in Egypt. As seen in the news and in archeology publications, several tombs and public sites have just been discovered in the past months. There are also project in known sites that are hoping to uncover new information, such as the camera project in the Giza Pyramids. One project that should get everyone excited is Dr. Hawass’s work with Dr. Kathleen Martinez, from the Dominican Republic, that is hoping to find the tomb of Cleopatra and Marc Anthony. This, Dr. Hawass says, will be the discovery of the 21^st century. And it is one I can’t wait to hear about!