Speaker 1: Happy Saturday. One of the finds on our recent installment
Speaker 1: of on Earth was a pair of tombs that likely
Speaker 1: belonged to Tutmos of the second Half, brother and husband
Speaker 1: to Hodg Shepsit. Our episode on Hudge Shepsit and the
Speaker 1: voyage to Punt that took place during her reign is
Speaker 1: the subject of Today's Saturday Classic. This originally came out
Speaker 1: in July third, twenty nineteen in Joy Welcome to Stuff
Speaker 1: You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio. Hello
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson and
Speaker 1: I'm Holly Frye. And it has been too long since
Speaker 1: we've had any African history on the show. We know this.
Speaker 1: It's one of those things where you look at the
Speaker 1: recent archive and go, wow, that has been a while.
Speaker 1: I really wanted to do an episode on the land
Speaker 1: of Poot, which is a spelled pu in t so
Speaker 1: sometimes you'll also hear people pronounce it punt, and sometimes
Speaker 1: it's described as a kingdom, sometimes more of a massive
Speaker 1: trading center. But there are some really really big holes
Speaker 1: in our knowledge of Punch that make it hard to
Speaker 1: do a whole episode on it. For example, we don't
Speaker 1: know exactly where it was. There are references to Punt
Speaker 1: in Egyptian writing that span about two thousand years, and
Speaker 1: there's also mentions from elsewhere in the world, but it's
Speaker 1: not totally clear whether all of these references are referring
Speaker 1: to the same place. But one of our biggest sources
Speaker 1: of information on Punt comes from hat Shepsuit, who sent
Speaker 1: a huge expedition there in the fifteenth century BCE. This
Speaker 1: expedition to Punt is also an important and illustrative part
Speaker 1: of hat Shep's It's Rain. So today we're going to
Speaker 1: go to Punt by way of hat Shepsuit and the
Speaker 1: civilization that we call Ancient Egypt to expanded and contracted
Speaker 1: in cycles for thousands of years, with periods of prospering
Speaker 1: and flourishing divided by periods of decline instability. This is
Speaker 1: part of why I have not jumped on any African
Speaker 1: history recently, because I start delving in and then I
Speaker 1: go whoa, oa, oh, this water's too deep, and I
Speaker 1: back up. Each Gyptologists have roughly divided these prosperous eras
Speaker 1: into the Old, Middle and New kingdoms, separated by intermediary periods.
Speaker 1: These people knew their civilization by a number of names,
Speaker 1: including the Two Lands, the Beloved Land, and Kemmitt, which
Speaker 1: is usually translated as black land, often interpreted as a
Speaker 1: reference to the fertile soil that sits along the Nile River.
Speaker 1: Hat Shepsit was pharaoh near the start of the New Kingdom,
Speaker 1: which started with the founding of the eighteenth ruling dynasty.
Speaker 1: The Eighteenth dynasty also included some of Egypt's most well
Speaker 1: known pharaohs, including i'm Ahotep, the Third, Akint, and Tutan
Speaker 1: common these kings did not call themselves pharaohs, though that's
Speaker 1: a Greek term that was coined a little later and
Speaker 1: then kind of retroactively applied to all of the kings
Speaker 1: of this ancient kingdom. The Eighteenth dynasty was founded by
Speaker 1: Amosa in about fifteen thirty nine BCE, and after his
Speaker 1: death in about fifteen fourteen BCE, Amosa was succeeded by
Speaker 1: his son a Menhotep the First, But when a Menhotep
Speaker 1: the First died in about fourteen ninety three BCE, he
Speaker 1: did not have a male heir, so in that case,
Speaker 1: one of his generals, Tutmosa, was next on the throne.
Speaker 1: Tutmosa married a woman named Amosa, and it's not entirely
Speaker 1: clear who her parents were. One of her titles was
Speaker 1: king's sister, but it's not totally known whether that came
Speaker 1: from being the sister of one of the previous kings
Speaker 1: or Tutmosa's own sister. In the society, kings had a
Speaker 1: primary wife known as the great royal wife, along with
Speaker 1: other lesser wives and concubines, and for much of ancient
Speaker 1: Egyptian history, it was typical for the king to take
Speaker 1: his sister or half sister as his great royal wife,
Speaker 1: and to marry his other sisters as well. The king
Speaker 1: was the embodiment of the god Horus, and a marriage
Speaker 1: to a sister or half sister hearkened back to the
Speaker 1: Egyptian creation story. In this story, the first god a tomb,
Speaker 1: had no partner, so he created the first pair of
Speaker 1: deities by himself. This brother sister pair then produced another
Speaker 1: brother sister pair, and so on. In the eighteenth dynasty,
Speaker 1: in particular, it was required for royal sisters to marry
Speaker 1: their brother kings, and then for daughters of that pair
Speaker 1: to marry the next king. And in addition to the
Speaker 1: religious aspect that connected back to this creation story. This
Speaker 1: also really concentrated the power and the wealth within the
Speaker 1: royal family, So whether Tutmosa was marrying his own sister
Speaker 1: or the sister of one of the previous kings, his
Speaker 1: doing this strengthened his claim to the throne, and it
Speaker 1: preserved the idea of balance. When TUTMOSI died, he and
Speaker 1: Amosa had one daughter, hot Shepsit had Shepsid had been
Speaker 1: trained as a high priestess in the Temple of Ammon,
Speaker 1: who was head of the Egyptian pantheon as well as
Speaker 1: patron deity of the kings in the city of Thebes.
Speaker 1: During the New Kingdom. Tutmosa and Amosa did not have
Speaker 1: a son, but Tutmosa did have a son with one
Speaker 1: of his lesser wives, and that son was Tutmosa the Second.
Speaker 1: Tutmosa the Second followed his father on the throne and
Speaker 1: about fourteen eighty two BCE, and he married his half sister,
Speaker 1: hat Shepsit, who was about thirteen at the time. Because
Speaker 1: the new king was very young, inexperienced, and chronically ill,
Speaker 1: the king's great royal wife acted as his regent. But
Speaker 1: Tutmosa the Second did not live long after becoming king.
Speaker 1: He died in about fourteen seventy nine BCE, after he
Speaker 1: had been on the throne for about three years. By
Speaker 1: that point, he and huts Shepsit had one daughter, Nepherura,
Speaker 1: and they did not have any sons. However, like his father,
Speaker 1: Tutmosa the Second did have sons by other wives, including
Speaker 1: one by a woman named Isis. This was Tutmosa the Third,
Speaker 1: who was about two years old at the time of
Speaker 1: his father's death. A marriage was planned between Tutmosa the
Speaker 1: Third and his half sister Neperura, and this would similarly
Speaker 1: strengthen his tie to the throne, although at the time
Speaker 1: both of them were way too young to immediately get married,
Speaker 1: so in the meantime, hot Shepsit, Tutmosi's the third stepmother
Speaker 1: and aunt, was going to act as his regent because
Speaker 1: his mother Isis wasn't of royal blood. Up until this point,
Speaker 1: the line of succession in the eighteenth dynasty had progressed
Speaker 1: in a way that was really pretty typical apart from
Speaker 1: Tutmosa the First being a general who was not of
Speaker 1: royal birth, and it was also pretty common for a
Speaker 1: woman to act as regent if her husband died before
Speaker 1: his heir was old enough to rule on his own.
Speaker 1: It was more common for a woman to wind up
Speaker 1: in such a position of power at the end of
Speaker 1: the dynasty, though, when the late king had no male heir.
Speaker 1: For the first few years after her husband's death, hot
Speaker 1: Shepsit's conduct's regent was pretty typical for the time as well.
Speaker 1: She built a memorial chapel to her late husband. She
Speaker 1: was publicly dedicated to preserving his memory and looking after
Speaker 1: the welfare of his sons. She took action on young
Speaker 1: Tutmosa's behalf and guided him as he grew into the
Speaker 1: divine king on his own. She ordered the renewal and
Speaker 1: restorations of temples to honor the young king, and she
Speaker 1: sent an expedition to Aswan to quarry a pair of
Speaker 1: obelisks that would be dedicated to him. Writings about her
Speaker 1: from this time referred to her as queen or with
Speaker 1: her formal religious title as the kingdom's highest priestess, which
Speaker 1: was God's Wife of Ahmen, and her depictions and carvings
Speaker 1: were pretty typical for a woman in these positions, but
Speaker 1: by the seventh year of her regency that had started
Speaker 1: to change. She reported that the oracle of Ahman had
Speaker 1: delivered a message from the God that she should be king,
Speaker 1: becoming co ruler with her step son. In her account,
Speaker 1: this happened at the temple of Karnak during a festival
Speaker 1: when a statue of Ahman was supposed to perform an
Speaker 1: oracle or miracle. At first, no message came, but when
Speaker 1: it finally did, the statue moved around dramatically and delivered
Speaker 1: a message to her that she was to be both
Speaker 1: her majesty and the God's wife. She started to be
Speaker 1: depicted in artwork with both masculine and feminine traits, and
Speaker 1: after a while she was shown as a man with
Speaker 1: the skirt and the decorative beard and the crown that
Speaker 1: signified her being king. She wasn't disguising her gender, though
Speaker 1: the language that was used to describe her was still
Speaker 1: feminine most of the time, even as the artwork was
Speaker 1: depicting her as progressively more masculine. This was really something
Speaker 1: that happened over time, with some more masculine elements appearing
Speaker 1: long before the seventh year of her regency, and then
Speaker 1: with her depictions continuing to become more and more masculine
Speaker 1: as time passed, and at some point she was formally
Speaker 1: crowned in a series of rituals that took days to complete,
Speaker 1: As was typical for Pharaoh, She took a new throne
Speaker 1: name Mahatkare, which translates roughly to truth is the soul
Speaker 1: of Ray. The idea of Maat or truth in this
Speaker 1: context also connected to justice and order, and was a
Speaker 1: trait that was established by the gods. The role of
Speaker 1: the Pharaoh was to mediate between the gods of humanity,
Speaker 1: preserving the god's mad There was also a goddess named
Speaker 1: Mahat who was the personification of these traits. She also
Speaker 1: banned construction of her mortuary temple, known as Jasara Jaseru
Speaker 1: or Holy of Holies. This was built at the dear
Speaker 1: Elbahari temple complex near what's now Luxor. This temple was
Speaker 1: meant to guide her into the afterlife, where as Pharaoh,
Speaker 1: she would transcend into a divine being, and it was
Speaker 1: to make sure that she was well provided for there.
Speaker 1: The tomb to actually hold her mummy was built in
Speaker 1: another location. Hatshepsu's mortuary temple was a massive three tier
Speaker 1: temple made from sandstone, full of statuary, including statues of
Speaker 1: hat Shepsit as the god of Cyrus. The structure itself
Speaker 1: still stands today. Relief carvings on the temple walls documented
Speaker 1: hat Shepsuit's biography and her rule as king. This included
Speaker 1: a new story documenting her birth that the god Ahman
Speaker 1: had disguised himself as Tutman the First and impregnated hot
Speaker 1: Shepster's mother. Both her throne name and her new origin
Speaker 1: story reinforced the idea that she had a legitimate claim
Speaker 1: to be king and that she was connected directly to
Speaker 1: the god Amen, who had authorized her to do it.
Speaker 1: Although she was technically co ruler with Tetmosa the Third,
Speaker 1: for the rest of his life she acted as the
Speaker 1: soul monarch. She also changed his throne name from one
Speaker 1: that meant the manifestation of Ray is enduring to one
Speaker 1: that meant the manifestation of the soul of Ray is enduring,
Speaker 1: kind of adding a degree of separation between him and
Speaker 1: being a direct manifestation of the God. And it's not
Speaker 1: entirely clear what motivated her to do this. When archaeologists
Speaker 1: first unearthed her tomb in the nineteenth century, they concluded
Speaker 1: that she was power hungry and conniving and had stolen
Speaker 1: the throne from her step son for her own selfish reasons,
Speaker 1: and we're going to talk about why they came to
Speaker 1: that conclusion in just a bit. Her recent scholars have
Speaker 1: pretty much dismissed that idea, though while simple ambition might
Speaker 1: have been involved, it's also possible that there was some
Speaker 1: kind of threat to Tutmos of the third and that
Speaker 1: hat Shepster was protecting him by becoming the king herself.
Speaker 1: It might have been just that he had been king
Speaker 1: under a regency for about seven years and he still
Speaker 1: wasn't old enough to father an heir. It would probably
Speaker 1: be another seven or so years before he could actually
Speaker 1: rule the kingdom on his own. That was a lot
Speaker 1: of time to get through in a world where early
Speaker 1: deaths were really common. And it's also possible that her
Speaker 1: doing this wasn't actually her idea, that it was something
Speaker 1: that advisers or the priesthood thought was necessary for some reason. Regardless,
Speaker 1: she could not have done this without significant support among
Speaker 1: the ruling class. She had carefully cultivated relationships and alliances
Speaker 1: for years as regent before taking on the role of king.
Speaker 1: What she did was unprecedented, but the elite in thebes
Speaker 1: allowed her to do it, and the fact that they
Speaker 1: did suggest that she was admired and respected as elite
Speaker 1: or before she took the throne. It's clear that regardless
Speaker 1: of what the motivations were, she was incredibly savvy to
Speaker 1: do this, and she also proved herself to be a
Speaker 1: capable ruler, which we will talk about after a sponsor break.
Speaker 1: We nalked before the break about how before hatcheps It
Speaker 1: became king, the line of succession had unfolded in the
Speaker 1: eighteenth dynasty in a pretty typical way, but hatcheps It's
Speaker 1: ascension to the throne wasn't typical at all. There were
Speaker 1: other women who had held positions of power in Egyptian history,
Speaker 1: but for one to take the throne in this way
Speaker 1: was really unprecedented. So, in addition to her throne name
Speaker 1: and the revised story of her birth, she got to
Speaker 1: work immediately taking steps to try to reinforce the idea
Speaker 1: that she was a legitimate ruler. She commissioned hundreds of
Speaker 1: statues and other artwork depicting her as king, along with
Speaker 1: statues and structures honoring the God Amen. She expanded the
Speaker 1: priesthood and constructed temples all over Thebes and beyond including
Speaker 1: a bark chapel that French archaeologist named the Chapel Rouge
Speaker 1: after unearthing the blocks used to build it in the
Speaker 1: nineteen twenties. The chapel's original location is unknown. It was
Speaker 1: dismantled after Hutchepsi's death, and its blocks were used for
Speaker 1: a pylon in Karnak. She employed craftspeople associated with some
Speaker 1: of the kingdom's most prominent families to do all of this,
Speaker 1: building up her base of support. Hat Shepsit launched two
Speaker 1: military expeditions into Nubia, one of which she reportedly led herself.
Speaker 1: She also sent expeditions to mine gold in Nubia and
Speaker 1: in the eastern Desert. She strengthened trading relationships with other
Speaker 1: parts of Africa and with the Levant, possibly as far
Speaker 1: west as what's now Afghanistan. Shortly after taking the throne,
Speaker 1: she also dispatched a massive trading expedition to punt which
Speaker 1: we'll be talking about in more detail in a bit.
Speaker 1: And throughout all of this she favors to prominent men
Speaker 1: whose support she needed to stay in power, but she
Speaker 1: also made appointments to political newcomers which gave her support
Speaker 1: that did not come with as many strings attached. In
Speaker 1: the fifteenth year of her rule, had Shepsit sent another
Speaker 1: expedition to Aswan to quarry a second set of obelisks,
Speaker 1: with this pair being inscribed to her. A year later,
Speaker 1: she held a jubilee festival known as Said, something that
Speaker 1: was typically done in the thirtieth year of a king's
Speaker 1: rule to rejuvenate his power. It's possible that she chose
Speaker 1: this earlier date because it was about thirty years since
Speaker 1: her father had died, at which point she had become
Speaker 1: her husband's queen, so in a way that marked the
Speaker 1: beginning of her time on the throne. At some point
Speaker 1: she had her father's mummy moved to a tomb near
Speaker 1: her mortuary temple, again reinforcing her connection to the dynastic line.
Speaker 1: She also increasingly focused on her right to rule as
Speaker 1: coming from being her father's daughter, rather than her having
Speaker 1: been married to Tutmosa the Second. During her time on
Speaker 1: the throne, had shep's It's most powerful advisor was a
Speaker 1: man named Sennenmut. We don't know all that much about
Speaker 1: him as a person. He started out as the overseer
Speaker 1: of the large hall at the palace in Thebes, starting
Speaker 1: at the very beginning of tutmost of the second's reign.
Speaker 1: He soon took on an increasing number of political appointments
Speaker 1: and became tutor to hat sheps It's daughter. By the
Speaker 1: time hat sheps It took the throne, he had become
Speaker 1: incredibly powerful and a very important figure. He ultimately amassed
Speaker 1: ninety three different official titles and became chief architect of
Speaker 1: hat sheps It's mortuary temple. He oversaw treasuries and craftspeople
Speaker 1: all over the kingdom. There's been some speculation that the
Speaker 1: two of them were linked romantically. Some of it stems
Speaker 1: from the fact that he was very close to hat
Speaker 1: Sheps's daughter, leading people to wonder whether he was actually
Speaker 1: her father. He also built his burial temple near hat
Speaker 1: sheps It's mortuary temple. Also, Sennenmutt was a powerful man
Speaker 1: in the court of a woman, which is frequently caused
Speaker 1: for suspicion. Although it's likely that Hatchepsid had other relationships
Speaker 1: after her husband's death, she would have had to have
Speaker 1: been really careful about one involving Senenmut. Senninmut disappears from
Speaker 1: the historical record in the nineteenth year of hat Shepsid's rule,
Speaker 1: although he might have survived after her death. She died
Speaker 1: in her early forties after having ruled as king for
Speaker 1: about fifteen years and as tutmost of the Third's regent
Speaker 1: for about seven years before that. This makes her the
Speaker 1: longest reigning female monarch in ancient Egyptian history, and possibly
Speaker 1: the first to rule as a king rather than a
Speaker 1: regent or other interim ruler. As we noted earlier, there
Speaker 1: were other women who served as regents or who grew
Speaker 1: into having a lot of power as queens, and there's
Speaker 1: some debate about whether any of these earlier women became
Speaker 1: kings in their own right. After Hatshepsud's death, tutmost of
Speaker 1: the Third became the sole ruler. It's clear from his
Speaker 1: time as king that hat Shepsid had prepared him to
Speaker 1: be a skilled leader from both a military and a
Speaker 1: political perspective. He had begun marrying and fathering children by
Speaker 1: his late teens, and by the time he was twenty
Speaker 1: he was commander of the military. After hat Shepsud's death,
Speaker 1: he conquered much of what is now Syria, as well
Speaker 1: as parts of Sudan and Iraq. The first of these
Speaker 1: expeditions took place almost immediately after he became the sole monarch.
Speaker 1: It seems as though hat Shepsit had started making preparations
Speaker 1: for it before her death. Like hat Shepsit had done,
Speaker 1: Tutmos of the Third also undertook huge building projects, constructing
Speaker 1: temples and having obelisks quarried in Oswan. He also completed
Speaker 1: monuments to her that were already under way when she died.
Speaker 1: But then about twenty years into his reign, Tutmost of
Speaker 1: the Third started construction of a new temple, which was
Speaker 1: next to hat Shepsit's mortuary temple, and at about this
Speaker 1: time people started removing all references to hat Shepsit as
Speaker 1: king from temples and other buildings all over the kingdom.
Speaker 1: Statues depicting her as king were smashed, relief carvings were defaced.
Speaker 1: Her name was chiseled out of the reliefs at Jasair
Speaker 1: Jeseru and replaced with the names of Tutmosa the First,
Speaker 1: the Second, and the third. Her mortuary temple was reconsecrated,
Speaker 1: and her obelisks at Karnak were walled in. Her name
Speaker 1: was also removed from the official lists of kings. It
Speaker 1: is generally concluded that Tutmosa the third ordered this purge,
Speaker 1: but it's not clear how much he was encouraged to
Speaker 1: do so by the priesthood or his advisers. She wasn't
Speaker 1: entirely obliterated from the record, though. This destruction went on
Speaker 1: for the rest of Tutmosa the Third's life, which was
Speaker 1: for about another decade. But there were so many statues
Speaker 1: and other depictions of hat Shepsuit that some of them
Speaker 1: were still intact by the time he died. With so
Speaker 1: much of her record destroyed, hat Shepsuit soon fell into
Speaker 1: complete obscurity. The people who remembered and supported her eventually died,
Speaker 1: and without her name in the lists of kings, she
Speaker 1: seems to have been forgotten within a few generations. When
Speaker 1: her mortuary temple was unearthed in the nineteenth century, no
Speaker 1: one knew how to read hieroglyphics yet, so all of
Speaker 1: the smash statues and other defacements were interpreted as simple
Speaker 1: vandalism or the work of grave robbers. Then, in the
Speaker 1: eighteen twenties, John Francois Champollion built on earlier work by
Speaker 1: Thomas Young to decipher the hieroglyphic text on the Rosetta stone,
Speaker 1: and then that paved the way for modern people to
Speaker 1: be able to read hieroglyphics. Champollion personally visited hutcheps It's
Speaker 1: temple and was deeply confused by what he found there.
Speaker 1: In addition to all these replaced names, there were pictures
Speaker 1: of two kings standing side by side that was incredibly unusual.
Speaker 1: There was also writing that just didn't make sense, that
Speaker 1: had feminine word forms when they expected masculine ones. Eventually,
Speaker 1: archaeologists pieced together what had happened. That hud Shepsit had
Speaker 1: been Tutmosa the Third's region, but had taken the throne herself,
Speaker 1: but they erroneously concluded that Tutmosa had immediately removed hutch
Speaker 1: Shepsit's name from the record as soon as she died,
Speaker 1: that Tutmosa was angry at having had his kingship stolen
Speaker 1: from him for more than a decade, and that his
Speaker 1: removal of his stepmother's name was evidence of both his
Speaker 1: outrage and her character. Based on this assumption, they concluded
Speaker 1: that hat Shepsuit was a stereotypical evil stepmother right out
Speaker 1: of a Disney movie, wicked and conniving and only interested
Speaker 1: in her own power, But Today, we know that about
Speaker 1: twenty years passed between hat Shepsit's death and the defacement
Speaker 1: of her tomb and all the other destruction, and the
Speaker 1: interpretation of what led to that defacement as much different.
Speaker 1: That's largely thanks to the work of egyptologist Charles Nims
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty six, who was the first person to
Speaker 1: pinpoint the date of the defacement as being the forty
Speaker 1: second year of tutmost of the second's reign, according to
Speaker 1: some research as it was even later than that, so
Speaker 1: it's more likely that the ruling class became interested in
Speaker 1: preserving the idea that the dynastic line had continued without
Speaker 1: any kind of interruption through Tutmosis the first, second, and
Speaker 1: the third. It's also possible that there was some concern
Speaker 1: about Tutmosa the third successor a Menhotep the Second. Tutmosa
Speaker 1: did eventually marry hat Shepsit's daughter, Nepherrera, and he had
Speaker 1: a son either with her or with another royal wife,
Speaker 1: but both of them died, so his successor was a
Speaker 1: Menhotep the Second, whose mother had no royal lineage and
Speaker 1: no connection back to hut Shepsit. It seems that Tutmosa
Speaker 1: the third was concerned enough about the line of succession
Speaker 1: that he had a Menhotep crowned while he was still living,
Speaker 1: with the two of them acting as co monarchs. So
Speaker 1: this removal of hat Shepsit from the record might have
Speaker 1: been connected to all this uncertainty, and it's also possible
Speaker 1: that the purge wouldn't have been considered necessary if hot
Speaker 1: Shepsit's daughter had survived and she had become the mother
Speaker 1: to the next king rather than the king's wife. Coming
Speaker 1: from this totally disconnected lineage, the idea of a female
Speaker 1: king is also an affront to the concept of maat
Speaker 1: that we talked about earlier. The king was supposed to
Speaker 1: be an intermediary with the gods and a living embodiment
Speaker 1: of Horus, keeping everything in balance, So having a woman
Speaker 1: in this role was basically the opposite of this idea
Speaker 1: of ordered justice. The fact that a woman had a
Speaker 1: relatively peaceful and prosperous rain in spite of this affront,
Speaker 1: tumah Aunt may have raised unwelcome questions about that divine
Speaker 1: order and the rule of other kings. Hatsheps That's mummy
Speaker 1: wasn't placed in the tomb where she intended it to
Speaker 1: be or if it was, it was later moved, but
Speaker 1: a mummy from a tomb that was found in the
Speaker 1: Valley of the Kings in nineteen oh two might be hers.
Speaker 1: That tomb was fully excavated starting in nineteen twenty. During
Speaker 1: the excavation, archaeologists found the mummies of two women, one
Speaker 1: of which was on the floor. One of these was
Speaker 1: later identified as Hatshepsit's wet nurse. The other one, the
Speaker 1: one that had been on the floor, was positioned in
Speaker 1: a way that was often used for Royal women. A
Speaker 1: CT scan found that it was missing a tooth. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: a box marked with hot Shepsit's cartouche had been unearthed
Speaker 1: as well in a cache of Royal mummies. A scan
Speaker 1: of that box revealed that it contained a tooth, and
Speaker 1: this tooth appears to be a match for the mummies
Speaker 1: missing one. So it's likely that this was had Sheepsit's mummy,
Speaker 1: although that is still not one hundred percent proven. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there is discussion of using DNA to try to confirm everything.
Speaker 1: Back when these initial analyzes happened, I don't know what
Speaker 1: the results of that were. I could not find reference
Speaker 1: to it anywhere. But it's also incredibly difficult to get
Speaker 1: good DNA out of mummified samples that are this old anyway.
Speaker 1: This finally brings us to the voyage to Punch that
Speaker 1: I wanted to focus on from the beginning, and we
Speaker 1: will get to that after a sponsor break. The first
Speaker 1: reference to Punt and ancient Egyptian writing is from the
Speaker 1: Palermo Stone, which dates back to about twenty five hundred BCE.
Speaker 1: That was more than a thousand years before hatsheps It
Speaker 1: became king. According to the Palermo Stone, King Sahara sent
Speaker 1: an expedition to Punt, which returned with eighty thousand measures
Speaker 1: of a substance that's generally written as NTYW, sometimes preceded
Speaker 1: by an apostrophe. Some sources translate this word as frankincense
Speaker 1: and others translate it as myrr. Both that these are
Speaker 1: made from aromatic tree resins and are used to make
Speaker 1: perfumes an incense, as well as spices and medicine. This
Speaker 1: expedition also brought back wood in the form of rods
Speaker 1: or staves, which were probably used to make spears and
Speaker 1: other weapons. Because the Egyptian kingdom's territory at that time
Speaker 1: didn't include trees that yielded wood that was good for
Speaker 1: that purpose. There are periodic references to Punt, also known
Speaker 1: as God's Land in Egyptian writing. After that, all of
Speaker 1: the documented expeditions were associated with kings who were known
Speaker 1: for exceptional leadership and good fortune. There are also fictional references,
Speaker 1: including the Tail of the Shipwrecked Sailor. This story dates
Speaker 1: back to the Middle Kingdom, and in it, a sailor
Speaker 1: washes up on an island in the Red Sea and
Speaker 1: meets the Lord of Punt. The Lord of Punt is
Speaker 1: a serpent who gives him all kinds of gifts, including
Speaker 1: mrr eye paint, baboons, and elephant tusks. Egyptian documents described
Speaker 1: two different routes to Punt. One of them is along
Speaker 1: the Red Sea and one is along the Nile. Both
Speaker 1: of them involved some time on the Nile as well
Speaker 1: as travel over land. For the Red Sea route, ships
Speaker 1: were probably built on the Nile and then they sailed
Speaker 1: to Koptos. From there they were disassembled and then carried
Speaker 1: along a dry river bed called the Wadi Hammamat, and
Speaker 1: that went all the way to the Red Sea, which
Speaker 1: was one hundred and twenty miles or one hundred and
Speaker 1: ninety three kilometers away. Then on the return trip, the
Speaker 1: goods probably would have been loaded onto pack animals to
Speaker 1: be carried back across the Wadi Hummamat, and then they
Speaker 1: would have been loaded into different ships on the Nile,
Speaker 1: rather than deconstructing the ships and carrying them again. It
Speaker 1: was an involved process. You would only want to go
Speaker 1: to this place if it took that much effort. If
Speaker 1: you were going to get some really good trade goods
Speaker 1: out of it, you really had to want to do it.
Speaker 1: To travel along the Nile, ships would have used rowers
Speaker 1: and sails to travel south against the current, and then
Speaker 1: followed the current back, but it's not clear exactly where
Speaker 1: the overland portion was headed after getting off of the ships.
Speaker 1: Whether an expedition traveled along the Red Sea or stuck
Speaker 1: mostly to the Nile might have been a matter of practicality,
Speaker 1: with the Egyptians traveling farther down the Nile when they
Speaker 1: had friendly relationships with the kingdoms and empires in that area,
Speaker 1: but then crossing over the land and traveling down the
Speaker 1: Red Sea when they didn't. Or it could have been
Speaker 1: that Punt was very large and stretched all the way
Speaker 1: from the Red Sea to the Nile, and the Egyptians
Speaker 1: visited different parts of it at different times. Like we
Speaker 1: mentioned at the top of the show, had Shepsy's expedition
Speaker 1: to Punt was one of the most notable acts in
Speaker 1: her time as king, and a lot of what we
Speaker 1: know about Punt comes from her documentation of those expeditions.
Speaker 1: According to the account in the relief carvings in Hodshepsu's
Speaker 1: mortuary temple, this voyage restored trade with Punt after an
Speaker 1: interruption of more than two hundred years. She had several
Speaker 1: probable reasons for wanting to embark on this expedition. One
Speaker 1: was simply access to luxury goods and aromatic resins. The resins,
Speaker 1: in particular were really important for religious purposes. This might
Speaker 1: have been a reward for her supporters when she ascended
Speaker 1: to the throne, like they helped her get on the throne,
Speaker 1: and in return she was going to give them access
Speaker 1: to all of this good trade. It was probably also
Speaker 1: a way to keep the army busy. Although it does
Speaker 1: appear that Hotchpsit led a couple of small military campaigns
Speaker 1: into Nubia, it wasn't generally considered appropriate for a woman
Speaker 1: to personally lead an army into battle. On top of that,
Speaker 1: there it was just a lot more risk for her
Speaker 1: than there would be for a man in her position.
Speaker 1: It would have been just catastrophic for an unprecedented female
Speaker 1: king to lead a military campaign that then failed. So
Speaker 1: Hot Shepsit needed some other way to reinforce the idea
Speaker 1: that she was competent and accomplished and capable as king,
Speaker 1: and she needed something to do to keep the soldiers occupied,
Speaker 1: like having them go all the way to Punt. And
Speaker 1: as was the case with her ascension to the throne,
Speaker 1: Hat Shepsit's relief carving show that this was divinely ordered,
Speaker 1: saying that the oracle had delivered a command that quote
Speaker 1: the highways to the mer terraces should be opened. This
Speaker 1: is a slightly different framing from how other pharaohs documented
Speaker 1: their expeditions to Punt, which more focused on Amun or
Speaker 1: Amonray causing Punt to send their goods or causing the
Speaker 1: way to Punt to be opened. The buy reliefs in
Speaker 1: Hot sheps It's temple depict large sailed ships crewed with
Speaker 1: thirty rowers each carrying goods from Egypt, including fruit, meat, bread, beer,
Speaker 1: and wine. They sail across the water, and based on
Speaker 1: the aquatic life that shown in the carvings, that water
Speaker 1: is probably meant to be the Red Sea. Once they
Speaker 1: arrive in punt there are carvings of the region's trees,
Speaker 1: which might be the trees used to produce ebony, frankincense,
Speaker 1: or myrrh. There are also some fig trees. There are
Speaker 1: also depictions of huts with domed roofs on stilts, which
Speaker 1: might have been houses or grainaries. From there, the reliefs
Speaker 1: show all kinds of goods being loaded back onto the ships,
Speaker 1: including herbs, wood, resins, gold, incense, and animal skins. There
Speaker 1: are also lots of live animals, including baboons, monkeys, cattle,
Speaker 1: and hounds. Enslaved people and their children are loaded into
Speaker 1: the ships as well, and cross sections of the loaded
Speaker 1: ships show them just packed to the gills with goods.
Speaker 1: Once the goods arrived safely at Karnak temple and thieves,
Speaker 1: the Egyptians and the Puntite dignitaries who are returned with
Speaker 1: them are shown presenting hapshets with the goods that they
Speaker 1: had brought. This includes live resin trees in baskets, meant
Speaker 1: for transplanting, and hatcheps It did transplant them around her
Speaker 1: mortuary temple and the carvings. Hatcheps It also consecrates the
Speaker 1: best of all these goods to the God Amen. The
Speaker 1: people have Punt appear in these depictions as well. They
Speaker 1: have dark reddish skin with long hair and goateee like beards.
Speaker 1: The only ones whose names are mentioned are King Parahu
Speaker 1: and his queen Atti. The queen is depicted as being
Speaker 1: very strikingly large, something that has led to a lot
Speaker 1: of commentary about her body, and a lot of it
Speaker 1: has started with the assumption that there was a pathological
Speaker 1: explanation for her body shape and size, but it may
Speaker 1: have just been how she was built, or a mark
Speaker 1: of status and wealth in her culture. By the way,
Speaker 1: if you look her up, be prepared to read some
Speaker 1: really gross and insulting things about her body. In almost
Speaker 1: every single article, including articles that are brand new, almost
Speaker 1: no one had nothing ugly to say about what the
Speaker 1: Queen of Punt looked like. These reliefs are very detailed,
Speaker 1: so it's likely that Hatcheps had sent artists with the
Speaker 1: expedition and ordered them to make very careful observations for
Speaker 1: the sake of these reliefs when they returned, and the
Speaker 1: reliefs are definitely our biggest single source of information about Punt,
Speaker 1: but there is still so much that we don't know.
Speaker 1: For one thing, we really don't know how the people
Speaker 1: of Punt referred to themselves. Punt is what is in
Speaker 1: Egyptian writing, but it's also echoed in things that came later,
Speaker 1: like Herodotus's history, which was written in the fifth century PCE.
Speaker 1: And we also don't know exactly where it was. That's
Speaker 1: something people have been trying to figure out for more
Speaker 1: than one hundred and fifty years. At first, researchers focused
Speaker 1: on the Arabian Peninsula, but as archaeologists unearthed more and
Speaker 1: more descriptions of Punt being to the south rather than
Speaker 1: to the east of the Egyptian Kingdom, and more references
Speaker 1: of the goods being traded, they started focusing more on
Speaker 1: the stretch of the continent between Egyptian territory and the
Speaker 1: Horn of Africa. Many of the goods described as coming
Speaker 1: from Punt were native to this part of the African continent,
Speaker 1: but there's still a lot of room for speculation. This
Speaker 1: is especially true since the ancient Egyptians were certainly not
Speaker 1: Punt's only trading partner, so the goods that were available
Speaker 1: in Punt probably came from other parts of the world
Speaker 1: as well, both on the continent of Africa and elsewhere. Also,
Speaker 1: the domed huts and the stilt houses that are shown
Speaker 1: in the reliefs are more associated with central and western
Speaker 1: Africa than with the parts of the continent that were
Speaker 1: most likely to be accessed via the Red Sea, and
Speaker 1: which archaeologists and other researchers have mostly focused on in
Speaker 1: this search. Most, but not all, researchers have concluded that
Speaker 1: Punt was probably located somewhere along the Red Sea, but
Speaker 1: exactly where is still a mystery. Researchers have certainly put
Speaker 1: forth a lot of ideas, a lot of them simultaneously
Speaker 1: contradictory and well supported, most place punched somewhere in what's
Speaker 1: now Eritrea, Ethiopia, or Somalia. In an article in the
Speaker 1: Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt, Stanley Balanda
Speaker 1: explores descriptions of Punt as on the Twin shores of
Speaker 1: the sea, and he interprets the account's description of where
Speaker 1: the expedition pitched their tents as on both sides of
Speaker 1: the Red Sea. Based on that, he concludes that Punt
Speaker 1: lay along the Bal Almandab Strait, with modern Jibouti on
Speaker 1: one side and Yemen on the other, in both Eastern
Speaker 1: Africa and the Western Arabian Peninsula. And twenty ten researchers
Speaker 1: even tried to use oxygen isotope analysis to try to
Speaker 1: confirm Punt's location by studying the mummy of a baboon
Speaker 1: that had presumably been brought back from Punt. That research
Speaker 1: suggested that this baboon was from what's now Eritrea or
Speaker 1: eastern Ethiopia, and so they concluded that Punt might have
Speaker 1: covered all of that general area. A major archaeological discovery
Speaker 1: could clear all this up, but right now, the biggest
Speaker 1: archaeological finds related to Punt are from the Egyptian harbor
Speaker 1: of Mrsagoasis, known at the time as Saw would show
Speaker 1: evidence of trade with Punch regardless, though Punt seems to
Speaker 1: have existed as an important and thriving trading partner from
Speaker 1: roughly twenty five hundred BCE to about six hundred BCE.
Speaker 1: The last Egyptian expedition that we know about took place
Speaker 1: under Ramsey's third in the twelfth century BCE. Ah Elusive Punt. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm very you will. Also if you go poking around
Speaker 1: on the internet, you will also find some more far
Speaker 1: fetched and less well supported ideas about it being in
Speaker 1: many far flung places that are not in the immediate
Speaker 1: vicinity of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, which aren't really
Speaker 1: supported so much by what we know in terms of
Speaker 1: what's documented about Egyptian relationships with Punt and about what
Speaker 1: we know about Egyptian's seafaring capabilities, which weren't amazing. They
Speaker 1: could get up and down the Nile pretty well, but
Speaker 1: they really tended to stick very closely along the shore
Speaker 1: of the Red Sea. They were not nearly as good
Speaker 1: as like getting out into the water. Away from that
Speaker 1: safety of land. They were focusing more on architecture and
Speaker 1: that is fine. Yeah. We should also note that in
Speaker 1: the modern era, there is a place called Puntland which
Speaker 1: is a part of Somalia, and we know that that
Speaker 1: was named after the land of Punt, but it's not
Speaker 1: clear that that was the same physical location. Thanks so
Speaker 1: much for joining us on this Saturday. Since this episode
Speaker 1: is out of the archive. If you heard an email
Speaker 1: address or a Facebook RL or something similar over the
Speaker 1: course of the show that could be obsolete now. Our
Speaker 1: current email address is History podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
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