inscribed text that she had benefited from another temple oracle from the god Amen in year 2 of an unnamed king. This time, the god foretold her impending kingship outright. The inscription is broken, but because it comes from her Red Chapel, the text must refer to her.
Regnal year 2, month 2 of spring, day 29 the 3rd day of the Festival of Amen corresponding to the 2nd day of the offerings of Sakhmet, when foreseeing for the two lands in the wide hall of the southern Ipet-Sut (Luxor Temple). Lo, his majesty performed omens in the presence of this god. Fine of appearance is the father of his good festival, Amen in the midst of the gods.Then he seized my majesty (ostensibly Hatshepsut) […] of the beneficent king multiplying for him the miracles about me (Hatshepsut) corresponding to the entire land. 12
The text is quite vague, as oracular texts are wont to be, and we lack the drama of the earlier revelatory inscription that invested her as God’s Wife. But no matter the details, Hatshepsut was still the first Egyptian monarch to use oracular understanding to solidify and publicly declare her authority to her people, and later in the same text she claims, “He (Amen) has introduced me to be ruler of the two lands while his majesty was declaring oracles.” 13
Hatshepsut’s understandings and manipulations of religious ideology were keen. She cloaked all her momentous power grabs through displays of piety. As to her kingly transformation, she tells us it was the King of the Gods himself who instructed her personally to take this step. Her later obelisk inscriptions seem a little more defensive: “He who hears it will not say ‘It is a lie,’ what I have said. Rather say, ‘How like her it is; she is devoted to her father!’ The god knew it in me. Amen, Lord of the Thrones of the Two Lands, he caused that I rule the Black and Red Lands as reward. No one rebels against me in all lands.” 14 In her own mind, Hatshepsut may have seen the situations of her life—as queen, God’s Wife, regent, king—through the lens of divine inspiration and planning by the gods. After all, conditions had put her in this very place and time, able to do what no woman had ever done.
It is likely that for her kingly initiation, she spent many nights and days in the heart of the temple, perhaps consuming intoxicants, suffering sleep deprivation, fasting, chanting, in an attempt to access the innermost workings of Amen’s mind. She may have ascended the pylons at dawn after a long night of trancelike meditation to merge with the sun, witnessing the mysteries and miracles of its regeneration, merging with the machinations of the cosmos that made it possible. And then, exhausted but joyful, she might have appeared before her people transformed, her eyes sparkling with privileged understanding. Initiation lent her great power in the eyes of her elites, especially the priesthood, and it was something she wanted to broadcast.
After her initiation came the crowning. Perhaps she found herself on her knees in the god’s sanctuary, shaking, her thin linen shift the only layer between her knees and the cold stone temple floor as she waited for the choice of the god. Perhaps when she felt the crown settle upon her brow, she began to weep, feeling the crook and scepter thrust into her hands until she grasped them closely, intimately, as if they had clutched these instruments of kingship all her life. However we might imagine the unwritten details of that first, personal moment as king, Hatshepsut herself was clear about her people’s awed reaction:
Then these officials, their hearts began to forget; their faces astounded indeed at events. Their limbs united with fatigue. They saw the enduring king and what the Lord-of-All himself had done. They placed themselves on their bellies. After this, their hearts recovered. Then the majesty of the Lord-of-All fixed the titulary of her majesty as beneficent king in the midst of Egypt. 15
And then
Regnal year 2, month 2 of spring, day 29 the 3rd day of the Festival of Amen corresponding to the 2nd day of the offerings of Sakhmet, when foreseeing for the two lands in the wide hall of the southern Ipet-Sut (Luxor Temple). Lo, his majesty performed omens in the presence of this god. Fine of appearance is the father of his good festival, Amen in the midst of the gods.Then he seized my majesty (ostensibly Hatshepsut) […] of the beneficent king multiplying for him the miracles about me (Hatshepsut) corresponding to the entire land. 12
The text is quite vague, as oracular texts are wont to be, and we lack the drama of the earlier revelatory inscription that invested her as God’s Wife. But no matter the details, Hatshepsut was still the first Egyptian monarch to use oracular understanding to solidify and publicly declare her authority to her people, and later in the same text she claims, “He (Amen) has introduced me to be ruler of the two lands while his majesty was declaring oracles.” 13
Hatshepsut’s understandings and manipulations of religious ideology were keen. She cloaked all her momentous power grabs through displays of piety. As to her kingly transformation, she tells us it was the King of the Gods himself who instructed her personally to take this step. Her later obelisk inscriptions seem a little more defensive: “He who hears it will not say ‘It is a lie,’ what I have said. Rather say, ‘How like her it is; she is devoted to her father!’ The god knew it in me. Amen, Lord of the Thrones of the Two Lands, he caused that I rule the Black and Red Lands as reward. No one rebels against me in all lands.” 14 In her own mind, Hatshepsut may have seen the situations of her life—as queen, God’s Wife, regent, king—through the lens of divine inspiration and planning by the gods. After all, conditions had put her in this very place and time, able to do what no woman had ever done.
It is likely that for her kingly initiation, she spent many nights and days in the heart of the temple, perhaps consuming intoxicants, suffering sleep deprivation, fasting, chanting, in an attempt to access the innermost workings of Amen’s mind. She may have ascended the pylons at dawn after a long night of trancelike meditation to merge with the sun, witnessing the mysteries and miracles of its regeneration, merging with the machinations of the cosmos that made it possible. And then, exhausted but joyful, she might have appeared before her people transformed, her eyes sparkling with privileged understanding. Initiation lent her great power in the eyes of her elites, especially the priesthood, and it was something she wanted to broadcast.
After her initiation came the crowning. Perhaps she found herself on her knees in the god’s sanctuary, shaking, her thin linen shift the only layer between her knees and the cold stone temple floor as she waited for the choice of the god. Perhaps when she felt the crown settle upon her brow, she began to weep, feeling the crook and scepter thrust into her hands until she grasped them closely, intimately, as if they had clutched these instruments of kingship all her life. However we might imagine the unwritten details of that first, personal moment as king, Hatshepsut herself was clear about her people’s awed reaction:
Then these officials, their hearts began to forget; their faces astounded indeed at events. Their limbs united with fatigue. They saw the enduring king and what the Lord-of-All himself had done. They placed themselves on their bellies. After this, their hearts recovered. Then the majesty of the Lord-of-All fixed the titulary of her majesty as beneficent king in the midst of Egypt. 15
And then
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