Hatshepsut and Historiography

Hatshepsut—through diplomacy, war, and trade—created the foundation of wealth, security, and culture on which her successors built their greatness. Her family—the Thutmosids—with a handful of exceptions, were the ruling family of Eighteenth dynasty Egypt. They came to power by driving out invaders and reunifying Egypt. Hatshepsut was the daughter, sister/wife, and regent/aunt of pharaohs. She was one of the most experienced and capable rulers Egypt ever had. Thutmose III, Amenhotep III, Akenaten, Nefertiti, and Tutankhamun all owe their success partially to Hatshepsut. Art and architecture flowered during her reign; she renovated the Temple of Karnak—constructing the Red Chapel, Chambers of Hatshepsut, and raising the tallest obelisks Egypt had ever seen—and built her celebrate mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahri. She commissioned a trade expedition to the mystical land of Punt and had myrrh trees brought back to be planted at Deir el-Bahri. Her legacy as one of Egypt’s greatest pharaohs has not always been history’s judgement of her. To understand why, you need to have a basic understanding of historiography.

Historiography is something you kind of knew about or at least suspected, but probably didn’t have a word for; in short—historiography is the history of history. More specifically, historiography is the evaluation of historical research on a given topic—including individual collections of historical works and the methodologies and mindsets of the historians, experts, or enthusiasts producing them. Traditionally, this meant only writing, but is broadening to included audio/visual and online media. Having a basic understanding of historiography will empower you to have a better understanding of history and join the millennia-long conversation about humanity’s heritage. It will also help you sort out how reliable a source is. For starters, lets establish something, I am an expert on the Historiography of Hatshepsut; I am not an expert on Hatshepsut. Confused? Allow me to explain: I have both a Bachelor of Arts in history and a Master of Arts in History from an accredited university; under the supervision of a Ph.D.—with a concentration in African history—teaching a graduate class on historical methods and research, I wrote a paper about the historiography of Hatshepsut; I was encouraged to submit this to a large and respected conference on African history hosted by an internationally renowned Africanist at a Tier One school; my work was then selected to be expanded and reviewed for inclusion in an anthology by another Ph.D.—only then was it published by an academic press. History communication—including historiography and pop culture history—is one of my research focuses and that is what I explored in my work. I did not make any new or independent claims about Hatsheput directly. I examined reactions to her in historiography and pop culture; I then argued that those reactions formed trends that fit into a model and presented cited evidence advocating for that model. Simply put my model is that post-classical Hatshepsut scholars evolved through six schools of thought about how her identity should be interpreted: denial, acceptance, glorification, demonization, neo-glorification, and contextualization—each school was infused with biases from the times and places the scholars worked; every time the old Hatshepsut problem was solved, a new one was created.

So why has history’s judgement of Hatshepsut changed? Because history is never settled. History is always being revisited and revised—new evidence comes to light, a new way of examining evidence is developed, or historians even occasionally acknowledge that a major work of history or even field of history had a blind spot which needs to be corrected. This doesn’t mean that we historians just make things up as we go along or intentionally twist or omit facts to fit our agendas. Or at least serious historians shouldn’t, but no one is perfect and that is why history will always be an ongoing and unsettled endeavor. It’s also why I strongly oppose the notion that historiography is, and should remain, a high level concept you only receive exposure to once you are a senior in a B.A. History program.

Fun fact: Egyptologists spent a lot of the time in the 20th century trying to find Hatshepsut’s mummy, in the 21st century they discovered that her mummy had been in Cairo since the 19th century.

Statue of Hatshepsut in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. © postdlf / CC BY-SA 3.0

Statue of Hatshepsut in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. © postdlf / CC BY-SA 3.0

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