Egyptian Dreams

anneke · Posted: Mon Jul 16, 2007 3:22 am Post subject: Hatshepsut documentary

I just saw the Hatshepsut documentary.
As usual there's quite a bit of filler, but I thought it was quite interesting.

Some things I didn't know:

The other mummy from KV60 is also thought to be royal (does seem to have the arm in the queen's position). No mention of a possible identity though.

The mummy from DB320 without arms and the mouth open died a violent death. The woman was old (ca 70?) and had a gash on her head and she seems to have suffered a painful death.

Hatshepsut ultimately died from sepsis due to an abcessed tooth. Together with the cancer detected she must have been in pain.

Smile

I hope I'm summarizing that right.
There's more tidbits, but for the sake of discussion I thought I would start with these points....

Diorite · Posted: Mon Jul 16, 2007 3:34 am Post subject:

You mentioned the second mummy from KV 60 also appears to be royal. What I wanted to see them do was compare the DNA recovered from those 2 mummies to see if they were related! It was an important question that wasn't addressed.

And of course we got a generous dose of how great Zahi Hawass is, only he could have done it!

Okay. One other thing. They mentioned that in one of the instances where Hatshepsut's name had been removed it was replaced with that of Amenhotep II. What I question is what seemed to be a leap of logic where they said it was obvious that it was done by AII's father to assure the succession. Excuse me? How is this obvious? How could Hatshepsut's offspring get into the succession if her only child, her daughter, pre-deceased her? Any help here? Confused

anneke · Posted: Mon Jul 16, 2007 3:58 am Post subject:

kmt_sesh · Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2007 12:51 am Post subject:

I enjoyed the special very much, aside from what anneke so aptly described as the "filler." But had they removed the filler the show would've been quite a bit shorter, I fear.

And I can breath easier now that I've had my newly infused "Zahi" fix. Goodness, he really was in a lot of the scenes, wasn't he? Laughing

I had never before seen Neferure's tomb, but I think in the program they said it had never been filmed or photographed. I also enjoyed the small tomb of Senenmut and the star chart on the ceiling.

I was curious about the program's identifying Neferure in that relief as a "goddess." I may be wrong about this, but if I remember correctly Hatshepsut elevated her daughter to the station of God's Wife of Amun. And I believe it was customary for women holding high priestly titles to be shown wearing the vulture headdress, so might the relief not have been a depiction of Neferure as God's Wife? I did notice the uraeus on her brow, so maybe that's where the "goddess" identification comes from. And if I'm wrong about all of this...well, go ahead, laugh at me. Razz

I was amused how the program seemed to pass off the Amunhotep II connection as their very own discovery. This is how it appeared to me, anyway. I've read about this theory more than once and it seems credible to me: Tuthmosis III erases the memory of Hatshepsut to enusre the integrity of the "unbroken" male line of Tuthmoside kings for his own son.

Diorite · Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2007 12:51 am Post subject:

anneke · Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2007 1:11 pm Post subject:

Rozette · Vizier Joined: 21 Jul 2005 Posts: 1084 Location: Belguim

Quote anneke : I tried to find some information on this tomb, but I wasn't very successful. I'm not sure it was positively identified as being Neferure's (but I could be wrong)......................

In my book "The Tomb of the Three Foreign Wives of Thutmosis III" gives Christine Lilyquist a description of several tombs in the Wady Gabbanat el-Qurud. The alleged tomb of Neferure is in Wady C, alleged Neferura cartouche on rock near section 220B.
Quote :
There is a bab-tomb along the inner cliff face of Wady C (Romer 1984:242,lower left).
Carter drew its plan as a corridor leading to an elongated chamber 2-2.5 m H, and a second corridor leading off to the right with a bay and niche. The ceiling is smoothed, the walls were once plastered (Thomas 1966:196f).
Uncertain of the graffito naming Neferura that Carter had reported, Thomas suggested that this tomb could have been for Tuthmosis III's principal wife Meryetra, with Neferura possibly buried in Wady A. The presumed advantage of this identification is that Neferura would have been near her mother in Wady A while Meryetra would have been near the foreign wives of Tuthmosis III in D1.
(Wady A: tomb for Hatshepsut as Queen)

Kirby located what the author believes to be Carter's Neferura graffito in Wady C (GI Carter MSS I.D. 184 no.2, 186), a vertical cartouche with a r/c-sign above three nefers.

Neither Thomas, Cerny, nor the CEDAE had located Carter's graffito in situ, so Thomas suggested that JdE 45930 might be the inscription (1966: 197; Porter and Moss 1964: 592, SR 4260).
This fragment, however, is a polished piece of indurated limestone that, according to the museum's register, is part of an inscribed statue from Deir el-Bahari. Further, remains on it show a horizontal cartouche where Carter had drawn an vertical one.

The graffito found by Kirby - and seen by Luc Gabolde, Catharine Roehrig, and no doubt others - is on a rock lying within the bay. The cartouche is only 4.5 H, and quite rudimentary. When first seen by the author, all incisions were patinated the same golden tan as the rock surface; the cartouche appeared altogether ancient. Most unfortunately, it was rubbed before photography.

DRyan · Citizen Joined: 18 Jun 2007 Posts: 2

If you watched the Hatshepsut documentary, you saw that Kara Cooney and I entered the cliff tomb alleged to be hers. As noted above, the only real association of the tomb with Neferure was the cartouche graffito. There was actually a scene we filmed during which we searched for, and located, the cartouche. Unfortunately, it didn't make it into the program.

I found the graffito to be somewhat puzzling. While the hieroglyphs spelling out the name "Neferure" appeared to be patinated with age, the cartouche surrounding them looked recent or perhaps enhanced. I also find it curious that the graffito was apparently not seen by Cerny and his colleagues when they were out there a few decades ago doing a comprehensive survey of the graffiti of the Theban Mountains, including a detailed study of the area beneath the cliff tomb. I intend to go and take another look at it later this year and see if I can gain some more insights.
A photograph of the graffito can be found on page 23 of Christine Lilyquist's, "The Tomb of Three Foreign Wives of Tuthmosis III" (2003, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York).
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kmt_sesh · Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2007 1:33 am Post subject:

After watching the television program I have a greater appreciation, Dr. Ryan, for how you excavators sometimes risk life and limb just to get into a tomb! I've done some rock climbing in my younger, crazier days and imagining trying to descend that crumbly cliff face made my stomach churn a bit.

I know very little about Neferure's tomb and have never even seen a plan or drawing of it. In the TV special I couldn't really get a sense of its size or layout. Is that remnant of pigment you and Kara Cooney were examining the only thing left of wall scenes or reliefs? I know that nothing inside the cliff tomb directly ties it to Hatshepsut's daughter, but have any interesting artifacts ever been found in there?

Thanks again for taking your time to share information with us. We all enjoy it. Wink

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tadukhipa · Citizen Joined: 21 Jun 2007 Posts: 14

I wasn't quite convinced that the language in Senenmut's tomb is enough to prove that they were lovers. When they say that he "gives pleasure" to her, did the Egyptians really mean it with the same connotations that we have for that kind of phrase? (I guess the Discovery Channel thought the dirty graffiti from the quarry would be too risque for television... Wink

)

I'm convinced by Hawass' theory, though of course the documentary had that usual level of Discovery Channel cheesiness.
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kmt_sesh · Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 12:20 am Post subject:

Diorite · Posted: Sun Jul 22, 2007 7:08 am Post subject:

I just caught the last half hour for a second time. When the Siemans people are looking at the scans of the mummy to determine cause of death, the woman says "We can see the brain". And, low and behold, looking at the scan, it looks like they left the brain in her. Isn't this a bit unusual?

kmt_sesh · Posted: Sun Jul 22, 2007 4:14 pm Post subject:

Diorite · Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2007 12:42 am Post subject:

Thanks, Kmt-Sesh. From what I saw, it looked like it was the whole brain. I'd actually have to see a static picture to be sure, but I thought I saw the furrow between different parts of the brain.

Neferseshat · Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2007 5:09 am Post subject:

I juat saw the documentary last night.

I found that ZH identified some of the mummies by his heart, such as Ramses 1(it's understandable since he saw the posture of the mummy's hands), and Hatshepsut in this case.

I think the mummy that was identified as Hatshepsut in Discovery Channel years ago (as I mentioned before) maybe the calm lady from the cache.

Also, the docmentary didn't provide another explaination about the defacement of pharaoh Hatshepsut because I knew some of the images of Queen Hatshepsut are saved.

Any way, does the DNA result still not come?