Hatchepsut: The Female Pharaoh by Joyce Tyldesley Read Free Book Online Page B

of Amenhotep I and Ahmose Nefertari which stood in the path of the processional way leading to her mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahri.
    Hatchepsut had started her regal building programme early, anticipating her elevation to the throne by ordering a pair of obelisks from the Aswan granite quarry while still queen regent. By the time these had been cut she was an acknowledged king, and her newly acquired royal titles could be engraved on their tips. Obelisks – New Kingdom cult objects intended to be a stone representation of the first beams of light to illuminate the world – were tall, thin, square stone shafts tapering to a pyramid-shaped peak. Traditionally erected in pairs before the entrance to the temple, their twin tips were sheathed in gold foil so that they sparkled and shimmered in the rays of the fierce Egyptian sun. Obelisks were dedicated to the god by the king, and their shafts contained columns of hieroglyphs giving details of their erection and dedication. However, they were also regarded as living beings; obelisks were given personal names, and offerings were made to them.
    In continuing the newly established obelisk tradition, Hatchepsut was once again emulating the deeds of her esteemed father who, with the help of Ineni, had been the first monarch to erect a pair of obelisks before the entrance to the Karnak temple. Indeed, Hatchepsut tells us how Tuthmosis himself had urged his daughter to follow his precedent: ‘It is your father, the King of Upper and Lower Egypt Aakheperkare [Tuthmosis I], who gave you the instruction to raise obelisks.’ 6 To Senenmut fell the responsibility of overseeing operations and, in an inscription carved at the Aswan granite quarry, we see him standing to present his work to his mistress who is still only a ‘King's Great Wife’:
    … the Hereditary Prince, Count, great favourite of the God's Wife… the Treasurer of the King of Lower Egypt, Chief Steward of the Princess Neferure, may she live, Senenmut, in order to inspect the work on the two great obelisks of Heh. It happened just as it was commanded that everything be done; it happened because of the power of Her Majesty. 7
    The successful planning, cutting, transportation and erection of a pair of obelisks was a remarkable feat of engineering for a society totally relianton man-power, river transport and human ingenuity. Some successful New Kingdom examples reached over 30 m (98 ft) in height and weighed over 450 tons (457,221 kg) while Hatchepsut's ‘unfinished obelisk’, abandoned in the Aswan quarry after it developed a fatal crack, would have stood over 41 m (134 ft) tall and weighed an estimated 1,000 tons (1,016,046 kg). 8 The work in the granite quarry was physically demanding, labour intensive and mind-numbingly repetitive. After a suitable band of rock had been identified, a series of small fires was lit and doused with water to crack the surface of the granite which could then be worked with relative ease. Once the uppermost face had been prepared the sides were cut not by saw – the granite was far too hard – but by teams of men rhythmically bouncing balls of dolerite (an even harder rock) against the granite surface. The underside was then prepared in the same way until the obelisk was lying supported by isolated spurs of the mother-rock and a large quantity of packing stones. The supporting spurs were then knocked away, the packing carefully removed, and the obelisk was ready to be dragged to the canal where it would be loaded on a barge and towed first to the River Nile and thence to Thebes. The classical historian Pliny, fascinated by the techniques developed to load the unwieldy obelisks on the barges during the Roman Period, noted how:
    A canal was dug from the river Nile to the spot where the obelisk lay and two broad vessels, loaded with blocks of similar stone a foot square – the cargo of each amounting to double the size and consequently double the weight of the obelisks – was put beneath