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The pharaoh that wouldn't be forgotten - Kate Narev

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    3.5 thousand years ago in Egypt,
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    a noble pharaoh was the victim
    of a violent attack.
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    But the attack was not physical.
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    This royal had been dead for 20 years.
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    The attack was historical,
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    an act of damnatio memoriae,
    the damnation of memory.
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    Somebody smashed the pharaoh's statues,
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    took a chisel and attempted to erase
    the pharaoh's name and image from history.
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    Who was this pharaoh
    and what was behind the attack?
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    Here's the key:
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    the pharaoh Hatshepsut was a woman.
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    In the normal course of things,
    she should never have been pharaoh.
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    Although it was legal
    for a woman to be a monarch,
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    it disturbed some essential
    Egyptian beliefs.
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    Firstly, the pharaoh was known
    as the living embodiment
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    of the male god Horus.
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    Secondly, disturbance
    to the tradition of rule by men
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    was a serious challenge to Maat,
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    a word for "truth"
    expressing a belief in order and justice,
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    vital to the Eygptians.
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    Hatshepsut had perhaps tried to adapt
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    to this belief in the link between
    order and patriarchy through her titles.
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    She took the name Maatkare,
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    and sometimes referred to herself
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    as Hatshepsu,
    with a masculine word ending.
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    But apparently, these efforts
    didn't convince everyone,
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    and perhaps someone
    erased Hatshepsut's image
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    so that the world forget
    the disturbance to Maat,
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    and Egypt could be balanced again.
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    Hatshepsut, move over,
    was not the legitimate heir to the thrown,
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    but a regent,
    a kind of stand-in co-monarch.
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    The Egypitan kingship traditionally
    passed from father to son.
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    It passed from Thutmose I
    to his son Thutmose II,
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    Hatshpsut's husband.
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    It should have passed from Thutmose II
    directly to his son Thutmose III,
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    but Thutmose III was a little boy
    when his father died.
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    Hatshepsut, the dead pharaoh's chief
    wife and widow,
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    stepped in to help
    as her stepson's regent,
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    but ended up ruling beside him
    as a fully fledged pharaoh.
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    Perhaps Thutmose III was angry about this.
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    Perhaps he was the one
    who erased her images.
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    It's also possible that someone wanted
    to dishonor Hatshepsut
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    because she was a bad pharaoh.
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    But the evidence suggests
    she was actually pretty good.
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    She competently fulfilled
    the traditional roles of the office.
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    She was a great builder.
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    Her mortuary temple, Djeser-Djeseru,
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    was an architectural
    phenomenon at the time,
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    and is still admired today.
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    She enhanced the economy of Egypt,
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    conducting a very successful trade mission
    to the distant land of Punt.
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    She had strong religious connections.
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    She even claimed to be the daughter
    of the State god, Amun.
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    And she had a successful military career,
    with a Nubian campaign,
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    and claims she fought alongside
    her soldiers in battle.
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    Of course, we have to be careful
    when we access the success
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    of Hatshepsut's career,
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    since most of the evidence
    was written by Hatshepsut herself.
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    She tells her own story
    in pictures and writing
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    on the walls of her mortuary temple,
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    and the red chapel she built for Amun.
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    So who committed the crimes
    against Hatshepsut's memory?
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    The most popular suspect is her stepson,
    nephew and co-ruler, Thutmose III.
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    Did he do it out of anger
    because she stole his throne?
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    This is unlikely since
    the damage wasn't done
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    until 20 years after Hatshepsut died.
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    That's a long time to hang on
    to anger and then act in a rage.
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    Maybe Thutmose III did it
    to make his own reign look stronger.
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    But it is most likely that he
    or someone else erased the images
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    so that people would forget
    that a woman ever sat on Egypt's throne.
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    This gender anomaly was simply
    too much of a threat to Maat,
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    and had to be obliterated from history.
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    Happily, the ancient censors
    were not quite thorough enough.
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    Enough evidence survived for us
    to piece together what happened,
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    So the story of this unique powerful women
    can now be told.
Title:
The pharaoh that wouldn't be forgotten - Kate Narev
Description:

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Video Language:
English
Team:
closed TED
Project:
TED-Ed
Duration:
04:34

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