A Brief History of Timeshare III: Ancient Egypt

“The Great and Majestic Necropolis of the Millions of Years of the Pharaoh, Life, Strength, Health in The West of Thebes!”
(Eighteenth-Dynasty promotional inscription found at the Valley of the Kings. No, really.)

The Eighteenth Dynasty (1550-1292 BC) were the biggest property developers of ancient Egypt. They kicked off the New Kingdom, ancient Egypt’s ‘Golden Age’, and successfully reversed the property slump of the preceding Second Intermediate Period. So cheer up, things are bound to improve, they always have. Two of the Dynasty’s most prolific developers were Queen Hatshepsut and Thutmose III, her stepson and nephew (work that one out!) Let’s try. Thutmose III was the son of Thutmose II by his ‘secondary’ wife, Iset. When Thutmose Senior died, Thutmose Junior was too young to rule, so Thutmose Senior’s ‘primary’ wife, Hatshepsut became Pharaoh. Thutmose Jr wanted to become Pharaoh, so, to bolster his Royal claim, married Hatshepsut’s (and his father’s) daughter Neferure. Hopefully readers in Norfolk and Kentucky are following this. I still don’t get the aunt bit.

Anyway, the upturn in the New Kingdom economy gave Hatshepsut the pharonic clout and slave-power she needed for some serious building projects. In an early example of Girl Power, she resolved to out-build all of Egypt’s previous tomb-builders and earn herself a place in construction history. Hatshepsut’s personal Trump Tower is the mortuary temple complex at Deir el-Bahri. Pedants might point out that, unlike Trump Tower, Hatshepsut’s complex was built for dead people. Well, yes, technically they were all dead, but they believed they were immortal, so let’s not split hairs.

The focus of the complex is the awe-inspiring Djeser-Djeseru (Holy of Holies,) Hatshepsut’s Temple. It’s not known how many architects tendered for the project, but the contract went, unsurprisingly, to Hatshepsut’s lover, Senemut. Senemut’s design included a vast number of royal and non-royal tombs. It was common practice, in the New Kingdom, to move mummies around from time to time, and from tomb to tomb, and here’s where the timeshare and fractional ownership come in.

Hatshepsut’s first tomb was built when she was still Great Royal Wife of Thutmose II, but when she became Pharaoh, she knew she’d need a bigger tomb, so built a new one, now known as KV20. She then dug up her father Thutmose I from his tomb (KV38) and put his mummy in a Grandad-flat in tomb KV20. When she died, Thutmose III moved his Grandad back to KV38 and moved Auntie Hatshepsut’s mummy into the tomb of her wet-nurse, Sitre-Re (KV60.) Further confusion about Hatshepsut’s whereabouts followed when an ivory box was found in the Royal Mummy Cache at DB320. The box contained a mummified liver, and was inscribed ‘Hatshepsut.’ Fractional ownership indeed.

Tomb-looting was a problem even back then. In about 1000 BC, 153 priests had to move the mummies of forty Pharaohs, including Thutmose III, to a safer, new tomb in the complex. We know it took 153 priests, because they’re all in there too. Hatshepsut’s mummy finally turned up, DNA-verified, in 2006, on the third floor of Cairo Museum, which suggests, in addition to her many building accomplishments, a great love of travel.

Technorati Tags: ancient egypt, Hatshepsut's Temple, necropolis

Bookmark It

Hide Sites