h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi Bagpuss,

I see you're subbing my Entry on Hatshepsut

Please could you change para 1 to read:

'The best known of the female pharaohs was Cleopatra, but there is also compelling evidence that Nefertiti, ruling under the name of Smenkhara, may also have had full pharaonic status after the death of her husband Akhenaten.'

This is because , in PR, Gnomon objected to my stating categorically that Nefertiti had full pharaonic status.

Many s

A

I was wondering if Cleopatra was really considered a pharoah. She's usually just called "Queen of Egypt".

Well, in her book, 'The Search for Neferi, the Archaeologist/Egyptologist Dr Joannn Fletcher (H&S 2004) has an entire chapter entitled, 'The Rise of the Female Pharaohs'.

There is a paragrapg which says, Despite the best attempts in certain quarters to sweep these women under the academic carpet, it is apparent that at least six ruled Egypt as absolute monarch - Neithikret....., Sobeknofru..., Hatshepsut..., Tawosret..., Cleoptara in the dynasty of Ptomeic pharaohs, and now, it seems, Nefertiti herself. The evidence shows that they ruled in their own right as female4 pharaohs, even though they are always subtly demoted by the use of the modern term 'queen', which usually means nothing more than marriage to a king.
Nevertheess, the Egyptian scribe Manetho, whose work, written around 285BC, forms the basis of ancient Egypt's chronology, states quite clearly that 'it was decided that women might hold the kingly office' as early as 3000 BC. He even places one of these female rulers as the end of the Amarna Period. So how much clearer does the evidence have to be [that Nefertiti herself was a pharaoh].

Sorry it's taken me a while to get around to this, Al. I browsed around a bit and I'll leave the pharaoh bit as you wrote it.

I'm part way through checking the article now and I've a couple of queries. Egyptology isn't my strong point, so I hope you'll bear with me.

You give Hatshepsup's titles as "King Maatkara Hatshepsut-KhnemetAmen" and then "His Majesty King Maatkara Hatshepsup-KhnermetAmen". I think the extra "r" in "Khnermet" is a mistake, but other than that I'm a bit lost. Various websites seem to name her with different spellings, but none runs "KhnemetAmen" together, rather they hyphenate it. Also they use a different order to you, so: Maatkare Khnemet-Amen Hatshepsut. If you have good authority for your way of writing it I'm happy to leave it, but I thought I'd best check.

"As a pharaoh, Hatshepsup could no longer function as the female god's Wife" - I'm confused (again) on this point. Is the god in question here the pharaoh, or had she been named as the wife of one of the gods? Also do female mayors need a mayoress in modern Britain or were you suggesting that as a weird analagous thing that we don't do?

Yes, you're quite right, the extra 'r' is a mistake.

Also put the hyphen in between 'Khnemet' and 'Amen'. (I took this from Joann Fletchers book wherer i only appeared once in the whole book, and spread over two lines where the hyphen should be - only she didn't use a hyphen).

Having Googled it I can see that it invariably has a hyphen

"As a pharaoh, Hatshepsup could no longer function as the female god's Wife" - I'm confused (again) on this point. Is the god in question here the pharaoh, or had she been named as the wife of one of the gods? "

Well, in Egyptian society the pharoah has the status of a God.

"Also do female mayors need a mayoress in modern Britain or were you suggesting that as a weird analagous thing that we don't do?"

Yes, in Britain female mayors are still called 'Mayor' and have a male consort - who is NOT known as the Mayoress.

The wife of a male mayor is known as the mayoress.

Just noticed this:

She even eventually dropped the feminine 't' suffix to her name thus becoming, in effect, His Majesty King Maatkara Hatshepsup-KhnermetAmen ('foremost of the nobles'.

She even eventually dropped the feminine 't' suffix to her name thus becoming, in effect, His Majesty King Maatkara Hatshepsup-KhnermetAmen ('foremost of the nobles'). i.e. insert closing bracket at the end.

Is it okay if I simply remove the reference to mayoresses? The weirdness of the situation is apparent without needing a modern-day analogy, I think.

Anyway, more queries and stuff:

Several websites suggest Hatshepsup died in 1481 BC, obviously contradicting your own dates. Any idea why this discrepancy? And are you happy with your own sources?

I added a footnote about the Nemes headdress and changed all the later "Hatshepsut"s to "Hatshepsup".

Is it okay if I simply remove the reference to mayoresses? The weirdness of the situation is apparent without needing a modern-day analogy, I think.

> Yes I'm happy with that.


'Several websites suggest Hatshepsup died in 1481 BC, obviously contradicting your own dates. Any idea why this discrepancy? And are you happy with your own sources?'

Well, on re-reading my Entry, I just realised that the difference between 1473 and 1458 is 17 years and not 15.

I've just looked at the w*k* Entry and they say 1479-1458 (21 years). It looks quite authorative, so let's go with that

'I added a footnote about the Nemes headdress and changed all the later "Hatshepsut"s to "Hatshepsup".'

I thought I'd already done that.

Okay, finally got around to it.

I wasn't going to take Wikipedia as an unimpeachable source, but the BBC and British Museum sites are on your side, except for a possible uncertainty as to which year she died.

This is ready to return if that's okay by you.

Yep, that's fine