Hatshepsut: Daughter of Amun

Introduction“...May you permit me to reach the eternal sky, the country of the favoured; may I join with the august and noble spirits of the realms of the dead; may I ascend with them to see your beauty...” From Spell 15, The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead [1] The ancient Egyptian belief system appears very confusing to us if we examine it with minds that have been conditioned to expect rational and scientific explanations for everything. But those of us who are aware that a great deal happens that is not amenable to rational and scientific explanation, have no problem in accepting the ancient Egyptian myths, not as fantasy, but as a different way of looking at reality — a way that shows up certain subtleties and complexities that we had not noticed before. The many gods of the Egyptian pantheon are not to be regarded literally as jackal-headed, ibis-headed, ram-headed — no more than Christians are to take it literally that Christ is a lamb and the Holy Ghost is a dove. Most people at some point in their lives feel that they have been helped by an invisible someone, and if they don’t immediately dismiss the experience as not having really happened, they will acknowledge their helper by a name drawn from their culture — St. Francis, Buddha, the angel Gabriel or, if they are ancient Egyptian, Ra, Djehuti or Ptah. They will also ponder about a life after the death of the body, about that mysterious part of them that has always felt more real to them than their body. Because we have only hints and clues, but no hard and fast facts about the other world, each culture uses its own familiar images to describe it. The ancient Egyptians saw the Duat, or other world, in images of rivers, of boats, of fields, of marshes, of deserts, and, as in their own temples, chambers and halls only entered with difficulty through heavily guarded doors. Osiris ruled as king over this world, seated in his great hall on his throne, receiving petitions and passing judgements. A giant pair of scales weighed the heart of the deceased against the feather of truth. They saw the body as only one aspect of the living being. They believed there were at least nine aspects in all, separating out at death. Some lingered on earth if the funerary rituals and spells were performed correctly, to pass invisibly in and out of the tomb, still taking an active part in the life of the world, helping their petitioners if required to do so, and enjoying the freedom to wander where and when they pleased. Others faced the tests and trials of the Duat and came at last, if “justified” or “true of voice”, to live in a kind of heaven, much like this world, but better. Others passed on to even higher realms, to the stars and beyond. Which of these many parts of the individual could and would come back to earth, reincarnated, to live again in the flesh but in a different body in a different time and place, is never made clear — but that this could and did happen was part of the belief system. Many a pharaoh had “Repeater of Births” among his many titles. An extraordinary number of people alive today believe that they once lived in ancient Egypt. The civilisation intrigues and fascinates us. The magnificence of the ruins left to us on either side of the Nile, of the art and the funerary treasures now residing in our museums, of the complex and profound mystic truths revealed to us since their hieroglyphs have been deciphered, has much to teach us. But more and more people find that intellectual interest alone cannot account for their attachment, their obsession, with a particular place and time in such a distant past. Usually these people find that any mention of anything to do with the reign of a particular pharaoh, any glimpse of a particular object from that era, gives them a shiver down the spine, almost a thrill of recognition. A belief in reincarnation is very old and very widespread. Many civilisations past and present have held faith in it without question. An increasing number of people these days use the word “karma” from the Hindu religion, meaning the working out in a present life of some problem from a past life. The ancient Celts believed so absolutely in it that debts from one life could be paid off in another. Others, like the Christians and the Jews, have edited out the belief from the main body of dogma, but it still survives in isolated pockets of esoteric teaching. For a long time the female pharaoh Hatshepsut has haunted me as she has haunted others. Her mortuary temple at Deir el Bahri in the western cliffs opposite modern Luxor, built to keep her memory alive forever, was defaced shortly after her death, her name obliterated and her images broken up or usurped by other pharaohs. No mortuary priests were appointed to perpetuate her cult and see that her “ka” was comfortable and nourished. In the king lists of Abydos her name is omitted as though she had never existed. Yet archaeologists have found references to her that escaped the chisels of her successor and the vandalism of time, and have built up a fairly full picture of her life. In this novel I have used what the Egyptologists have been able to discover about her, and the texts that she herself had inscribed on obelisks and temple walls. But I have also drawn on clues and hints I have received by less orthodox means. In the end I hope the picture I have drawn of Hatshepsut will have enough of history to satisfy those who want history, and enough of the “other” to make her story relevant to those who are experiencing their own complex and difficult journey through many realms and many lives. Those who have read my other novels, Guardians of the Tall Stones and The Silver Vortex, will be pleased to recognise Deva, daughter of Kyra, who set off from Bronze Age Britain to train as a priestess in Egypt, the land of her father. In this book she takes her ancient name Anhai.