No princesses are known to have been mothered by Mutnofret,

but the possibility does exist; if Mutnofret did bear a daughter, undoubtedly this princess—given the ages of the princes—would have been old enough to qualify.e. Hatshepsut’s Position as the Most Likely Candidate. All of the evidence points to Hatshepsut as the most likely candidate for Moses’ stepmother, for several reasons: (1) Hatshepsut’s blood-sister, Princess Akhbetneferu, was the only other daughter whom Queen Ahmose is known to have borne, but her death in infancy eliminates her candidacy. (2) Lady Mutnofret bore several sons to Thutmose I before she died, but there is no indication that she ever bore him any daughters.166 (3) The text of Exod 2:10 states that after “the child [Moses] grew, she [his mother] brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son.” Therefore, Moses’ Egyptian stepmother obviously lived a considerable length of time after she retrieved him from the Nile, increasing the likelihood that an account of this “Daughter of Pharaoh” (Exod 2:5) would be documented and preserved somewhere in the Egyptians’ detailed records, a qualification true of Hatshepsut alone.2. Identifying the Defacer of Hatshepsut’s Image. At some indeterminable time after Hatshepsut’s death, a serious attempt was made to obliterate all record of her from history. Many inscribed cartouches of her were erased, while her busts were smashed or broken into pieces, perhaps by gangs of workmen dispatched to various sites throughout Egypt. In some cases, the culprits carefully and completely hacked out the silhouette of her image from carvings, often leaving a distinct, Hatshepsut-shaped lacuna in the middle of a scene, often as a preliminary step to replacing it with a different image or royal cartouche, usually that of Thutmose I or II.167 At Karnak, her obelisks were walled-up and incorporated into the vestibule in front of Pylon V, while at Djeser-Djeseru her statues and sphinxes were removed, smashed, and cast into trash dumps.168a. Thutmose III as the Defacer of Hatshepsut’s Image. According to most Egyptologists, this massive effort to destroy all record of Hatshepsut’s existence was launched by Thutmose III, with a predictable motive: out of sexist pride, he attempted to eliminate every trace of this dreaded female pharaoh’s rule, intending to rewrite Egyptian history to portray a smooth succession of male rulers from Thutmose I to himself.169 “Wounded male pride may also have played a part in his decision to act; the mighty warrior king may have balked at being recorded for posterity as the man who ruled for 20 years under the thumb of a mere woman.”170 But was Thutmose III actually the perpetrator? Did he seethe with hatred and resentment toward his former coruler before viciously attacking all remnants of her? Are cavalier accusations of sexism justifiable? The theory that Thutmose III was the culprit behind this vicious crime is severely weakened by several factors.(1) If Thutmose III did deface her image, it would be inconsistent with how he otherwise related to her memory. A scene on the dismantled Chapelle Rouge at Djeser-Djeseru portrays Hatshepsut and identifies her as “The Good God, Lady of the Two Lands, Daughter of Ra, Hatshepsut.”171 Thutmose III, who is pictured as steering his barque toward Deir el-Bahri, actually completed the Chapelle Rouge, added the topmost register of decorations in his own name, then claimed the shrine as his own. Also, Hatshepsut’s name is still preserved in her Monthu temple at Armant, which Thutmose III enlarged. Such preservation of her handiwork and further construction on her building projects would be extremely unlikely if he truly despised Hatshepsut so greatly. Furthermore, Thutmose III planned the construction of his own temple to Amun, called Djeser-Akhet, which was to be built at Deir el-Bahri, directly south of Djeser-Djeseru. Since Hatshepsut greatly built-up Deir el-Bahri, including massive terraces and her own temple next to the one that Thutmose III subsequently built, this construction site is inexplicable if he felt such overwhelming, sexist hatred toward her.172(2) If Thutmose III was the culprit, he waited at least 20 years after she left office before whimsically desecrating her image. He could not have accomplished the feat before his 42nd regnal year, a full 20 years after Hatshepsut left office. Thutmose III’s construction projects at Karnak—which include the Hall of Annals, whose texts were written no earlier than Year 42—inadvertently concealed a few inscriptions and illustrations related to Hatshepsut. The scenes were in place by Year 42, yet show no signs whatsoever of any desecration. Conversely, those parts of the scenes that were unprotected by his post-Year-42 construction were defaced during the anti-Hatshepsut campaign. It seems impossible that he would wait until over 20 years after she had left office to initiate a campaign of anti-feminism out of personal hatred. “While it is possible to imagine and even empathize with Thutmose III indulging in a sudden whim of hatred against his stepmother immediately after her death, it is far harder to imagine him overcome by such a whim some 20 years later.”173 Moreover, this whim would have been a schizophrenic one, given Thutmose III's recent positive disposition toward Hatshepsut, as displayed by his completion of her projects at Djeser-Djeseru and Armant.(3) If Thutmose III was the culprit, he must have had sufficient motive to attempt to prevent her from living eternally. According to Egyptian religion, removing the name or image of a deceased person was a direct assault on his/her spirit. For him to live forever in the Field of Reeds, his body, image, or name must survive on earth. If all memory of him were lost or destroyed, the spirit too would perish, initiating the much-dreaded “second death,” a total obliteration from which there could be no return. This act against Hatshepsut was an attempt to condemn her to oblivion – a fate worse than death for an Egyptian.174 Thus the extermination of Hatshepsut’s image from the earth was indeed a drastic step: the removal of her spirit from its perpetual existence in the afterlife.175 Such reprisal seems far too severe to fit the motive of mere sexism.(4) If Thutmose III was the culprit, why were there also attacks against the name and monuments of Senenmut, the foreign chief-advisor of Hatshepsut who disappeared from record in or after Hatshepsut’s 19th regnal year (ca. 1488/7 BC)? Occasionally his name was violated while his image remained intact, but some of his statues were smashed and literally thrown out of temples.176 This attack upon her male chief-advisor’s image can hardly be justified if Thutmose III was motivated purely by anti-feministic hatred toward Hatshepsut. Other options are offered to justify this extreme act committed by Thutmose III. (1) He wanted to atone for the offense of a female pharaoh against maat (“justice, truth”), a word used to describe the continuity in the universe that derived from the approval of the gods.177 (2) The unorthodox coregency might have cast serious doubt on the legitimacy of his own right to rule, so he wanted to ensure both the legitimacy of his reign and his legacy. Neither of these options, however, addresses why Thutmose III would wait so long before beginning his anti-Hatshepsut campaign. Certainly he did not learn of the compromise that Hatshepsut’s reign was to the state of maat only after he was an aged king; likewise, after 20 years of sole rule, his reign was secure, and his successful campaigning already had solidified for him a lasting legacy, so defiling her image would not, in any conceivable way, further legitimize his reign.b. Amenhotep II as the Defacer of Hatshepsut’s Image. No Egyptologist has answered satisfactorily the nagging question of who was responsible for the widespread campaign to obliterate Hatshepsut’s image from Egypt’s annals, and what possible motive there could be for such a severe act of rage. Since the responsible



Rosetta Stone Chinese