Women and Power in Ancient Egypt - Kara Cooney Lectures at RAFFMA

[DR. KARA COONEY] This work,
and you know, Kate said I've

looked at over 300 coffins.

Really when you put it
with my dissertation

work, it's over 400.

And it's rather insane,
and when one gets mired

in coffin studies, you're
dealing with databases and

spreadsheets and copyright
issues, and it's quite

time-consuming morass of data.

And so, it comes

(laughs)

as a great relief, a pause,
a moment of reflection for

me to work on these trade
books instead, to go from

one kind of work to another.

And this has worked quite well
for me as an Egyptologist.

Sometimes I'm deep
in the spreadsheet,

I'm trying to figure
things out and using

academic jargon, many
of you in the audience

know what I'm talking about,
and other times I'm writing

for the public, and I'm trying
to make Egypt relevant,

and I'm looking at the world,
okay, let me put it this way.

An Egyptologist like Kate
and I would never ask each

other why we study Egyptology,
though we both know that it's

the question we've probably
most commonly answered.

When did you decide
to be an Egyptologist?

Why are you an Egyptologist?

But we both know that
for whatever weird,

cracked, crazy reason,
we see the world around us

better or best through the
lens of the ancient world.

I don't know why,
but I am able to

understand systems of
government, economic systems.

I'm able to understand systems
of power best by looking

at it through the lens of
my beloved ancient Egypt,

and then applying it
to the present day.

Not only that,
Egypt affords us

an amazing gift,
which is 3,000 years

of more or less the
same governmental system,

same cultural system, same
religious system, same language.

And within those
3,000 years you've got

a series of ups and downs.

You have boom and bust,
you have collapse

and regeneration.

And we can see the human
reactions to all of those.

That is an extraordinary
gift to be able to say,

this is the way human
beings react when X happens.

This is the way humans
react when Y happens.

And so, I am here as
an Egyptologist to tell

you that in this age
of anti-intellectualism,

where people are saying,
'What good is a history degree?'

I'm like, 'Well,
let me tell you.'

(audience members laugh)

Egyptology is incredibly useful,
and it's useful for studies of

women, and women in power.

I teach a course at UCLA
called Women in Power

in the Ancient World.

And I've been doing this
class for the last five years.

And I spend half of
the class on Egypt,

and then I spend a week
on Persia, a week on Rome,

a week on China, a week on
the Levant and Mesopotamia.

And I'm doing a comparative
study on why we don't trust

women in the halls of power,
why it is so very hard for women

to attain real political power.

And I'm not interested in this
class or in this book about

women whispering something
to the king behind the throne

trying to get what she wants.

I'm not interested in that
kind of informal power.

I'm interested in formal
expressions of political power.

When do we give it to women?

When do we not?

And Egypt is this strange
and cracked place,

which I will discuss,
that allows women into

power more regularly and
systematically than anywhere

in the ancient world, and more
regularly and systematically

than we allow into power today.

In the longer version of this
talk that I do with the National

Geographic Institute Association
group, I don't, what are they?

A society, that's what they are.

I have a whole discussion
about how women do not have

power today, economically,
politically, militarily,

or ideologically,
and then I go into

the anthropological
reasons for that,

what it's like in a
hunter-gatherer society,

what it's like in an
agricultural society.

And then we're all
thoroughly depressed.

(audience members laugh)

And then I go to Egypt and I
say, "But Egypt was able to

"surmount these obstacles
and allowed women to power

in a way that no other
agricultural society did."

And then I asked,
'Why is that?'

And I continue,
and I hope this

haunts you as I go
through six women who

achieved formal states
of power in Egypt, I hope

the question haunts you,
why do we in our society still

not allow women into power?

And why is this our reality?

(all laugh)

This is from before the
last election, right?

You see Paul Ryan and you're
like, 'No, no, this is,

you have to update this.'

And you're right,
I do have to update it.

But nothing speaks to what
I'm talking about now better

than the last Congress.

Because the last Congress
was incredibly masculine,

incredibly white, lacked
diversity on all fronts.

And it made me realize that
when people are afraid,

because I think this
country, right and left,

the thing that unites us the
most is the fear that we are all

falling over the cliff, right?

That's what we can all agree on.

We may have completely
different ways for how

to heal that problem,
but we all are very afraid.

And when people are afraid,
they often turn towards the

patriarchy, whatever that is,
we can break it down.

They turn towards what
makes them feel safe,

that decisive masculine power.

They turn towards this
same way of doing things,

or they even turn towards
an authoritarianism,

which is the subject
of my next book,

which I don't have time
to talk about either.

But it interests me that the
way fear makes people turn

towards certain directions
of power and that females

have nothing to do with them.

So, now we come to this topic
of women in power in ancient

Egypt and why this was such a
systematic and regular thing.

Now, keep in mind I'm gonna
be talking about six women,

five of whom became nothing
less than leaders of

state, king, right?

And I'm not talking about the
dozens of other women that acted

as regent for a young king.

Coming in, pulling the strings
of the government, and then

when that boy is old enough,
stepping back into the shadows,

letting him run the show.

I'll be talking about one
and a half, in a sense.

But I'm leaving those women out
of this discussion and focusing

on the women that were able
to take that kind of power

and move it a step beyond.

But this is a place that allows
women into power so often that

we need to question why that is.

And so, I am led to a map.

In my class,
Women in Power

in the Ancient World,
I usually start with

a map of each region.

And I show the map

And I say, oh,
this doesn't

look so great.

Can you guys kind of
see it, more or less?

The Nile is there,
you get some understanding

of what's going on.

Is this place unitable?

Is this place protected?

Is this place geographically
in tune with the allowance

of female power?

Seems a strange question
for me to ask, right?

How can you look at a map
and know that females will

be allowed into power or not?

Well, you actually can.

And the more I taught the class
Women in Power in the Ancient

World, the more I realized,
oh, my goodness, you know,

you can look at a map and
decide, will women be able

to rule in this place?

Now, Egypt is a very different
and special geographic region.

Unique.

It is protected
on all four sides.

It's got deserts on east
and west, on the east,

you can add the Red Sea just to
make a little harder to invade,

Mediterranean Sea to the north,
and then down to the south

where you have this artery
of the Nile cutting through

the desert, and of course,
the Nile is the only reason

anything exists in Egypt at
all, it's a gift of that Nile.

In the south,
at a place called Elephantine,

and then five or six times
further south, you have

these giant granite boulders
in the middle of the river.

So, even if you wanted to
bring some naval invading

force with all your ships
straight up the river,

you'd hit those granite
blocks and you and your

naval force would have to
take the boats out of the

river, go around and just
carry them around the boulders,

put them back in the water,
and then head up north again.

So, even the South is protected.

This is a place that does not
suffer foreign invasion very

often for most of its history.

It is a place where
different ethnicities,

and different languages,
and different religious

systems coming into this
place for most of its pharaonic

history, this is quite rare.

Until the invasion of
a series of empires,

starting with the Assyrian,
going with the Babylonian,

then the Persians,
then Alexander the Great,

this place existed in
a microcosm of safety,

where you can have
the same language,

the same religious system,
the same government

for over 3,000 years.

This is a very special and
protected place, a place where

warlording is not the norm.

Compare this in your minds
to what you hear in the news

about Syria, Mesopotamia, what
we would call Iraq, or Rome,

or Greece in the ancient world.

There you have places that
are much more competitive

and geographically do not
have the same barriers that

this place has protected.

War lording pays dividends.

You will be rewarded for raising
an army, marching into Babylon,

taking out the king,
and claiming that city

as your own, and you know,
you might just win.

Whereas here,
war lording is

discouraged either
geographically from

the outside in, but it's
also discouraged within.

Because within you have
this Nile that floods its

banks when it's doing it
as it's supposed to.

Egyptians would tell us
there's a way it should work

(laughs)

And a way it shouldn't.

Not too much flooding,
not too little flooding.

But every year it floods its
banks and it leaves behind this

thick layer of rich Nile silt.

You sprinkle your seeds on it,
you let your animals and your

children run on it, and just,
you know, a couple weeks

later you have fat, juicy
kernels of wheat and barley.

Herodotus in the 5th century
visited this place and he's

like, 'Damn, this is insane.'

He's like, "In Greece we have
to move the rocks and then we

have to plow and it's so hard."

In Egypt,
you're just

like, la, la, la.

(audience members laugh)

And everyone's drunk and
there's too many people

and nobody has to work
that hard, and it's awesome.

That creates a kind
of society too.

It creates a society where you
don't need to warlord because

you don't have the same kinds
of scarcity that you have in

Mesopotamia, or the Levant,
or Greece, or Rome.

And so, warlording on the
inside is discouraged as well.

And indeed, we compare Egyptian
politics to Greece or

Rome at our peril.

Because regicide in Egypt,
you can count them on the

fingers of one hand, the
ones that we know about.

This is a very rare
and unusual thing.

This is a place that
geographically and

culturally has developed
the most perfected form

of divine kingship the
world has ever seen,

where you might have
problems in the kingship,

there could be an issue
with the succession,

and the king dies early
after only ten years of

rule and he leaves an
eight-year-old son of

his choice behind,
in addition to

many other sons,
but he leaves this

eight-year-old behind.

And in any other
part of the world,

in Mesopotamia or
Greece or Rome,

the guy holding
the bloody knife

who just killed the
eight-year-old and all

of the eight-year-old's
family hold it up

And he's like,
'I'm king next!'

And everyone's like, "You are.

"good for you.

You're king."

And in Egypt,
everyone throws

themselves to the
ground and they're

like, 'Dear eight-year-old,
what would like us to do?'

I have an eight-year-old boy,

(audience members laugh)

Who was born under the
full moon of Taurus.

And I didn't use to believe
in that stuff until I had a

kid who was born under the
full moon of Taurus and now,

trust me, I understand what
willfulness means and how it

is given to us by the God.

(audience members laugh)

But I did not want that
kid in charge of my house,

let alone my nation, right?

So, you have to come up with a
different method that's gonna

keep this divine kingship
safe and fun in Mesopotamia,

the Levant, Greece or Rome.

If you let a kid rule,
you're gonna have somebody older

come in and make decisions on
his behalf and you're probably

gonna have a man do so.

What's gonna happen if an
uncle of the kid comes in

and rules on his behalf?

The brother of the dead king.

I have a saying amongst
my students at UCLA.

It's a very useful saying.

It's very short.

Many of you may have
heard it before.

You've heard me speak.

And the saying is two words,
and it is because testicles.

(audience members laugh)

I say it so much that
a grad student made me

a t-shirt that says,
'Because testicles,'

and then she put the
hieroglyph for the penis on it.

I'm like,
"I can never

wear this shirt.

"What do you expect?

(audience members laugh)

I can't."

(audience members laugh)

So, I just lovingly put it
aside, and it was just in a

drawer, and I can never wear it,
in sparkly glitter

paint, whatever.

(audience members laugh)

But because testicles,
you can't have the uncle

of the young kid come in
and be the decision maker.

I'm not saying he's necessarily
going to assassinate the kid.

But the chances
are higher, right?

It is riskier.

Whereas if you have a woman
come in, mother of the kid,

maybe the aunt, we'll discuss,
it's going to be less risky.

And this brings up the other
thing I want to haunt you as

we're talking about this.

Do women rule
differently from men?

In some way, and the way I hear
yeses and often I'll hear nos.

And I don't think we as
a society have completely

figured this out yet because
we don't let them rule.

So, we don't know what
the options are yet.

But the Egyptians believed
that women ruled differently.

And the Egyptians,
to keep this system

running and to keep it safe,
systematically allowed

the woman to come in to
keep the divine kingship

safe, to keep it working.

And here's the most
uncomfortable part

of working through
this book, working

through the female power.

I'm not here to write a
revisionist history for you.

I'm not here to make you
feel happy and cushy with

rainbows and puppy love
about the women of the past.

I am here to tell you
the truth as a historian.

And the uncomfortable truth for
me, having gone through all of

these women, is that it is in
the most authoritarian state

on the planet, with the most
perfected divine kingship

that we see female power.

Only there.

It is where female power
is forced upon its people

that it is most accepted.

It is in the most unequal
of social situations,

the most pyramidal of
social situations, that

female power is allowed.

Otherwise, if you go to
Greece or Rome, let's go

to the Greek Democratia.

Very broad
understanding of power.

Everyone who's a citizen has a
say in their assembly, right?

One man falls, another
man takes his place.

Women have no say in this
society and in this culture.

Women have so little political
power and men have so much that

there's actually a political
sexual understanding to

male love in Greece.

That true love,

(laughs)

If you read your Greek
texts very carefully,

is male-male, not female-male.

The women are full of deceit,
and witchcraft, and problems,

and read your Pandora's box
discussion and you see it,

Oh, my goodness.

But in Egypt,
the woman is what

keeps this safe.

The woman is the
placeholder to allow this

patriarchy to continue.

That's the uncomfortable
reality for me.

And I just wrote a piece in
Time Magazine about this,

that the woman usually
serves the patriarchy

without even thinking,
without even knowing

what she's doing.

It doesn't matter if there's
a woman in power, what is

the agenda of that woman?

So, this is very much
my discussion for today.

If women do rule differently,
what is their agenda?

How are we to understand
their place in this society?

Now, many of you in the audience
might be annoyed that I have

used the word female king twice.

You're like,
"Why did she do that?

"That's stupid.

(audience members laugh)

"She could just
use the word queen.

We do."

And I will say,
in the ancient

Egyptian language,
the word queen

connotes no power.

It is a sexual
helpmate of the king.

It is something that is,
it has nothing to do with

politics or decision-making.

When the Egyptians chose a
woman to be king, in this case,

Hatshepsut from our obelisk.

Can you see the
central column there?

Top word, Nesut is used.

They used the word king,
so I'm gonna use the word king.

That's the way I've
decided to do it.

So, just a little
justification there

So I don't get that
question in the Q&A,

which I always do, otherwise.

So, now I want to go
through our six women.

How much time do
I have until 2 40?

Who's running the show?

2 50?

Okay.

Alright.

So, we'll go through these,
really five, 'cause I don't

have a whole lot of time for
Tawosret here, and she's

more Game of Thrones than
you can possibly imagine.

(audience members laugh)

So, we're gonna skip over her.

And I can stand here by the
podium and say, 'You can buy

the book,' which is awesome.

But let's start with
Merneith of Dynasty 1,

and gain an understanding
that this female power in

ancient Egypt to protect an
authoritarian patriarchal

regime, yeah, those words
just rolled off my tongue.

The female power is the
other side of the coin of

that patriarchal regime.

It comes with it.

You have to have the
one without the other.

There is no way to
avoid the female power.

You could argue,
and the Egyptologists

in the room know what I'm
talking about, that there

are Dynasty 0 examples of
very, very strong female power.

Merneith is just the
most well-documented

for us to start with,
but it could have even

had an earlier beginning.

So, when Egyptologists
found Merneith's tomb,

they found it in a
place called Abydos,

Middle Egypt, along the Nile,
out in the western desert sands.

And they looked at the layout
of the tomb and they looked at

the horizontal stratigraphy,
they're like, king's tomb

there, king's tomb there,
now we're digging here,

must be another king's tomb.

They find the grave
marker, the stela,

and they look at that
and they're like, "Yup,

looks like the others.

"We're all good.

It's a king."

And then they start
to look and compare.

And they're like,
"Wait a minute,

something's missing.

"Something is a little bit off.

There are two things missing
from Merneith's stela."

Merneith whose name
means the beloved one

of the goddess Neith.

The name is not
really gonna help us.

There's not at the end.

Egyptian names are useful.

It's Smurf or Smurfette, right?

(audience members laugh)

So, it's the same with Merneith.

Some would be like, 'No,
there is a t,' some

would be like, 'No,
there's not,' but it

depends on how it's written.

But the two things that are
missing are the falcon at the

top, porous and carnic, kingship
on earth, and the palace facade,

that mud brick walled fortress
that goes around the inner

sanctum where the king
and his court dwell.

Those two things are
missing from her stela.

So, the Egyptologists are like,
'Huh, I wonder what's going on.'

And then they find a tiny
little label, this big,

affixed to a commodity
in her, well, I wouldn't

wanna give it away, in one
of the later king's tombs.

And this tiny little label,
they see, okay, we have Djer,

we have Djet, we have Den,
and then what have we got here?

We have the king's
mother, Merneith.

So, they're like, oh,
it's not exactly the

correct lineup,
but she's named as

the king's mother,
they're like, 'Oh, I got it.

She's there as the regent.'

Djet must have died too early,
leaving Den on the throne too

young, demanding somebody
to be the decision maker,

somebody to act as regent.

Who better than
the king's mother?

This starts off in Dynasty 1.

(fingers snap)

Soon as they can do it,
they institute this as a

pattern, and as a system.

Now, how did she get there?

How does this work?

I say her father, Djer,
and in the book I talk

about the king, Djer,
as her father, given how

high Merneith's station is.

It is an assumption that
I make, and I'm clear

about it in the book.

It's possible this guy is
not her father, but we'll

leave it there for now.

But Merneith would have been
a girl when this very powerful

and long-lived King Djer died.

And this would have been one
of her earliest memories,

a memory seared into her brain.

Because at Djer's death,
and at the death of any

First Dynasty king, the
courtiers were separated,

and it was determined who
among them would accompany

the king into death themselves.

So, they were sacrificed.

We don't know the method.

I'll show you some
of the skeletons.

They could have been poisoned,
they could have been strangled,

they could have been starved,
we've got nothing.

There's very little evidence.

And the archaeologists
who found most of these

skeletons only kept the heads.

Annoying, right?

(audience members laugh)

I have a graduate student,
Rose Campbell, for those of

you that know her, who's
working on isotope analysis,

and she's heading to London
and Cambridge soon, where there

are hundreds of such heads.

And she's gonna be looking at
these skulls and determining

where these people grew up,
'cause you can tell that from

the isotopes, what kind of
health and nutrition they had.

And this work has
not been done yet.

But the work that has been done
suggests that the people who

were sacrificed to surround the
king's tomb were buried at one

time and were wealthy people,
well-nourished people, people

who were probably courtiers,
people with whom you shared a

meal, people who were probably
family members of yours.

And when Djer dies,
hundreds of people

met their end.

Think of this.

We have this phrase, the king is
dead, long live the king, right?

Well, think of it this way.

The king is dead,
long live the king.

You say it fast like that
'cause you don't want any

vulnerability coming in between.

You know it's a time period
of great potential problems.

You wanna make sure everybody's
safe and everybody's taken care

of, that you go to the next
kingship when you're moving

from one government to another.

And to make this more seamless,
the Egyptians of the First

Dynasty hit upon a rather
brilliant but macabre and

brutal plan, which is to
show the king's power over

life and death itself.

And to also, I would argue,
take out potential

threats from society.

So, if you're worried about,
you know, you've got your king,

you place him on the throne,
who are you most worried

about as you do that in that
a most vulnerable situation?

Well, you're worried about
the other guys who could

have taken that position.

Those are the ones who are
most of a threat to the guy

who's sitting on the throne.

He's the one, in a sense,
that needs this sacrifice.

You put them around the burial
of the king before, but really

the dead do not bury themselves.

This is about the guy
who's sitting on the

throne now and what he
needs in the here and now.

And what the guy who comes next,
Djet, after Djer's burial needs

now, is some sacrifice of older
men, but not a whole lot.

Djer has more females buried
in his tomb than he has males.

And this is based on
archaeological reports

that are problematic,
but we're gonna leave it there.

But he has a great number
of dead that accompany him.

And I would argue that any
threats to the throne are

eliminated in a very quick
couple of weeks as they

put this man to death.

Each person gets their own
little marker, their own name,

a little designation
of their gender.

Even if you can't tell from a
skeleton what the gender is,

you can use these markers to
determine what the gender is.

Ellen Morris is the person whose
work I follow the most on this.

Laurel Bestock as well,
if you guys wanna follow up.

Now, Merneith is not
slated for sacrifice,

but she may have seen
her own mother die in

front of her eyes.

We have no way of knowing.

This is history from
5,000 years ago.

But the burial of the king
would have been accompanied

by a keening and mourning
that we have no concept of.

Imagine somebody very important
dying and then imagine that

they take out 500 other very
important people right

in front of your eyes,
and you have to watch

that in a ritual.

Absolutely brutal.

Merneith watches all of that.

She marries the next
king, the guy Djet.

She then watches as he dies,
and then the selection

is made again.

Now, he dies a little too early.

He dies leaving Den, her son,
to rule before his time.

However this happens,
and this is one of the most

mysterious things about any
authoritarian regime, how is the

successor to the throne chosen?

How is this choice made?

What is the realpolitik?

How is the regent chosen?

Do they choose the successor
by which regent is best

or other way around?

We don't know.

But Merneith is chosen as
regent, her son is the king.

And now who's gonna be in
charge of the selection at

the death of her husband?

Well, we have to
assume it's her.

So, you have to look at
this again as the dead

do not bury themselves.

The living are the ones
who are doing this.

The kid on the
throne is too young.

Let's assume he's 12 years old.

Not ready to rule yet,
but not incredibly young either.

And Merneith is the one
saying, 'Him, him, him,

her, and him, him.'

And these people are
all sacrificed in front

of everybody else.

Merneith doesn't have
to die because she's

there as Queen Regent,
but I imagine she sacrificed

or saw sacrifice many women
her age, who accompanied

her husband maybe from the
harem into his burial place.

She's the one that's
calling the shots.

Each one gets a little
burial marker of their own.

Each one gets a room of
his or her own in a sense.

This is a very
brilliant, if brutal,

plan of making sure that
everyone understands who

has the power.

This is an interesting,
if you look at comparative

anthropology and you look
at incipient states,

you look at nascent states,
this is a feature you see

in Africa and Europe and
Asia, in the New World.

That in these states
when a kingship is new,

sacrificial burial often goes
along with it for the king.

It is a great and quick,
efficient means of showing

who has the power and that
you better move along with

this and not rock the boat.

Do what you need to do.

This is what the dead look
like as they are buried,

they're accompanied with
these markers, with grave

goods, sometimes with jewelry,
buried on their side in a fetal

position as if they're sleeping,
there are no marks

of murder, nothing.

So, even though we have symbols
like little labels like this,

and in the top right corner
you see somebody stabbing

somebody in the chest,
that seems to be more

of an enemy combatant.

This doesn't seem to be what
we're talking about here.

Matthew Adams,
the archaeologist who

works at Abydos now,
he thinks it's a

mass cyanide death.

Like a Jonestown
kind of thing, right?

A Guyana Punch sort of deal.

And that that was a really easy
way to dispatch hundreds of

people in public in one moment.

We don't know.

Until we have better access

to the bioarcheological remains,
this is going to remain

a mystery for some time.

Now, Den rules,
he has the best and

greatest rule of all
of the Dynasty 1 kings.

He expands Egypt's borders
the farthest that they've

ever been expanded.

Merneith is there alongside
him for much of his rule.

And when she dies in his reign,
she is buried like a king.

She does not ever receive
the status of a king herself.

She's not a co-king.

She is just a regent.

Her status is
completely informal.

And yet she's buried in
the lineup of other kings.

She's put into the king
list as king's mother.

She's afforded an
incredible amount of status.

And yet, a pattern, oh,
given a tomb like this as

reconstructed, and yet just two
generations later, she's already

removed from the king list.

This is a pattern that
we will see repeated.

The woman is there as a
placeholder in the moment

to keep the patriarchal
system going, to link

from one king to the next,
from one patriarch to the next.

If you need a woman to
keep the system safe,

everyone's gonna
be okay with me.

They're gonna include her in
the king list during the time,

but then as soon as they move on
to somebody who's disconnected

from her, phew, she's gotta go.

She doesn't fit.

And so, then we see all of these
kings moving in this direction.

You've got the Djer, Djet, Den,
and then you move on to

a different king.

No mention of Merneith
anywhere in the list.

So, now we're gonna skip
a number of dynasties

and go up to Dynasty 12.

Those of you that want me
to talk about Tawosret,

it's in the book.

There are no contemporary
documents for her during

that time period, so we will
not be able to speak about her

as an actual living person.

But Neferusobek, we can.

Some of you may know
her as Sobekneferu.

Much disagreement about
how her name should be

pronounced and spoken.

We'll leave it this way for now.

This woman was born into
a very formidable dynasty,

an incredibly strong dynasty,
a dynasty that begins with a

regicide, and then is very
protective from that point on,

making sure that it keeps the
money and the power and the

influence within the family.

Her grandfather was the
formidable Senwosret III,

who also expanded Egypt's
borders farther than we've ever

seen, who lived very, very long.

And his son is Amenemhet III.

This is Neferusobek's father,
also a very, very strong king.

Both of them great builders,
both of them making statuary

that was so successful
aesthetically that it was

reused for millennia afterwards.

She may have married
Amenemhet IV.

This is where the history starts
to get really problematic.

And those of you who know your
end of the 12th Dynasty history,

how many of you are there?

(audience members laugh)

That's right, no hands at all.

(audience members laugh)

I like that.

Good, because it's
very problematic.

Some people think that
this guy wasn't a king's

son at all and that he's
marrying into the family.

Other people think
this was a king's son.

We're never gonna
know these things.

Remember, an authoritarian
regime is not going to

give away its secrets.

It's going to give away
only perfection, idealism.

Everything is the
way it should be.

He's depicted as a king's son,
he names himself as a king's

son, I'm gonna go along with it.

Not gonna hurt me.

Though I do believe as
an Egyptologist it is my

responsibility to try to
figure out what these guys are

telling us by not telling us.

I'm distrustful of
all of the data.

I don't like to drink
the Kool-Aid, as I think

most Egyptologists do.

We accept the
authoritarian regime and

the information we're given.

And we don't question the data
enough, trying to figure out

what the propaganda is and
what the realpolitik could

be behind the propaganda.

But here we've got this dude,
Amenemhet IV, who is married

to Neferusobek, may have been
her half-brother, maybe not,

we don't know, but oof, he dies,
and there is no heir to the

throne in any way, shape,
or form that we can identify.

There's nobody,
there's nobody left.

So, what do we have instead
but maybe a problem with

incest in ancient Egypt?

(laughs)

I don't know.

But I do know that incest
happened in ancient Egypt

pretty regularly.

Tutankhamun is an example
of it, we have other kings,

Dynasty 19's Siptah had a
club leg and it was probably

a product of incest.

The Ptolemies are well known
for their incestuous pairings.

Hell, European monarchs
are well known for their

own incestuous pairings.

I have a picture of Charles II
here with his ginormous head

that needed a special pillow
and his overly large jaw.

And we could think of
Nicholas II, Tsar of Russia,

and his hemophilia also being
the product of incest.

Incest is a very useful tool,
especially in a dynasty that's

trying to keep power inside
of its own system and

not give it all away.

This is the best I've got as a
solution for why you can have

such strong kings and then all
of a sudden have nothing and

end up with a female king.

How could that possibly happen?

How could the harem
just come up empty?

Well, we've seen it
before in ancient Egypt,

and we'll see it later.

This is the best solution
that I have to this problem,

though it's not necessarily
the only one.

But it results in Egypt's
first female kingship.

Let me go back to the
incest a little bit,

'cause who doesn't
wanna talk about more?

Think about it,
'cause a lot of you in

the audience are probably
like, "Those ancient Egyptians,

they're so stupid
"and primitive,

and why would they even
do something so ridiculous?

We would never do that."

Well, really?

'cause all this is,
is a short-term

decision based on the
opportunism of the moment.

So, let's put it this way,
if you're an elite,

a very high-level elite,
a courtier in the palace

and you're one of four other
guys who is able to whisper

when the king is sick and the
decision you guys make could

actually hold some weight, and
you guys are talking with each

other and you're like, "Okay,
we have a couple of choices.

What are you guys thinking?"

You're not gonna put
this down in writing,

authoritarian regimes
don't do that.

You're gonna talk about it.

And you're gonna be
like, "Okay, well,

we've got a couple of choices.

"We've got this strong
strapping lad whose in-laws

are from the "South, and they
have their own private army,

and they all wanna "have jobs
if we bring him in as king.

"or we could get the rather
dim-witted, large-headed,

"incestuous product of
the brother-sister kingly

marriage, and all our
jobs would be awesome,

and we'd go on as before."

And everyone's like,
"Yeah, let's do that.

(audience members laugh)

Let's go with that
short-term solution."

And if you think we don't
make short-term solutions,

just think of global warming
and climate change.

And this being what,
the fourth hottest

summer the world has ever,
year the world has ever seen,

and we still all have plastic
water bottles in our bags and

there's a plastic island
between here and Hawaii.

And yet we never do anything to
change the system because there

will be job loss or whatever.

And so, we all continue to make
our short-term decision to keep

the can down the road a little
bit more, instead of thinking

of the long-term repercussions.

Human beings are not good at
long-term decision making at

all, which is another thing that
I've noticed from ancient Egypt.

And it's a good thing to
apply to the modern world,

(laughs)

If a depressing one.

Now, the first female kingship
that Neferusobek creates is

an interesting one, because
she shows herself as a woman.

She has breasts,
she's wearing a dress,

but she layers the
kingship onto her person.

She ties a masculine
kingly kilt over her dress,

and she puts that Nemes
headdress under her head,

the one you know from Tut's
mask in your mind's eye,

that's what she puts on.

And so, she's not hiding
the fact that she's woman,

she is layering these elements
of kingship upon her person.

Her kingship lasts
for just a few years,

about four at most, though
there's disagreement about

this, and she leaves no legacy.

One of the most interesting
things to me about Neferusobek

is that the Egyptians let
her get away with it all.

Because there's no heir to
the throne that we can see,

there's only this woman left.

They know that Dynasty 12 is
gonna end, and it's gonna go

to the ne-, well, they don't
call it Dynasty 12, right?

But they know it's gonna end,
and they're gonna go to

Dynasty 13, why bother?

Well, because in this system
of divine kingship, she is

the last holder of that royal
ka, that spirit of kingship.

And everyone bows down to her.

She's the last recipient of it,
so she gets to finish it out.

That's an extraordinary
thing in and out of itself.

But Neferusobek should not be,
her decision making should not

be overlooked, because she also
justifies it in a way that works

for the people around her, so
they don't see it as a threat.

And the way that she does that
is she justifies her kingship

through her father's lineage,
not by mentioning her

dead husband-brother.

She doesn't go about,
you wouldn't even,

this is why we don't know
who Amenemhet IV was, because

she gives him so little play.

She doesn't talk about
him, she doesn't name him,

she doesn't make any
monuments to him,

his name is nowhere
connected to her stuff,

but her father's name
is everywhere.

And that is useful for her,
and it's something that we

actually understand as well.

We trust more those women who
are coming in as leaders in

a strict linear progression.

We trust more the woman who's
protecting her son in power.

We trust more the daughter
who's acting for her father

in power, than we do the
sister or the wife.

And I can give you an
easy political example

from the last 20 years.

You guys are probably
thinking of it right now, no?

You're thinking of Hillary
Clinton in the 90s when she

tried to create health care as
wife of the president, informal

power appear to her husband?

Who the hell does
she think she is?

Everybody said it.

What is going on?

I don't understand how,
and we feel threatened by this.

It threatens our
patriarchal system.

But in today's White House,
the base that supports the

current president has no problem
with Ivanka having an office

in the White House, acting as
an advisor for her father.

And this is very cleverly done,
whereas Melania is like, 'No,

I'm not getting into
that,' right?

She knows.

She's there as the wife.

She's learned from
Hillary's mistakes.

I am not gonna try to take
power, but Ivanka can do so,

and she can do so with impunity,
because we respect that kind

of patriarchal lineage.

Very interesting way that
female power must be packaged,

and Hatshepsut knows
to do this as well.

And here we move on to her.

So, Hatshepsut of Dynasty
18 is the most powerful

of all of our women.

She's the one that is really
able to leave Egypt better

than she found it, save her
dynasty, leave a legacy.

She rules for about
22 years altogether.

And

yet most of you maybe,
maybe, maybe you guys.

How many can pronounce
her name well?

But everyone's
like, 'I don't know.

Hatshepsut

(unintelligible)

' We'll get to that.

She starts out as Egypt's
greatest high priestess.

For those of you in the know,
this would be the God's

wife of Amun stationed
at Thebes in the South.

There were maybe other high
priestesses, but for all we

can see, this is the most
important of them all.

And she is placed in this
position probably under

her father, Thutmose I.

She continues in this position
alongside her half-brother

husband, Thutmose II,

(gasps)

Incest!

(audience members laugh)

To to to.

She ends up, so, all together,
she is the king's daughter,

she is the king's sister,
she is the king's wife,

'cause she's married to
her brother, but she never

becomes the king's mother
because she only gives birth

to Neferure, her daughter.

She does not give
birth to a son.

So, when Thutmose II,
her half-brother husband

dies after only three years
of reign, and trust me,

the Egyptological discussion
about this is very intense, but

we'll leave it at three years.

Because if all he produced,
if he had nine years of

reign and that's all he
produced in Egypt's temples,

then what a sad king.

So, we'll give him three years,
I think it's better.

So, if he dies after
three years of reign,

he's gonna leave a bunch of
two-year-olds in the nursery.

Hatshepsut's not gonna
have a son amongst those

two-year-olds in the nursery.

And now we have a serious
succession crisis.

A succession crisis where the
choice of the next king is

probably going to be based
on who the regent is,

rather than on who the kid is.

Because they're a
bunch of toddlers.

Who's gonna choose the
possibility that the toddler's

gonna grow up to have a good
ruling acumen in the future?

You can't.

But you have to
be very strategic.

This is a long regency
with a two-year-old.

You're talking about 14, 15,
16 years of a woman ruling

on behalf of this kid.

It's a long time.

You have to make sure
you choose wisely.

It seems that Egypt had
already decided they wanted

Hatshepsut to be regent.

She's there as the
greatest high priestess,

she's there bred for the
position, the most elite,

the king's daughter,
the king's wife,

the king's sister.

She's ready to go.

They have to choose a boy
that won't be threatened

by her or vice versa.

So, they pick a boy
with a nothing mother,

from all we can see,
a mother that cannot

step in as regent.

His name will be Thutmose
III to Egyptologists,

just Thutmose in the moment.

And she is there acting as his
regent for a good seven years.

Now, people don't
do anything alone.

This is what I'm
always hammering

into my students' head.

This is not a history
written by individual people.

This is a history of systems.

Hatshepsut can't barge
into a system and say,

'I'm gonna do it this way.

I'm gonna be king,' or
'I'm gonna be regent.'

This is not the way things work.

Hatshepsut is going to
be allowed into a system

by the elites around her.

The elites, it seems,
want her to be in this

position of power.

They demand that she
step forward and do this.

And over the next couple
of years that she's acting

as regent for this toddler
king, who I imagine was

really hard to crown.

"Keep the crown.

"No, stop.

No, stay there," kind of thing.

(audience members laugh)

She's there as the,
and their texts say

this, she's the rock.

She's the one that's gonna
be clever in her strategies,

she's gonna keep Egypt safe.

But she's already,
or her advisors are already

thinking about the future.

Because in texts like this
from down south in Egypt,

this one happens to
be near Elephantine,

we see Hatshepsut depicted
as a God's wife of Amun,

but in the text that only
the top 1% can read,

it says that the sun god Ra
has given her the kingship.

She's like a lawyer.

She doesn't go out
and say, 'I am king.'

Not yet.

She's laying her
foundation for that.

She goes out and she says,
"You know, I'm doing the job.

"I'm doing the kingship.

I may not be king,
but I'm on my way."

And when the elites don't
push back against this,

then she and her advisors know
that they've got room to run.

They've been given some reigns.

They can really
start to move now.

And her first image of kingship
we see we another cartouche name

added, and she shows herself as
a female wearing a dress,

wearing masculine ram's
horns and a masculine wig.

So, she is already,
like Neferusobek,

changing her image to
include the masculine in

addition to the feminine,
kind of like the, I don't know,

the pantsuit of 1985

(audience members laugh)

With the shoulder pads, right?

Make you look all manly.

Give you a little fluffy bow
tie to go along with that.

(audience members laugh)

She is crowding year 7, from
what we can tell, and again,

the Egyptological debate
about this is quite fierce.

The reasons for
this are unclear.

This is the most frustrating
part of Egyptology for me.

They don't let us
into their secrets.

They're not going to tell us
what's actually happening.

We don't get a view
of the realpolitik.

She tells us, "My father Amun-Ra
wanted me to be king.

My father Thutmose I bred me
and wanted me to be king."

Very useful things to say.

She's fitting herself in that
patrilineal lineage, no problem.

But we don't know
why, in year 7,

she felt the need
to formalize this,

because she had
all the power.

Was there another entourage
of Thutmose III who's

trying to push her out?

Was there another regent
that was trying to push her

out with another entourage?

Was there a problem with
Thutmose III himself?

Was he lying on his deathbed
with some sort of disease?

Because in Egypt, it's not,
if you get malaria,

it's when you get malaria.

Did he fall off his chariot?

Was something going on?

We have no idea.

But in year 7 probably
when Thutmose III is

around nine years old,
she is crowned alongside

him and now it is irrevocable.

There's no going back from this.

This system is completely
locked down for her.

And yet, this is a pattern
that we'll see again with

Cleopatra, she never goes alone.

She's always got this
kid following her.

Now, there is a more crass
part of my feminism that I

will share with you right now.

Because there's no woman that,
if a woman rules alone

in this entire lineup,
she rules for a very short

period of time, one, two,
four years, something like that.

But if she rules for
a long period of time,

like Cleopatra or Hatshepsut,
or other women we could compare

her to around the globe,
we see that there's always

a male accompaniment, some
sort of presence alongside

the female on the throne
that allows her to be there.

So, the crass feminist part
of me is like, why didn't she

just have the kid assassinated
and then we could at least talk

about one woman that did it,
that ruled Egypt for a

long period of time,
and wouldn't that be great?

Well, she knows, and I know,
that if she had Thutmose

III assassinated, well,
however she felt about

him and maybe she loved him
very, very much, I don't know,

if she had him assassinated,
her means to power is gone,

even as king probably.

She would have been a
swept aside as well.

You need a male at the center of
an authoritarian wheel of power.

You need that,
because just in terms

of biological economy,
the harem exists for

a reason, right?

I can have one baby a year.

Two is probably gonna kill me,
though it didn't kill Cleopatra.

But I can have one baby a year.

A guy can have
365 babies a year.

(audience members laugh)

That biological
economy is something,

and I cannot compete with.

He will always win in
terms of the basics of

power and succession,
keeping the status quo,

keeping things risk averse.

A woman can't compete with that.

She removes that boy,
then they're gonna replace her

with another boy, another man.

So, she knows she's got
to keep him with her,

and she never rules alone.

And by year 16, she starts
to depict him with her,

almost like twinsies,
as you see here.

Same crown, same look,
sometimes different crowns,

but almost the exact same face,
almost the exact same body type.

So similar that the
Egyptologists, we know,

you look at their statues
and you're like, 'It's

Thutmosied,' we say.

We sound very clever
when we say this.

'cause we're like,
"It could be Hatshepsut,

it could be Thutmose
III, who's to know?"

So, we say, 'Thutmosied.'

It's a cool Egyptological
speak for we have no idea.

But how Hatshepsut did
this to us, she's the one.

And Thutmose III he
seems to follow along

with this portraiture,
which is interesting

in and out of itself.

So, now she's got the kingship,
she's got the nine-year-old

who's growing up, becoming
a 16-year-old, and a strong

man right next to her.

He's probably training with
the army off to the north,

maybe she's in the south,
we actually don't know

a lot of these details.

But what we do see
is that more jobs,

more professions are
created under her than

at any other time.

The Egyptologists know that
we have to commit all kinds

of crazy things to memory.

Statues, stela, tombs,
coffins, what's in what museum,

where is this, where is that.

And we know that when
Hatshepsut takes the throne,

this stuff explodes in
quantity and quality.

That means that she
has to give to get.

That means that when she
takes this power position,

she and her entourage know
that the elites are like,

"You know, this is great, this
is a very aberrant situation."

And you're like, 'Yeah, okay,
what would you like?' 'Well,

my son would love to
be in the treasury.'

'Okay, got it.

What would you like?'

"Okay, well,
my son would

love to be one of
the overseers of the

scribes of the House of Amun."

'you got it.'

And so, the jobs are created
like candy, in a sense.

There's another Egyptologist
named David Warburton,

who argues that it's during
Hatshepsut's reign when Egypt's

treasury, Egypt the crown,
loses more power than in any

other time in the long term.

Because the treasury is
giving out more funds than

it had ever given out before.

That's a little more debatable,
because Hatshepsut kept such

good control of the money and
created more income streams.

She knew that she needed
to bring in more money,

so what do you do?

You start a little war,
you invade a little Nubia,

and you bring a lot
of gold into Egypt.

So, she knew to
do that right off.

She also knew to place people in
control of that money only had

her to depend on, and who had
no other conflicting interests.

So, she picks a dude like this,
Senenmut, who's not a patrician,

not one of the old families,
and she elevates him to

a station that everyone
is like, 'Whoa, really?'

She's like, 'Yeah, really.'

And he's like,
'What would you

like, my lady?'

(laughs)

Because he's not gonna try
to work with other people.

They're all mad that
she's doing this.

And she's picking a
number of new men who

will answer only to her.

Very, very cleverly done.

She has control of the
temple like no one else.

This woman grew up in the
temple, it's in her bones.

She knew that when she had
herself marked for kingship,

she had to do so in a
way that was overtly

displayed to her people.

So, she tells us in the text,
where she is marked for rule,

that the bark of Amun-Ra is
brought out on a festival

day in public in front of
all of her elites, and that it

moves decisively towards her.

And then she throws herself on
the ground, raises up her arms

and says, 'Oh my father Amun,
what would you have me do?'

No one can speak against that.

Once the god Amun-Ra has
chosen her to be king,

then it is again irrevocable.

It is something that
cannot be overturned.

She sends out expeditions
to crazy faraway places that

Egyptologists don't even know
where they are, maybe Eritrea,

maybe Yemen, the debate goes on.

She shows the details
of those expeditions.

She doesn't go herself,
she sends other men, but it's

still considered a miracle of
kingship that she's doing this.

Incense trees brought back
roots and all, the misshapen

chieftainess of Punt depicted
in all of her glory next to

her husband, the chief.

And she builds structures that
are avant-garde and at the same

time they're conservative
in the most holy places on

the Egyptian landscape,
not just in ancient Thebes,

but all over the country.

This was a woman who left
Egypt better than she found it.

And yet, throughout all of this,
she cannot make

Egypt fit to her.

She has to fit to Egypt and
she has to fit the patriarchy.

So, she starts out
depicting herself as a

female, a female king,
putting the Neme's headdress on,

putting the kilt of kingship on.

Actually here she
just has a dress.

And this is not enough.

So, we see her trying to figure
this out, trying to crack it.

This is my favorite
statue of hers,

the Metropolitan
Museum of Art

in New York.

And she's androgynous.

She's male, and she's female,
she has breasts, but she

doesn't have nipples,
so is she wearing a shirt?

But I don't see any trace of it.

So, she's topless,
but she's this gracile

heart-shaped beautiful thing.

How are we to understand this?

Male and female simultaneously.

Well, only one such statue was
made, and then she quickly moves

on to statues like this.

This is what most of
her statues look like.

Strong biceps,
broad shoulders and

chest, square jaw,
indistinguishable from a man.

She has to fit,
the patriarchy

cannot fit her.

And as her nephew, Thutmose III,
is getting older and haunting

her steps, she has to become
more masculine, one could argue.

Did she dress like this in
public, in the festivals?

Did she tie on the royal
beard and strap down her

breasts and wear a shirt
that's skin-colored?

Who are we to say?

Why not?

This is what she's depicting.

Quite possibly.

Did she dress like
that in the palace?

From the existence of
this statue, I think not.

But anything is possible.

Until we get our time
machine invented,

we will continue to discuss
these things for some time.

So, she depicts herself
as the father, sorry,

as the daughter of Amun-Ra,
building her kingship for him.

She rules for about
22 years altogether.

When she dies,
from all we can see,

she's buried in state.

We have to use a lot of
circumstantial evidence to

figure this out, but there
is a detritus of her death.

Even though her tomb was
pretty thoroughly robbed,

you find little, little
things, a canopic char here,

a little shabti fragment
there, a sarcophagus here.

There is enough there to
suggest that Hatshepsut was

buried in state, as a king,
in the Valley of the Kings,

by her nephew, Thutmose III.

And Thutmose III
finished temples of

hers, finished chapels,
made sure that everything

was good for her.

And so,
everything's fine, right?

She's gonna be our
successful female.

Well, no she's not.

Because about 20 to 25 years
later, after her death,

he says, "Come here,
you, chief of artisans.

"Go, send the guys out.

"I need Hatshepsut's names
and images removed from

this temple, this temple,
this temple,' which he

names all the temples.

They're like, 'What?

Really?'

"I want you to take plaster
and I want you to replace those

names with the name of my father
and the name of my grandfather."

'Yes, sir.'

"You, come here.

"Sledgehammers, send them out.

"I need you to smash these
statues up to tiny bits.

"Throw them out in a hole.

"I don't want you to
do anything with those.

"Oh, wait,
but the big colossals,

"I don't want you
to break those up.

"Those are too valuable?

Just switch out the names."

'Huh?' 'Take out her name,
put in my father's name.'

'Got it.'

And they go out
and they do this.

Now, they don't do a great job
so that we Egyptologists can

come in after the fact and say,
'Oh, look, there's a t there.'

Remember the Smurfette?

And then you see the daughter
of Ra is still there even though

it's talking about Thutmose III.

You're like, 'Hmm,
something's going on.'

Or you can see that
there's an erasure,

and you can see the
traces of what the

old name could be.

In some cases,
they relied so

much on plaster
that the old carving

is as clear as day.

So, we can put
this back together.

But the end result is that
Hatshepsut is not a part

of our cultural memory.

We can't pronounce her name.

She was too successful.

Success is a problematic thing.

Think about it this way.

You have a really
good successful idea.

It's gonna bring your company
a lot of business and you

tell your boss this idea.

And then you hear that the
boss went to a CEO meeting,

and then all of a sudden,
your idea is bandied about

it as his or her idea.

You're like, 'Damn it!

'that's

My idea.'

Well, it was successful.

You're doing what people
would expect to work.

What has worked before,
what will work after.

Success is very transferable.

It is very abstract.

It's failure that
everyone remembers and

assigns your name to.

That's why you guys can
pronounce Cleopatra like that.

(audience members laugh)

And Hatshepsut you're
like, 'Hatshe-, Hat-'

(audience members laugh)

Okay, Nefertiti, Dynasty 18.

Her story is being
written right now.

And Egyptologists in the room
know that if we all went to a

bar full of Egyptologists and
we just threw out and said,

'Is Nefertiti Smenkhkare?'

Then people,
like people

would come to
blows, right?

(audience members laugh)

People get really
upset over this stuff.

And indeed,
the evidence is

coming out of the
ground right now,

like as we speak.

They're finding new stuff.

And so, it's,
just take all

of that with a
grain of salt,

but that doesn't
mean we can't discuss

Nefertiti as a female
king, because I think we can.

I think most Egyptologists
would accept her as such.

What's cool and interesting
to me is that when you hear

the name Nefertiti and you
see her bust from Berlin,

you think of beauty.

She's a pretty face, right?

You don't think of her
as a ruler, as anything

formidable or something
associated with authority in

any way, but indeed, she was,
so let's see how this works out.

She is married to this
guy named Amenhotep IV,

who is born into Egypt's
greatest success, its

wealthiest time period,
when you don't even

have to go to war.

The tribute just comes to you,
when what can be produced by the

craftsman is of a quality that
you cannot possibly believe.

Everyone's eating well,
everyone is getting good

money, everyone is happy.

This guy comes into power,
he starts out his reign

depicting himself much like
his father did before him,

and then all of a sudden,
boom, he starts depicting

himself like this.

And he changes his
name to Akhenaten.

And he changes the religion.

And he starts funneling money
away from the other relig-,

like the Amun-Ra Temple,
and the Ptah Temple,

and all these other places.

He funnels that money to a
new god, a god named Aten.

And he starts to depict
himself as male and female.

Do you see the breasts?

You can't see the hips in this
one but there are hips too.

He starts to depict himself
as animal and human.

If you saw it from the side,
you would see a prognathism

of the lower face.

He starts to depict himself
strangely elongated.

And I would argue that
he's depicting himself

as a being of light.

He is changing the way
kingship is depicted,

he is changing the way the chief
priest, that would be the king,

is connecting with all of the
divinities, and Nefertiti

comes along for the ride.

He changes her depiction
in very much the same way.

Same prognathism,
the same elongated features,

exaggerated eyes and chin,
a very strange visage to behold.

And here he is with
all his servants now

bent down around him,
worshipping the sun

god over his head,
giving offerings to

that sun god, the Aten,
and its rays are bathing

him in its golden light.

He is the only one
that should have direct

connection with that sun god.

Around year 5,
he decides to

pick up and move
away from Memphis,

Heliopolis, Thebes,
and go to this out in

the middle of nowhere
place where he says it

is sacred to no god or
goddess, and build this

new city from scratch.

He calls it Akhetaten.

His name is Akhenaten.

It's like king and
city are almost one.

And in about ten years or less,
he builds from the ground up

new temples, new palaces,
new administrative structures.

He makes all of his elites
come and they're gonna build

all of their estates as well.

This is an incredibly
energetic and dedicated

king to his new coat.

And Nefertiti comes
along for the ride.

She is his great royal wife.

And when she comes to Akhetaten,
she is given a new name.

And her name is
Neferneferuaten Nefertiti.

There will be an exam after,

(audience members laugh)

It's gonna get way worse.

Way worse.

This is one reason why it's so
hard to find Nefertiti in the

evidence, because Akhenaten
seems to have renamed her

each step of the way.

And she gets to keep a
small part of herself as

she goes to the next step.

You'll see what I mean in a bit.

They show these images
of family togetherness.

Nefertiti is depicted
about the same scale as

her husband Akhenaten.

They're cuddling
their daughters,

they're showing
new and different

kinds of scenes.

And Egyptologists for the
longest time have looked at this

as puppies and rainbows and this
beautiful togetherness and maybe

even the first monotheism in all
of human history, though that is

still very much up for debate.

But there is a much darker
underbelly to all of this.

Well, he married two
of those daughters and

had children with them,
and elevated each of them

to a great royal wife.

So, that creeps you
out right there,

though that's not
culturally aberrant for them.

He also co-ops his elite.

And here you see the elite
reaching up and the king

and his queen, Nefertiti,
just throwing down

solid gold necklaces.

How do you get a bunch
of people to leave their

families and their lives in
the traditional capitals and

move away the middle of nowhere?

Well, you bribe them.

And then they coerce other
people to do the same.

And so, here we see just
this co-option happening

before our eyes, but in a
more idealistic sort of sense.

But what's really interesting
in the work that's coming

out right now by a number
of bioarcheologists,

one of them a former
student of mine from

UCLA, Anne Austin,
they're finding graveyards

filled with the laborers
who constructed the city

from the ground up.

And the graveyards for the
skilled laborers are fine.

They get great goods,
they're just doing okay.

But the graveyards for those who
are not so skilled, who are just

hauling stones and doing what
they're told, are horrific.

They're working wounded, they're
working malnourished, they're

working with acute fractures.

And even worse than that, they
have found a graveyard filled

with hundreds of children,
separated from any sort of

adult figures of any kind,
also working with all kinds

of injuries, malnourished,
and with acute injuries as well.

And the people who work in
this graveyard are emotionally

affected themselves with each
burial that they find.

This has been so disruptive
to our understanding of what

Akhenaten's regime was that it's
actually made most Egyptians

that I know very uncomfortable.

And when this work was first
presented at a conference,

at a bioarcheology conference,
Egyptians left, some, not all,

left the room and said you can't
present the kingship this way.

This is serious stuff because
it's turning on its head what

the foundation of Akhenaten's
kingship actually was.

This was a demanding king,
a king who was quite

brutal to his people.

And Nefertiti came
along for the ride.

And indeed,
I think most

Egyptologists now
see this new king,

co-king alongside
Akhenaten with the

name, the row's off
the top, Ankhkheperure

Neferneferuaten, as Nefertiti.

She's not identifiable as
Nefertiti any longer, but that

Neferneferure is still there.

And so, people are like,
'Oh, okay, Ankheperure,

that's her as co-king.'

This is a weird and crazy thing.

And this is a breaker
of all of our patterns.

She's not stepping in as
a regent for a boy king.

She's stepping in
alongside her husband.

I just told you you're
not supposed to have

those parallel power
structures, right?

It's supposed to be a linear.

Well, he must feel
very vulnerable.

This is potentially the only
person that he can trust.

He pulls in somebody to help
him to continue this rule,

happens to be his great
royal wife, now no longer,

and now a co-king.

And one Egyptologist,
Nicholas Reeves, even

believes that the mask
and all of the burial

equipment of Tutankhamen,
including the three nesting

coffins, was not made for
Tutankhamen, but was made

for a certain Ankheperure.

And indeed, he's shown,
and I stood next to the case

when they opened the glass

And I got to see the mask and
the shoulder from that far

away, so I'm a believer too.

And he's shown this to
Dieter Arnold, Mark Gabolde,

and Ray Johnson, they also
buy it that this is re-curved,

and that the traces of the
old name are Ankheperure.

Which is the coolest thing ever.

Makes all the
Egyptologists go, 'Ah!'

Because this could have
been made for Nefertiti.

This that it's burned into
your mind's eye, right?

That you can see without
even, without me even

showing you this.

That could have been made
for Nefertiti as co-king

for her husband, Akhenaten.

And I'm not gonna go into this,
but I have interesting ideas

about the double cobra uraeus,
which is also unusual and

not something that you see
on other burial equipment.

What's going on here?

A graduate student of mine,
Nicholas Brown, we argue

about this all the time.

We'll continue to
argue about it.

I encourage my graduate
students to argue with me.

It makes life more fun.

Did Nefertiti then
become sole king after

the death of Akhenaten?

And this was where the
Egyptologists really start to

throw the blows at each other.

Because I would say, you know,
40% believe that, yeah,

Nefertiti is there stepping
in as sole king after the

death of Akhenaten in a
time period of crisis.

And other people
are like, 'Look,

there's just no
evidence for it.'

I'm not gonna talk
about the tomb.

If you guys wanna talk about
that in the Q&A, we can, but

I'm gonna leave that for now.

And I told you I'm skipping
Tawosret because I ain't

got no time, and she's
all Game of Thronesey,

so you can read the book.

This woman was pretty
badass so check her out.

(audience members laugh)

Came in as a regent for a
son who was not her own, and

a kid with a club foot to boot.

But let's quickly talk
about Cleopatra so we

can have some questions,
and hopefully answers.

So, Cleopatra of the
Ptolemaic dynasty also

does not rule alone.

She also rules her
almost 22 years,

like Hatshepsut
before her.

She rules alongside Ptolemy XII,
who needs a co-ruler and

brings Cleopatra VII
into the situation.

She rules alongside,
though in many ways

quite unwillingly,
her brother Ptolemy XIII,

and he dies in battle
fighting against her.

Then she moves on to Ptolemy
XIV, whom she has assassinated.

So, now that she's killed all
of her Ptolemaic companions

and has no one else to bed
with and to rule with,

Cleopatra is so canny,
she still knows she

cannot rule alone.

Egypt is no longer happily
ensconced in its own little

bubble of geographic
protection, however.

It is now perched on the edge
of the Mediterranean Sea from

its capital city of Alexandria.

It is part of a globalized
Mediterranean world.

So, she's gotta look to
a globalized partner,

and she launches upon,
or he launches upon

her, Julius Caesar.

We all know the story.

She snuck into his chambers
as he's in the Palace of

Alexandria in a bedroll,
her brother is sieging

the city, it's perfect.

She gets in and they hang
out for a couple of months

And she's going to give birth to
Caesarion, known as Ptolemy XV,

the Egyptologist,
sometime after that.

This works out
quite well for her.

She's got a Roman warlord
to rule and partner with.

He's a sperm donor to boot.

She doesn't even have
to marry the guy.

He doesn't want to marry her,
she doesn't want to marry him,

that wouldn't quite work.

But as a partnership of
rule, this is quite useful.

But we all know what happens.

(laughs)

She's in Rome when
he is murdered on the

steps of the Senate.

She has to hightail it
back to Alexandria and

figure out what to do,
and she needs another partner.

She knows she cannot rule alone.

And so, she launches
upon Mark Antony.

She shows up,
he apparently writes

her multiple times,
'Meet me in Anatolia,

meet me at Tarsus,'
and, 'Come and visit.

'come and,' and she's like,
she's playing hard to

get, 'No, no, no.'

And finally,
she shows up

dressed to
the nines,

dressed as a
goddess in this

barge that is covered
with gold, just showing

her wealth and her riches.

The Romans go crazy writing
about them, saying, "Look at

this woman who wastes money,
look at all of the success,

this is what kingship gives
you, this is horrible."

Well, Cleopatra knew
exactly what she was doing,

depicting herself as a goddess.

Nothing less than a goddess,
as a beholder of great wealth.

She wants these Roman
warlords to work with

her and do what she says,
she needs to make sure

that they see that she's
holding many cards herself.

They need the money.

They're constantly fighting
each other in a civil

war that never ends.

They need cash,
she's got some cash,

perfect partnership.

Better in terms of age
as well, and she launches

up with Mark Antony.

Now, Cleopatra,
I say she's a failure.

She does not leave Egypt
better than she finds it.

It becomes a province
of Rome after her death.

However, Cleopatra comes
the closest out of any of

the women that we're talking
about, in having it all,

in being the man in a
sense, at the center

of the wheel of power.

Because she has such a strong
womb and constitution, whoops,

she is able to, oh, I hate this
like my, hold on, National

Geographic made me do this.

And they wanted
it to be animated,

and I'm like, "Oh, okay.

Let's try again."

And every time,
I mess up the animation.

Here we go.

'do I do another?'

'yes, one more.'

Boom.

Okay.

So, she comes the closest
out of any of our women to

creating a legacy of her own
genetic lineage that is going to

pass on to future generations.

She even creates this big show
where she names each of her

children as leaders of different
parts of her Eastern empire.

One kid in charge of Cyrenaica,
Libya, one kid in charge of the

Levant, one kid in charge of
Cyprus, and so on and so forth.

And they don't seem to be
fighting with each other.

She seems to have created a
family that's not trying to

kill each other constantly,
which for the Ptolemies

is a serious win.

And it looks like she has it
all working out in her favor.

She doesn't have to
marry Mark Antony,

but he seems to be
staying in Egypt.

They have a real chance
of creating an Eastern

dynasty that can work
in opposition to that

Western dynasty that is Rome.

And yet,
it all goes

horribly wrong.

Mark Antony,
before this happens,

invades Parthia.

What do they say about
a land invasion of Asia?

A land war in Asia?

Anyone see 'The Princess Bride?'
Never have a land war in Asia!

(audience members laugh)

He tries that.

It goes horribly wrong,
and he never recovers

from it financially,
emotionally, physically.

And then they're on the
back foot when they try

to fight Octavian, soon
to become Caesar Augustus.

They're on the back foot,
they don't have maybe all

of the allies that they
could or all of the strong

allies that they could,
didn't prepare for it properly,

and certainly didn't strategize
well in terms of how the

battle should happen.

Should we be surprised that
Cleopatra as the woman hightails

it out of there as soon as she
sees what's going on?

The Romans write about this
and say, 'Look at that coward.

Look at her run.'

And Mark Antony only stays for
a little bit longer before he

also flees with his life intact.

But I guess he let a little
more of his soldiers die

before and that makes him
strong and powerful, I don't,

more manly, more noble.

But anyway,
this goes

horribly wrong.

If it didn't go horribly wrong,
I think we would talk

about Cleopatra very
differently, but we can't.

I can't write a revisionist
history, I can't make her

make a different choice.

As it is now,
she is meant to

wait out the year
in Alexandria trying

to save her children,
trying to figure out

how to get herself out
of this deep dark hole.

And given that she's had
all of her children with two

Roman warlords who have now
died in a civil war or some

other political aggression,
she has a target on her back

and on her children's backs
that she cannot remove.

There's nothing that
she can really do to get

herself out of this situation.

And the story is that
she then commits suicide.

It's a wonderful story
for the Romans to give us.

While this is happening,
her children, all but one,

are hunted down and murdered.

Caesarian, known as Ptolemy XV
to us, is heading down south to

flee and he receives a letter,
'You're gonna be made

king by Octavion.'

It's gonna be okay.

He comes back.

You may think it's naive,
but the Romans had allowed

the Ptolemies to rule this
place for some time.

So, I think maybe he thought
he could get away with it.

Well, he's murdered
on the way back.

Other sons and daughters
are murdered as well.

Cleopatra herself is
said to commit suicide.

This works very well for
Octavion's propaganda.

It's the reason that I am so
suspicious of anything the

Romans tell us about Cleopatra
and her manner of dying,

because there's no way to know.

We don't even know what
the manner of suicide is.

I once listened to a
whole academic discussion,

a panel discussion, about
whether it was an asp,

or whether it was this,
or whether it was that,

and there really is no
way to know how Cleopatra

committed suicide,
or I would argue

if she even did.

It makes the most sense
for Octavion to say, 'Oh,

she took a hero's way out,
committed suicide.'

Much the way they say Boudica
left us, or Zenobia left us.

It works for the hero's way out.

But for the Egyptian,
it's brutal, because it's

the mother abandoning her
children to their fates.

It's the mother not wanting to
have to be walked in chains in

a triumph, deciding to just,
'Screw it, I'm done with this,'

and just leave everybody behind.

From the Egyptian perspective,
to say that she committed

suicide is one of the most
brutally affected pieces of

propaganda that Octavion
could ever produce.

And it is the reason that
I am so suspicious of it.

Again, until I get
my time machine,

I'll never be able to
prove it true or false,

but this is where I fall.

So, it's 2 50, yah!

Where else did women
try to rule the world?

Well, nowhere like Egypt,
but there are other women.

Jezebel, Athalia, her daughter,
who tried to rule on behalf of

her son, both killed for trying.

Boudica and Zenobia both
fought Rome and died.

Empress Lu, Empress Wu Zhetian
fought for extend, sorry,

ruled for extended periods
of time in Imperial China,

also never ruled alone,
ruled alongside others.

And of course,
we know the many

female rulers of a
fragmented Europe,

including Elizabeth
I, Catherine the Great,

et cetera, et cetera.

Different situation in a
fragmented Europe where you

don't want a Spanish cousin to
come in just because he's male

and you would rather have the
female because she's British.

So, this is more a situation
where the fragmentation of

Europe works for the females,
in the females' favor.

In all of these cases, in Egypt
and elsewhere, almost all,

success is ignored and the
failure is aggrandized.

We have a cultural memory of
the failures, like Cleopatra.

Shakespeare writes
plays about Cleopatra.

We have epic poems
about Semiramis,

who also was a ruler of
the ancient Near East,

who apparently epically failed.

But those women who did it all
right, women like Neferusobek,

women like Hatshepsut, who left
Egypt better than they found it,

or the ones that are not part
of our cultural memory,

whose names were effectively
replaced, and to whom credit,

from whom credit was taken
away and given to the men

who who either preceded
them or came after them.

And so, in the end,
I usually end this

discussion with this.

(audience members laugh)

And I am trying,
so just a quick point,

and then I'll let you guys
ask me a couple questions.

I am trying to make this as
topical as I possibly can.

I'm trying to bring this
back to why do we still

distrust females in power?

What is it about the female
that sets us so on edge?

What was it about,
what is it about the

possible lies of a female
candidate that are so much

more powerful than the absolute
untruths of the male candidate?

What's going on here?

And why are we still
in this conundrum?

And this, I think,
is the reason.

That we assign women
a mercurial nature.

We assign women ups and
downs of emotionality

that cannot be controlled.

Now, I'm not gonna stand
up here and tell you this

is true, because I actually
don't believe it is.

I, first of all,
don't believe that we

only have male and female.

We are the ones that have
culturally constructed a binary.

When you talk about a
transgender and you talk about

the complications of sexuality,
you talk to a biologist and

talk about all of the sexual
expressions that are allowed for

us humans, it's extraordinary.

This is an oversimplified
agricultural system.

But this is what we live with,
this is what we have, and so,

then I'll look at this and
I would like to turn this

on its head and say, if we
assume that females are so much

more emotional than men, and if
cognitive scientists do tell us

that on the whole you and I can
read each other's faces better,

that we actually are more in
touch with our emotions,

less likely to, I don't know,
stalk an ex-spouse or pick up

a gun and kill up the whole
family and then kill ourselves

'cause we're not in touch
with our emotions, right?

If that is the case,
then I would encourage

all of us to look at this
emotionality more positively

and think of that emotionality,
whether wielded by men or

by women, as the ability
to feel something before

you decisively act upon it.

That this emotionality could
be the very thing that got,