Close to the Valley of the Kings is the Valley of the Queens, of which we saw only Al-Deir Al-Bahari Temple. I’m not sure why there even is a Valley of the Queens considering women weren’t allowed to be pharaohs….maybe it was for the wives of high ranking officials or members of the royal family? Anyway, Al-Deri Al-Bahari Temple was built by Hatsphut, who actually was a female pharaoh. She came to power after her husband, who was a legitimate pharaoh, died. Every time a pharaoh died, the high priest lost his power and the new pharaoh assigned his own High Priest. Hatsphut cut a deal with her husband’s high priest saying that if he would help her convince everyone she was a man (and thus could take power), he could remain as the High Priest. It worked, and Hatsphut claimed the throne in lieu of her stepson.
The temple was built by Hatsphut to honor herself, and seemed to carved into a mountainside. It was huge and two-stories, and reminded me a bit of the library at Ephesus in Turkey. About half of the temple has been reconstructed, and the other half remains in ruins. What is most interesting about the temple was Hatsphut’s stepson’s attempt to erase all images and memory of Hatsphut from the temple after she died. He was apparently quite angry that she stole his rightful position as pharaoh, so any time there was a relief or sculpture of Hatsphut in the temple he had it destroyed. Reliefs which should have been Hatsphut are now headless bodies, and a row of about 20 large sculptures were knocked over (about half have been put back together today).
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