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896 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

temple, in which she expressly requests her officials’ loy- Ratié, S. (1979). La reine Hatchepsout: Sources et problèmes [Queen Hat-
alty and support. shepsut: sources and problems]. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill.
Seipel, W. (1977). Hatshepsut I. In W. Helck & E. Otto (Eds.), Lexikon
There is no record of the causes and circumstances of der Ägyptologie [Dictionary of Egyptology], 2, 1045–1051. Wies-
Hatshepsut’s death and no royal mummy has as yet been baden, Germany: Otto Harrassowitz.
Tyldesley, J. A. (1996). Hatchepsut: the female pharaoh. London: Viking.
attributed to her, which could provide forensic evidence
for the nature of her death. There is also considerable
scholarly confusion over the place of her burial, as there
exist at least three sarcophagi and two tombs, one in the
Valley of the Queens (probably made during her time as Hausa States
wife of Thutmose II), the other in the Valley of the Kings
near Luxor. oday the Hausa people live in northwestern Nigeria
Hatshepsut was one of the very few female rulers of Tand southern Niger, as well as in parts of Ghana and
Egypt, and her historical significance has been widely Togo. In twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, a
debated by scholars. She has traditionally been viewed as number of Hausa city-states wielded power in the local
a schemer who usurped the throne and had a disastrous region and interacted with other regional powers, such as
reign. More recent scholarship views her as a “remarkable the Mali empire in the Upper and Middle Niger River
woman” (Tyldesley 1996, 1), acknowledging the com- area and the Bornu state in the Lake Chad basin area.
plex difficulties she would have faced as a female ruler
some 3,500 years ago. Early History
Just as she might have been subjected to the preju- The foundation myth of the Hausa states says that the
dices of a predominantly male royal court culture during seven “true” Hausa states founded by the seven sons of
and after her lifetime, Hatshepsut’s historiography has Bayajidda, who had come from the east (some say from
equally suffered from the tangible, underlying gender Baghdad) to the state of Daura (in present-day northern
biases expressed in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Nigera). Bayajidda had won the hand of the queen of
scholarship,which may make any historiographical asser- Daura in marriage by slaying an evil serpent; she was the
tions about her rule more revealing of the prejudices mother of the seven sons. The seven states these sons
afflicting scholarship at different points in time than of founded were Kano, Zazzau (Zaria), Gobir, Katsina,
the actual nature and significance of Hatshepsut’s rule Rano, Daura, and Biram. Legend also has it that Baya-
on the throne of the pharaohs. jidda had other sons by a concubine; these sons are the
supposed founders of the “illegitimate” Hausa states of
E. Christiana Köhler
Zamfara, Kebbik, Nupe, Gwari, Yauri, Yoruba, and
See also Egypt, Ancient Kororofa.
Archaeologists and historians believe that the Hausa
states emerged between the late 900s CE and the early
Further Reading
1200s. Hausa towns are known for their walls, which
Bryan, B. (2000).The 18th dynasty before the Amarna period. In I. Shaw
(Ed.), Oxford history of ancient Egypt (pp. 237–243). Oxford, UK: enclose not only houses but farmland as well. This cus-
Oxford University Press. tom of building walls was maintained as the size of the
Dorman, P. F. (1988), The monuments of Senenmut: Problems in histori- enclosed settlement grew.
cal methodology. London: Kegan Paul International.
Grimm, A., & Schoske, S. (1999), Hatschepsut: KönigIn Ägyptens [Hat- By the eleventh century, these walled city states were
shepsut: King/Queen of Egypt]. Munich, Germany: Staatliche Samm- flourishing centers of trade. Kano, Katsina, and Gobir, for
lung Ägyptischer Kunst.
Naville, E. (1894–1908), The temple of Deir el Bahari. London: Egypt example, had developed their caravan trade and services.
Exploration Fund. Each state also had certain specialties—Kano specialized