Luxor Travel Forum

Friends of mine just returned from Luxor and tell
me they were unable to go to Hatshepsut because it was "closed". Could you tell
me what is going on? I am coming in July and certainly hope to see this
wonderful site.
Thank you,
Doug Hutchinson
Guod7@yahoo.com

I just got back and I was there March 8th and it was opened. Go to www.aetbi.com and maybe it can tell you something about it.

Thanks for the quick response.
But trying that web address you gave takes me nowhere :) It is a log in page for some site
Thanks
Doug

Sorry my mistake the web address is www.touregypt.net. There is a section aetbi that you click on.

What do you mean?? Deir el Bahari. Burial tempel of Hatchepsut?? I doubt it will/would be closed. It is a very popular tourist site, might be that some levels are closed; like we met on our first visit. But not the entire tempel!

Perhaps your friend was confused and mixed up Nefertari with Hatchepsut. The tomb of Nefertari is in the Valley of Queens and closed forever. Just some special guests (Obama might be welcome there) or people with enough money to please the Egyptian government are able to go there.

And there is no tomb of Hatchepsut. Her stepson Tutmoses III made sure her tomb was never to be found........

They found her mummy though.

That isn't confirmed yet!! Some hypothesis are there of a female mummy with long red hair, claiming to be Hatchepsut. But the scholars aren't in agreement.

Two possibilities :

1 - your friends made a confusion between the temple of Hatshepsut and the tomb of Nefertari

2 - Your friends were travelling with a tour operator and the guide, wishing to take them to a shop selling fake perfumes/fake alabatser/fake papyrus, lied and told them the temple was closed. It happens from time to time

Hi D Hatshepsut's tomb - KV 20 in King's Valley

Hi there, it's not closed. I was there last week.

NP

Her mummy is in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo. Saw it in November and June last.

K

Have you read the last item of the National Geografic?? It has a large article on Hatsjepsut!

It sais that the mummy was identified on a tooth found in a box, that was found on another place as the mummy, with the cartouche of Hatchepsut on it. The tooth fixed the gap in the jaw of a mummy found in KV60 lying on the floor next to the coffin of what is believed to be Hatshepsuts nurse.
That is the only way this mummy was identified as being Hatschepsut and the scholars are still fighting over it.

When i visited the Cairo Museum last August, Hatshepsut's mummy was clearly labeled and everybody was excited over the find, however, when I visited again two weeks ago, the mummy with the red hair was labeled as Hatshepsut's nurse. I think they're still trying to have people think it's Hatshepsut because there is something of hers (I forgot what) in a glass case nearby. There is no name inside the case like there was last year, just a printed piece of paper that says that it's Hatshepsut's nurse. I asked the guard for Hatshepsut's mummy and he pointed to the red haired one. I then had him come over and read the paper and he realized it said 'in sitre' or something like that, basically 'Hatshepsut's nurse'. He had go ask someone where Hatshepsut was. No one could find her. One guard told me she wasn't there, one said she was in the other mummy room (she wasn't) and one tried to tell me the mummy clearly labeled the nurse was her. Amazing. That's Egypt for you.

Verdict - The jury is still out on whether it's really Hatshepsut or not.

NP

thanks..i assumed as much. enjoy the day :)

Doug,

I am quite sure your friends were mixed up, or maybe you were. It is for sure that Nefertari's tomb is closed forever.

But Hatshepsuts funeral tempel at Deir el Bahari is not.

Someone confused this thread by saying that Hatshepsuts mummy was there to see. Well that is still doubtfull as mentioned above.

No doubt that Queen Hatshepsut had made a magnificent tomb for herself. She made such great structures: her funeral tempel, the great obelisks at Karnak, a few more small sanctifying places in Karnak as well.... but her tomb is never found.

No doubt it will be there, somewhere......

When found it will just as big an upraise as the discovery of the tomb of her offspring: Tut anch Amun.

Well, the temple is closed in the sense you cannot really go inside. I think it's been like that for a long time (if not always....)