Daughter of Egypt
67 pages • 2-hour read
Marie BenedictDaughter of Egypt
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Content Warning: This section of the guide includes a discussion of gender discrimination and racism.
The Erasure of Women From the Historical Record
In Daughter of Egypt, the act of forgetting women is presented as a deliberate and powerful tool of patriarchal history. The novel draws a direct line from the systematic erasure of Pharaoh Hatshepsut’s name from ancient monuments to the domestic silencing of women in early 20th-century England. Through the parallel quests of Eve Herbert to solve an ancient mystery and to understand her own place in the world, Benedict argues that the erasure of female ambition and accomplishment is a timeless mechanism for maintaining power. Consequently, the act of recovering these lost stories becomes a radical effort to restore a more complete and truthful version of the past.
The mystery driving Eve’s passion is why Hatshepsut’s name and likeness were removed from the historical record. Initially, she and her mentor, Howard Carter, reject the prevailing scholarly theory that Hatshepsut was a “power-hungry evildoer” whose erasure was a justified act of retribution (48). This patriarchal interpretation frames female power as societal violation. Eve, however, sees a more complex figure, a leader who ruled over a peaceful and prosperous Egypt. Her dedication to uncovering the truth is a challenge to a historical narrative written by men. The novel ultimately provides a fictional answer to this question, reframing the erasure not as a posthumous punishment but as a calculated act of self-sacrifice. To save her daughter Neferure from a political plot, Hatshepsut commands her successor, Thutmose III, to “obliterate my name from my obelisks and temples and palaces. You must erase me from history” (322). This reimagining transforms the act from one of patriarchal vengeance into a tragic assertion of female agency and maternal protection.
This grand historical erasure finds its modern echo in Eve’s own life at Highclere Castle. During a ball, she reflects on the official history of her family, which celebrates its earls while ignoring the women who were essential to its existence. She muses, “[W]hat about the women? The ladies Carnarvon, their daughters, and their guests—not to mention the governesses, maids, and cooks? […] It’s as if the women never walked these corridors or inhabited the rooms, or as if they’ve simply been erased” (4). These questions suggest that smothering female stories is an active process of prioritizing male achievement. Eve sees this in her own mother, who, despite her work creating hospitals during the Great War, is the first to reinstate the pre-war social rituals and push Eve toward marriage, effectively erasing her own significant accomplishments. By linking the monumental defacement of Egyptian temples to the unwritten histories of English estates, the novel establishes a pattern of deliberate cultural forgetting that spans millennia, suggesting that the fight to remember women’s lives is a universal and ongoing struggle.
The Ethics of Archaeology and Cultural Ownership
The discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb unfolds against a backdrop of political upheaval, allowing Daughter of Egypt to scrutinize the ethics of colonial-era archaeology. The novel contrasts the European collectors’ view of history as a treasure to be possessed with the emergent Egyptian nationalist belief that ancient artifacts are the soul of the nation. Through the moral evolution of its protagonist, Eve Herbert, the narrative argues that a country’s historical heritage is not a commodity for foreign excavators to claim but a vital part of its living culture and sovereign right.
This critique is most sharply focused on the system of partage, which allowed foreign-funded expeditions to keep a significant portion of their finds. This practice is embodied by Eve’s father, Lord Carnarvon, who views archaeology as a high-stakes gamble that embodies the “thrill of the chase” (63). His primary motivation is to find an “undisturbed pharaonic tomb” (121) that will yield treasure and glory. This possessive mindset culminates in the decision by Carnarvon and Howard Carter to secretly and illegally enter Tutankhamun’s tomb at night, prioritizing their personal discovery over Egyptian law. This act epitomizes the colonial entitlement that views Egypt’s past as a prize to be won rather than a heritage to be respected.
The novel further complicates the ethics of archaeology by revealing the gray market for antiquities that underpins it. Carter, while a dedicated scholar, also participates in a side business selling artifacts, some likely acquired from unlicensed local diggers. This is implicitly acknowledged when an archaeologist from the Metropolitan Museum mistakes Eve for an antiquities dealer and when a souk merchant greets Carter as a regular purveyor of goods. This trafficking, presented as commonplace, exposes the moral compromises made by Europeans who, while decrying local tomb robbers, participate in the same commodification of history. It portrays a system where cultural artifacts are stripped of their context and turned into financial assets, fueling a cycle of plunder and possession.
As the narrative progresses, the Egyptian nationalist movement emerges as the moral counterpoint to this colonial model. Characters like Uncle Aubrey and Saad Zaghloul challenge the notion of foreign ownership. Zaghloul tells Eve directly that Hatshepsut’s past “belongs to Egypt. Hers is our story to tell” (129). This perspective reframes archaeology from a scientific pursuit into an act of cultural reclamation. Eve internalizes this view, especially after her father and Carter plan to smuggle artifacts from Tutankhamun’s tomb out of the country. Her perspective is cemented when she takes Hatshepsut’s scarab, a symbol of her personal quest, to the riverbank. By digging into the soil and returning the artifact to the land, she acknowledges that it “was never mine” (327), a symbolic act that repudiates the colonialist model of ownership and affirms Egypt’s right to its own history.
The Conflict Between Personal Ambition and Familial Duty
Marie Benedict’s Daughter of Egypt explores the tension between a woman’s personal calling and her prescribed duties through the parallel lives of Eve Herbert and the pharaoh Hatshepsut. Separated by 3,000 years, both women are driven by powerful ambitions but find their paths constrained by familial and societal expectations. The novel posits that for women, particularly those in or near positions of power, the demands of loyalty to family often require immense personal sacrifices. While these sacrifices are framed as acts of duty, they frequently come at the cost of a woman’s own legacy and self-fulfillment, suggesting a timeless and tragic conflict.
For Eve, the struggle is between her intellectual passion for archaeology and her socially mandated role as an aristocratic daughter. Her primary antagonist is her mother, Lady Almina, who relentlessly pushes her toward marriage. Lady Almina insists that the “very purpose of the ball and this weekend” is to find Eve a “suitable husband” (16), viewing her daughter’s interest in dusty artifacts as an irresponsible distraction from her true obligations. This conflict defines Eve’s journey; she must negotiate with her mother for permission to go to Egypt, promising to split her time between the dig site and the Cairo social scene. Even her ultimate decision to leave archaeology behind is driven by duty, as she prioritizes caring for her dying father over her own dreams, demonstrating that even in the 20th century, a woman’s personal calling is expected to be secondary to her role as a daughter.
Hatshepsut faces a similar conflict, albeit on a larger historical scale. Her ambition to rule is inextricably linked with her duty to protect her father’s dynasty and secure the future of her daughter, Neferure. After the deaths of her male siblings, Hatshepsut becomes the sole vessel and protector of the purest royal bloodline. When Thutmose II takes the throne, Hatshepsut assumes personal responsibility for him. If she fails, “the Thutmoside dynasty could be lost in one coup and, quite possibly, all the progress that [her] ancestors have made along with it” (101). Consequently, her ascension from queen to regent and finally to pharaoh is portrayed as a calculated necessity to provide stable leadership and thwart political rivals. Her ambition serves her duty. However, this power ultimately demands the greatest sacrifice. In the novel’s fictionalized climax, Hatshepsut stages her own death and orders her name and image to be erased from history to protect Neferure from a plot against her, an act that sacrifices personal legacy to familial duty.
By drawing these parallels, the novel suggests a somber continuity in the choices available to ambitious women. Eve’s surrender of her archaeological dream and Hatshepsut’s sacrifice of her entire historical identity are presented as acts of love and loyalty. Yet they also highlight a world where men’s ambitions are supported as their right, while women’s are treated as indulgences that must ultimately yield to the needs of others.
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