Technically, no woman could rule ancient Egypt as "pharaoh." So, in
those rare cases where a woman did wind up being regent, she was required to
appear in public wearing a fake beard, in male attire, and comporting herself
as a man.
That, mind you, was long before Feminism ...
Mrs. Clinton Tours Temple
By SANDRA SOBIERAJ
.c The Associated Press
LUXOR, Egypt (AP) -- In the Valley of the Queens, Hillary Rodham Clinton may
have found her calling.
``Well, I AM looking for another career,'' she quipped.
The first lady and her daughter, Chelsea, were touring the 3,400-year-old
temple of Queen Hatshepsut on Wednesday with archeologists and
conservationists in tow.
``Look,'' she instructed in the innermost chamber, where the ceiling was
painted blue with stars. A combination, she concluded, of day and night.
``Like all things -- men, women, night, day.''
``You should be one of us,'' said Gaballa Ali Gaballa, head of Egypt's
antiquities council.
Mrs. Clinton, ever more willing to muse aloud about her own future after her
husband's presidency is over, chuckled when she spoke of shopping for a new
career.
While she's not yet sure about a run for the Senate in 2000, to walk among the
queens on Wednesday, Mrs. Clinton wore her running shoes.
The ancient political turmoil of Hatshepsut rang familiar to Mrs. Clinton.
Shown one of the temple's few remaining reliefs of the queen, most of whose
images were defaced or erased by stepson Thutmose III, Mrs. Clinton marveled:
``Why the enmity?''
``It was not out of spite, but politics,'' explained restorationist Ray
Johnson.
``Sometimes they look the same,'' Mrs. Clinton reflected.
Sounds like President Clinton is feeling left out.
``My husband is a little jealous,'' Mrs. Clinton reported to Egyptian
President Hosni Mubarak after a call from Washington on her first morning.
Day Two, the president also checked in by phone.
``When I spoke to the president this morning, he reminded me that he had yet
to even see the pyramids except through the window of an airplane,'' Mrs.
Clinton told an audience at the American University in Cairo.
She had a suggestion for her husband come Jan. 20, 2001:
``I assured him he could return perhaps when he no longer travels with 800 or
900 people and see the city and the sights and meet the people for longer than
a day.''
Public whispering about the Clintons' marriage is not only an American tabloid
preoccupation.
One day before Mrs. Clinton's arrival in Cairo, Al-Ahram, Egypt's largest
daily newspaper, editorialized that she should divorce the president.
But before every audience she's addressed in Egypt Mrs. Clinton has left
little doubt that the two remain very much connected.
At a Cairo maternal health clinic: ``I mentioned that to the president in my
meeting with him this morning. .
At a youth center: ``As I mentioned to the president this morning. .
Opening her university address: ``When I spoke to the president this morning.
.
And, what do the two of them talk about in these daily chats?
``Just catching up on things,'' she said. ``I know it's raining back in
Washington.''
Security agents in black with high-tech weapons perched atop the ancient
cliffs around the valley.
But the obviously tight security for Mrs. Clinton's tour was the only
suggestion of any concern.
In November 1997, a band of Muslim militants stormed the Temple of Hatshepsut
and killed 58 foreign tourists there. As Mrs. Clinton and her daughter
wandered the site Wednesday, no mention was made of that attack.
