Hatshepsut

Hatshepsut was born during the beginning of the New Kingdom around 1504 BCE, a time of Egyptian growth and prosperity.

As a young girl, she was given the role of god’s wife of Amun, which came with estates and enormous wealth.

She married her half-brother, Thutmose II, who became Pharaoh upon their father’s death when she was about 12.

When Thutmose II died, Hatshepsut became regent for the next king, her step-son and nephew Thutmose III.

The Egyptologists who initially discovered Hatshepsut viewed her as a power-hungry usurper, who stole the throne from its rightful heir, but Thutmose III was a baby who, according to tradition, required a regent.

By the seventh year of her regency, Hatshepsut was depicted in statues and drawings as a man, with broad shoulders and a false beard. In writing, she continued to refer to herself as a woman.

Hatshepsut transformed herself into a senior king, who traditionally would lead and teach the younger king how to rule Egypt.

She took on the kingship formally (rather than just as a regent), according to recent evidence, in order to ensure stability and to maintain the throne for Thutmose III.

She created some of the most elaborate and expensive monuments in ancient Egypt, including two 100-feet tall obelisks and an enormous burial complex for herself.

Hatshepsut transformed monuments from mud brick to expensive sandstone and granite.

She also spent money on infrastructure, building roads around the capital city of Thebes.

Her memorial complex contains reliefs that show expeditions to foreign lands like Punt (possibly modern-day Eritrea), where Egyptians obtained luxury goods

Towards the later years of Thutmose III’s reign, a few decades after Hatshepsut’s death, Thutmose III began to systematically remove Hatshepsut’s name and image from her monuments.

Some theories say that he erased her from history because of a long-standing hatred for denying him the kingship, but others think he was trying to make sure his son Amenhotep II’s legitimacy would be secure.

Thutmose III also cut back on the power given to the god’s wife of Amun, removing some of the wealth and property that came with the title and ensuring that a future god’s wife of Amun would not be able to rise to the throne, according to Dr. Kara Cooney.