Born: 1507 BC, Egypt
Died: 16 January 1458 BC
Country most active: Egypt
Also known as: NA
This biography, written by Amy-Jane Humphries, is shared with permission from Team Queens, an educational history blog run by a collective of historical scholars. All rights reserved; this material may not be republished without the author’s consent.
Hatshepsut was the eldest daughter of Pharoah Thutmose I and his principal wife, Ahmose. Sometime around or prior to her father’s death, she wed her half-brother, Thutmose II. The pair ascended the throne sometime in the 1490s BCE. They had one child; a daughter called Neferure.
Hatshepsut’s reign as consort came to an end with Thutmose II’s death around 1479 BCE. It is unclear why he died. It is even unclear when exactly he did so, and how long his reign was as a result. He left behind their daughter and his young son born to Iset, Thutmose III.
As a result of Thutmose III’s youth, Hatshepsut was named regent. The pair appeared together on monuments as equals despite Hatshepsut taking on the title of Pharoah. However, there is no doubt that it was Hatshepsut who was truly in charge of Egypt.
Hatshepsut subverted the gender norms of Egyptian monarchy. Pharaohs were kings and, in becoming one, she was not a queen regnant as we would understand it but a king. Thus, she was often depicted by artists as a man which maintained pictorial continuity of rule.
Under Hatshepsut’s rule, Egypt experienced a “cultural renaissance.” Hers was a mostly peaceful and prosperous reign where trade flourished and artistic innovations “laid the groundwork for the ‘golden age’ of the New Kingdom that was to follow.” Hatshepsut was also a great builder.
One of the monuments that survives is her mortuary temple in Deir el-Bahri, which lays near The Valley of the Kings. It is an enormous complex that boasted a huge number of statues that depicted Hatshepsut. Many of these would be destroyed in Thutmose III’s reign.
Hatshepsut died in the 22nd year of her reign as Pharoah. No cause of death was recorded. It is also not known where exactly she was buried. It is thought she was interred in the same tomb as her father, but it is believed that she was moved, along with Thutmose I, during the next reign.
This tomb was later excavated by Howard Carter. Where she ended up is unclear and it is uncertain whether her mummy has been found. Her legacy speaks for her, though. Hatshepsut was a very successful ruler who steadied her kingdom and laid the foundations for a prosperous future.
Recommended Reading
Catharine H. Roehrig, Renée Dreyfus, and Cathleen A. Keller, Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharoah (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006).
Kara Cooney, The Woman Who Would Be King: Hatshepsut’s Rise to Power in Ancient Egypt (London: Oneworld Publishing, 2014).
From Woman: Her Position, Influence and Achievement Throughout the Civilized World. Designed and Arranged by William C. King. Published in 1900 by The King-Richardson Co. Copyright 1903 The King-Richardson Co.:
A celebrated queen of Egypt and the eldest daughter of Ahmasi and Sonisonbu. According to Professor Maspero, her father gave her to wife when young to her junior brother, known in history as Thotmosis II., but she being of the solar, i.e., “divine” birth, and thus higher than her husband, was the real ruler of Egypt, and sought to conceal her sex by changing the termination of her name, and appearing on all public occasions in male attire. On the Theban monuments she appears as male, with false chin beard, and minus breasts, but with her feminine pronoun, and claiming to be betrothed by the god Amon.
Her husband died at thirty, leaving two daughters by Hatasu and a son by a slave Isis. His son, Hatasu proclaimed as her successor and married by her surviving daughter to him. He appears in history as Thotmosis III.
Her reign was prosperous, as appears by the great buildings she caused to be erected, by her famous architect Sanmut, throughout the province of Thebes. One of those immense obelisks is yet standing among the ruins on Karnak.
She is represented as reigning eight years after this memorable expedition, and as opening the Sinai mines, and the canals in the Delta that had, because of the previous long continued wars, been silted up.
She was averse to war and so lost nearly all that her father had conquered in Syria; nevertheless she developed Egypt as but few before her had done. She resolutely kept the reigns of government in her own hands long after her son-in-law had come of age, dying when Thotmosis III, was twenty-five years old; he avenged himself by seeking to destroy the very remembrance of her from earth.
A richly carved chair belonging to this great queen was found in one of the royal tombs of Egypt recently.