Hatshepsut - First Great Woman in History

During the Eighteen Dynasty, something really unusual and extraordinary happened - a female took the title of King of Upper and Lower Egypt, and became the first great woman in recorded history.

In ancient Egypt, women had a higher status than they did elsewhere in the ancient world, including the court-protected right to own or inherit property. Yet having a female ruler in her own right was rare. Pharaoh was an exclusively male title. Hatshepsut is unique in that she was the first woman to take the title of King in the absence of a word for a ruler of the female gender, since the title for a queen was that of Great Royal Wife.

Hatshepsut, the eldest daughter of Thutmose I and Queen Ahmose, thus of royal birth, was able to become pharaoh upon the death of her husband and half brother Thutmose II, who ruled for only thirteen years. The throne passed to Thutmose III, a son by a non royal wife of the harem of Thutmose II, but he was a small boy at the time, so the Great Royal Wife assumed regency with his nephew until he came of age. Two years after, around 1473 BC, Hatshepsut proclaimed herself pharaoh, assuming the throne name Maatkare and ruled in her own right for 22 years.

As pharaoh, Hatshepsut had to wear the traditional male regalia of Egyptian kings, the Khat head cloth, topped with an uraeus, the traditional false beard, and shendyt kilt, and she is depicted as such in many statues and reliefs. This doesn't mean that she denied her gender. Rather it is more a show of authority to foreign rulers, respect to tradition and a way to gain acceptance among the population.

The Queen who would be King turned out to be among the greatest Egyptian pharaohs, reigning long enough to garner some remarkable achievements.

Hatshepsut was a prolific builder, and her mortuary temple at Deir el Bahari is a superb example of architectural design with a strikingly contemporary style. It was built into a cliff face that rises sharply above it on a site on the West Bank of the Nile close to the entrance to the Valley of the Kings. The collonades are reached by a series of terraces that were once adorned with gardens. Large Osirian figures of Hatshepsut grace this magnificent temple. It was the creation of Senmut, her royal steward, architect and supposed lover.

Another beautiful example of fine construction is her recently restored Red Chapel at the complex of Karnak. Here, visitors can also witness a standing obelisk erected in her honor, and another that has since toppled, so you can see at close range the carved image of her seated figure receiving the blessing of Amon-Re. She later ordered two more obelisks to be made to celebrate her sixteenth year as pharaoh. However, one of the obelisks broke during constrution, thus a third was made to replace it. The broken obelisk was left at its quarrying site in Aswan, where it still is today, and has proven valuable in learning how obelisks were quarried. A visit to this Unfinished Obelisk is included in most Egypt tours.

The Egyptian Museum at Cairo has a colossal head of Hatshepsut from her temple at Deir el Bahari. Her face, in this and many other portrait sculptures, is round with large almond shaped eyes and softly smiling lips.

The Hatshepsut Room in New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art has one of the best collections of her statuary. She is variously depicted as a royal sphinx, and also seated wearing a tight-fitting dress and the nemes crown, probably a more accurate representation of how she would have presented herself.

Other great achievements of Hatshepsut includes a commercial expedition to the legendary land of Punt, where her sailors brought back many goods, notably myrrh, which is said to have been Hatshepsut's favorite fragrance, and thirty-one live frankincense trees. She had the trees planted in the courts of her Deir el Bahari mortuary temple, and commemorated the expedition in relief at that site.

After her death, many of Hatshepsut's monuments were defaced or destroyed. The most common interpretation is that Thutmose III was responsible, as an act of revenge for being denied the throne for so long. In fact, keeping the great Thutmose, regarded by egyptologists and scholars as the greatest of Egyptian pharaohs (despite the fame of Ramses II or Tutankhamen), in check for 22 years until her death, is proof enough that Hatshepsut is indeed the First Great Woman in History.

In what has been called the archaeological find of the century, the mummy of Hatshepsut has been positively identified. A tooth found in a relic box displaying the pharaoh’s insignia matched a gap in the mummy’s jaw. CT scans also showed facial similarities between the mummy and already identified mummies of Hatshepsut’s royal relatives, as well as evidence of a skin disease that the queen may have shared with some of them.

Category: Ancient Egypt