Hatshepsut

Hatshepsut was born around 1507 BCE (estimates for her birth year differ) as the eldest daughter of Thutmose I and his Great Royal Wife Ahmose. After her father's death she married, at an estimated age of fourteen or fifteen, her half-brother Thutmose II, who succeeded him as pharaoh.

The couple had at least one daughter, Neferure. As a royal wife Hatshepsut held the title God's Wife of Amun, a religious office at Thebes. Little is recorded about her youth and education; what is known about her parentage comes mainly from inscriptions made during her own reign, which are coloured by propaganda.

After the death of Thutmose II, around 1479 BCE, his young son Thutmose III became king and Hatshepsut acted as regent. By the seventh regnal year of Thutmose III at the latest (c. 1472 BCE) she took the full royal titulary. She counted her regnal years from his accession and ruled as senior co-ruler beside him.

Around her ninth regnal year (c. 1470 BCE) she sent an expedition to the land of Punt. Reliefs in her mortuary temple depict the voyage and the trade in myrrh, incense and other valuables; the ships also brought back living myrrh trees. The location of Punt is disputed and is sought around the southern Red Sea, in East Africa and/or southern Arabia.

She commissioned building projects throughout Egypt. At Karnak these included the Red Chapel and obelisks; her best-known monument is the terraced temple complex at Deir el-Bahari, possibly designed with Senenmut or Hapuseneb. Her texts refer to a divine birth and an oracle of Amun, which legitimised her kingship.

In the early Eighteenth Dynasty Egypt had recovered from the Hyksos occupation. Trade routes that had been disrupted were restored. The temple of Amun at Karnak grew into a religious and economic centre, with influential priests and officials who belonged to her circle.

Kingship was a male office with strongly male symbolism; female kings were rare, such as Sobekneferu in the Twelfth Dynasty. Hatshepsut had herself depicted in royal dress with a false beard, while texts often used feminine forms. These images are regarded as symbolic and not as evidence of her actual appearance.

Her reign is described as a period of prosperity and relative peace, with many building projects and restored trade contacts. High officials such as Senenmut and Hapuseneb held prominent positions. According to some Egyptologists the court elite gained considerable power and wealth under her rule.

Little is certain about military activity. The sources mainly mention the trading expedition to Punt; expeditions to Byblos and Sinai are barely documented, and campaigns in Nubia and Canaan are possible but unproven. Her buildings, above all at Deir el-Bahari, therefore largely shape the picture of her reign.

Hatshepsut's last dated attestation as pharaoh is year 20 of Thutmose III (c. 1460 BCE); in year 22 (c. 1458 BCE) he ruled alone, which coincides with her death. She was probably buried in tomb KV20 in the Valley of the Kings. A mummy (KV60A) was identified as hers in 2007; that identification is disputed.

Towards the end of the reign of Thutmose III and under his son Amenhotep II, her names and images were chiselled out in many places, statues were smashed and buried, and monuments were walled up. The motives are disputed: personal resentment (an older hypothesis), securing the succession, erasing the precedent of a female king, or ritual deactivation.

Nineteenth-century Egyptologists initially could not make sense of the texts of Deir el-Bahari, because a king was referred to with feminine verb forms; this led to the 'Hatshepsut problem' over the succession in the early Eighteenth Dynasty. The statue with this dossier, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, comes from Deir el-Bahari.