Hatshepsut: The woman who dared to become pharaoh

Hatshepsut was born around 1508 BC. She was the daughter of the pharaoh Thutmose I and one of his queens, Ahmose.

Very little information survives about her early childhood, but as a royal princess, she would have had a very privileged upbringing. 

Hatshepsut grew up in a world dominated by the cult of Amun at Karnak.

Karnak, which was located at the city of Thebes, was the largest and most important temple complex in Ancient Egypt.

It was dedicated to the god Amun and the powerful priest of Amun who operated it, were one of the most powerful religious institutions in the kingdom.

Suddenly, around the year 1493 BC, Thutmose I died. Hatshepsut would have only been around 13 to 14 years old at this time and her mother would die just a few years later.

Upon Thutmose I's death, Hatshepsut's half-brother, Thutmose II, then became king of Egypt at about the age of 20.

In 1492 BC, to strengthen his new position as pharaoh, Thutmose II decided to marry Hatshepsut, even though she was his half-sister. 

As shocking as it is to us today, brother-sister marriage was a common practice among Egyptian royals at the time. 

As part of her position as queen, Hatshepsut took up the official role as 'God’s Wife of Amun'. 

This title was a politically powerful and spiritually important role in Egyptian society.

Theoretically, the woman who held this position was 'married' to the god Amun and, as such, was required to perform important rituals during ceremonies and festivals at Karnak temple. 

Someone like Hatshepsut would receive significant wealth and prestige as a benefit of being the 'God's wife'.

However, Hatshepsut was not the only wife of the pharaoh. The kings of Egypt were expected to have many wives, whom they married as part of international deals with foreign powers.

Even though Hatshepsut was queen, if she didn't produce a male heir for her husband, then the next pharaoh could be selected from the sons of a lesser wife.

While she gave birth to two children for Thutmose II, they were both daughters

Sadly, only one of them, called Neferure, survived to adulthood.

However, one of Thutmose's other wives, called Iset, gave birth to a son who would be the next in line to the throne.

This boy was called Thutmose III.

Around the year 1479 BC, Thutmose II died, which left his two-year-old son, Thutmose III, as the new pharaoh.

As was to be expected, the royal court realised that a small child could not realistically rule the Egyptian empire.

Therefore, they needed to arrange someone to act as a regent for the boy until he was old enough to be pharaoh himself.

A regent was a member of the royal household, usually a child's mother or stepmother, who would make decisions on behalf of the pharaoh.

This arrangement was often used during Egyptian history, and it was expected that the regent would temporarily be in charge of the kingdom and rule in a way that was in the best interests of the country.

Then, once the pharaoh was old enough to rule, the regent would then hand back the powers they had temporarily held.

So, Hatshepsut was appointed as regent for her stepson, Thutmose III. She could be expected to remain as regent until the pharaoh turned about 15 or 16 years old.

As a result, Hatshepsut could exercise the powers of a king for the next 13 or so years.

However, it soon became apparent that Hatshepsut was not going to be content with simply acting on her stepson's behalf.

Instead, she made it very clear that she intended to be the pharaoh herself.

Somewhere between the second and seventh year of her regency, she held an elaborate coronation ceremony where she officially took the throne of Egypt and became pharaoh.

Given the speed with which Hatshepsut took power, some Egyptologists have wondered whether she had always planned to seize the throne.

If so, they pondered whether Hatshepsut may have had Thutmose II killed so that she could take over as sole ruler.

However, others believe that Thutmose II simply died of natural causes and point to the fact that even when she overthrew Thutmose III, she didn't have him killed.

Instead, the young pharaoh continued to live on as a member of the royal household.

Whatever the case may be, from the time of her coronation, Hatshepsut took on the role of pharaoh and would go on to rule Egypt for more than two decades.

Despite the dramatic seizure of power, there were some inherent complications with a woman becoming pharaoh.

The position of king was always a masculine role. Like many ancient languages, the words the Egyptians used had gendered endings.

This meant that when you said the word 'king' or 'pharaoh', you were using a masculine word, which just didn't sound right when you were talking about a woman on the throne.

In a similar way, Egyptian art was heavily stylised, with pre-set forms of statues and paintings that were used to show the image of the pharaoh.

These were also heavily gendered, which made the job of sculptors and artists very difficult when they started making images of a woman in these roles.

For the first few years, statues showed an awkward combination of both male and female features when trying to depict Hatshepsut.

Hatshepsut was well aware of the confusion and awkwardness. She faced a similar uncomfortable position with her clothing, as the traditional outfits and accessories worn by pharaohs were very masculine.

She decided that she needed to appear in public wearing the traditional pharaonic false-beard and male clothes so that people knew she was standing in the role of king.

To try and make her position as ruler acceptable, she emphasized her connection to the god Amun.

She knew that if she could produce convincing propaganda which could explain that she was authorised to be pharaoh by the gods themselves, then she might win over her subjects.

As a result, she had inscriptions made that portrayed herself as Amun's daughter.

By doing so, she created a story in which the god Amun had visited her mother years ago and impregnated her.

By linking herself so closely with Amun, Hatshepsut was able to gain the support of the powerful priests of Karnak and, by extension, convince the rest of Egypt to accept her authority.

During her more than 20-year rule, Hatshepsut appeared to be quite successful as a ruler.

Egypt remained wealthy and powerful, and there is some evidence that she had even sent out four successful military campaigns.

However, the main focus of her rule appears to have been infrastructure and building projects within Egypt.

She ordered the construction of a massive memorial temple (called Djeser-Djeseru) for her future burial at Deir el-Bahri, which was just across the river from Thebes.

It was so big that it dwarfed similar temples nearby. Also, Hatshepsut set up smaller chapels within the boundaries of the Karnak temple, as well as erecting four large obelisks in front of the temple gates.

In addition, she had a grand new gate added to Karnak, which is known as the 'eighth pylon' today.

Probably the most famous event during Hatshepsut's reign was a massive trading expedition which she launched during her 9th year as pharaoh.

Even Hatshepsut herself regarded this to be one of her greatest achievements, as it is depicted in great detail on the walls of her memorial chapel.

The expedition was sent to the land of Punt. However, it is still not entirely clear to historians where Punt was, but it had been an important trading partner for years.

It was the key location from which pharaohs had gained access to exotic spices, oils, and animal goods that originated from central Africa.

What is clear from the records is that Punt was located to the south of Egypt and could be accessed by ships sailing along the coast.

For this reason, modern historians surmise that it probably existed in the regions of modern-day Somalia, Eretria, or Ethiopia.

There were records of earlier pharaohs especially from the 5th, 11th, and 12th Dynasties who had sent trade voyages to Punt, but due to the incredible distances they had to travel to get there, such expeditions were rare.

Usually, these were only possible when the land of Egypt was at peace and had significant levels of wealth to afford such a journey.

Since direct contact with this land was so infrequent, Punt remained a mysterious location to the Egyptians themselves.

Regardless, none of the previous trade missions were on the scale of what Hatshepsut attempted.

She sent a fleet of five large trading ships with a large number of soldiers to Punt under the command of a man called Nehesy.

Onboard the vessels were stores of wine, beer, cloth, weapons, and jewellery from Egypt that could be traded for valuable foreign goods.

One of the most sought-after resources from Punt was incense resin. Incense was one of the most important elements of ceremonies in Egyptian temples, as it was used in purification rituals and in the mummification process. 

In addition, rare items such as cinnamon, balsam and ebony wood, as well as ivory from elephant tusks, gold, live animals (such as baboons, monkeys, tigers, and panthers) and animal skins could be purchased there.

The best evidence we have of this trade mission comes from the representations of it on Hatshepsut's chapel walls.

The carved reliefs show that the expedition was very successful. The Egyptian ships returned home with mounds of myrrh resin, piles of ebony wood, various monkeys, panthers, and much more.

One of the most interesting goods they returned with were 31 young myrrh trees, which it appears that Hatshepsut had planted in Egypt in hopes of reducing the dependency on Punt for future myrrh resin.

One of the most interesting parts of Hatshepsut's images of this expedition is how the people of Punt were depicted.

The Egyptian artists made a concerted effort to show them in particularly exotic ways.

Their skin colour, physical appearance, houses, the body shapes of the people, and their names, are all carefully shown.

This may have been a way of impressing the Egyptians with how remarkable it was that the pharaoh had managed to reach this mysterious land. 

As Hatshepsut approached the end of her time in power, she could be considered a very successful ruler.

The relative peace that Egypt enjoyed under her reign, combined with the economic prosperity they experienced from events such as the expedition to Punt, could be used as clear evidence of her decision-making prowess. 

However, one of the ongoing difficulties was her gender. Despite her best efforts, it seems that the Egyptian people never really became entirely comfortable with the fact that a woman was pharaoh.

Some tensions appear to have remained among the members of the royal courts.

It seems some important noble families may have felt as though their privileges were not sufficiently respected by Hatshepsut. 

These tensions may have arisen when royal advisors that had held power during the reign of Thutmose I were given fewer responsibilities during her reign.

There is evidence that she may have preferred to promote people outside of the usual aristocratic families to positions of authority based upon their merits rather than their family lines. 

One example of this trend is the person Senenmut.

One of the most mysterious aspects of Hatshepsut's reign is her relationship with an important man in the royal court, named Senenmut.

Senenmut seems to have experienced rapid promotion into positions of power in the early years of Hatshepsut's reign.

Why this is particularly remarkable is due to the fact that Senenmut did not come from one of the noble families.

As far as we can tell, he came from very humble beginnings, yet rose to be one of the most important and powerful people in the land.

Over the course of his career under Hatshepsut, he was awarded with over 80 titles, only 20 of which were official positions.

Some of these included Chief Steward of Amun, Chief Steward of the King, Controller of the estates of Amun, Controller of Works, and overseer of the royal household.

Judging by the vast range of these roles, Senenmut must have been in charge of organising and supervising almost all of Hatshepsut's construction projects and helped in a wide array of the day-to-day administration tasks of the kingdom.

These many roles would have meant that Senenmut spent significant time with Hatshepsut, probably on a daily basis.

Due to this, and judging by the range of responsibilities he accrued, many historians assume that he and the queen had a very close and personal friendship. 

Some go so far as to say that Senenmut and Hatshepsut were lovers. If this were true, a romantic relationship between the pharaoh and one of their workers, particularly one from a non-noble background, would have been considered taboo. 

No doubt, the elevation of someone like Senenmut would have upset the traditional aristocracy of ancient Egypt.

There would have been unresolved tensions between powerful people in Hatshepsut's government that may not have been successfully resolved by the time of her death.

Around the year 1458 BC, Hatshepsut died at the age of 50. A mummy has been identified as hers with a high degree of certainty, and modern analysis of the remains have sought to identify her cause of death. 

The mummy in question shows signs that she was overweight at the end of her life and suffered from diabetes.

However, there is no obvious cause of death. There is some evidence that one of her teeth had an abscess and she had bone cancer.

Complications from either of these, or a combination of other health concerns, could have been the real reason for her death.

Regardless, after Hatshepsut's death, Thutmose III finally took back the throne.

He was over 30 years old by this stage, and it is not clear why he had not tried to take back power much earlier.

However, once he was pharaoh again, Thutmose III tried to erase all traces of Hatshepsut from history.

He had her name removed from inscriptions and monuments, and he ordered many of her statues to be destroyed.

The process of trying to erase the memory of someone from history is known as damnatio memoriae.

For ancient Egyptians, this was a particularly brutal measure due to their beliefs about the afterlife.

They believed that for the deceased to live for eternity, their name had to remain somewhere on earth.

By removing Hatshepsut's name from throughout Egypt, Thutmose was trying to ensure that she would cease to exist for the rest of eternity: both her memory on earth and her spirit in the afterlife.

However, despite Thutmose III's best efforts, Hatshepsut's legacy has survived to the present day.

This may be due to how Thutmose chose to destroy her building projects.

When he had her temples pulled down, he used the rubble to build his own temples.

When the structures began falling apart in modern history, the crumbling remains revealed the rubble once more.

As archaeologists rediscovered the bricks and statues of Hatshepsut, they were able to reassemble many structures and piece together the history that Thutmose III tried to hide.

Therefore, by seeking to destroy Hatshepsut's memory, Thutmose III inadvertently preserved it.