Hatshepsut: What We Know
Undoubtedly one of the most extraordinary women
in recorded history, Hatshepsut was the daughter
of Pharaoh Tuthmosis I and wife of Tuthmosis II, her half-brother.
When her husband-brother died, she became regent
for the boy-king Tuthmosis III, the child of
Tuthmosis II and a concubine. But hieroglyphic
carvings suggest that Hatshepsut didn't put up
with that state of affairs for long: Wearing the
royal headdress and a false beard, she proclaimed herself pharaoh.
She reigned in 1498-1483 B.C. as the fifth pharaoh of
the 18th Dynasty, whose later members included Akhenaton and Tutankhamun.
Under her 20-year rule, Egypt enjoyed a peaceful
and prosperous time. Yet after her death, the
female pharaoh was scorned, her images and
inscriptions mutilated and her monuments
demolished by the jealous successor Tuthmosis III.
Of her monumental construction work, only two
great obelisks at Karnak and the temple at Deir
al-Bahari — the scene of a notorious massacre of
foreign tourists in 1997 — remain.
Her mummy was never found, and some scholars even
hypothized that Tuthmosis III may have destroyed it.
"I suggest that in the Third Intermediate Period,
during the 21st or 22nd Dynasties, the priests
moved the mummy of Hatshepsut to KV60, which
possibly was cut in the 18th Dynasty but never
used, or perhaps was originally intended for
Sitre-In," Hawass wrote in "Quest for the Mummy
of Hatshepsut," an undated article that appears on his Web site.
