2023

Hatshepsut's reign was a landmark not only in the history of the Eighteenth Dynasty but in the entire ancient history of Egypt.

Origin and family history,
Hatshepsut was born in 1508 BC, the eldest daughter of King (Thutmose I), and Queen (Ahmose), she was an ancient Egyptian ruling queen, the fifth in the succession of kings of the Eighteenth Dynasty, she ruled after the death of her husband King Thutmose II as a guardian of the young King Thutmose III at first and then as Queen and daughter of the God Amon after she published a story engraved in her temple at the sea monastery saying that it was the result of an intimate meeting between Amon and her mother Queen Ahmose, and Amenhotep I was born in the middle of the Eighteenth Dynasty.

King Ahmose I, the owner of the great victory in the liberation of Egypt from the Hyksos, is considered the great-grandfather of Hatshepsut, and the founder of the eighteenth pharaonic dynasty to which she belongs.

Hatshepsut was the legitimate heir to the throne of the country, as there was no legitimate male heir, but she had a half-brother from her father, Thutmose II, by a secondary wife named MOT Neferet.

Her education,
Hatshepsut received an education in the sciences of morality and correct behavior, as well as reading and writing, arithmetic and philosophy, religious rituals, grammar, and creation.

She had to persevere in transmitting and learning the proverbial rule about the ancient Egyptian sages, like any of her colleagues, such as her half-brother (Thutmose II), the young princes and princesses, and several Sons of ministers and noble families; there is no doubt that she was afraid of the teacher who was teaching her lessons and afraid of his violent methods with his students, whatever their status and this was an example of Justice applied to everyone equally without fear or favor, which became an essential part of the life of Egyptian society at that time, and Hatshepsut could not claim any special privileges in her treatment, and the Royal School in Pharaoh's house, like other schools in the country, started early in the morning It ends at noon, as many schools in Egypt do nowadays.

Her marriage,
Hatshepsut married her half-brother (Thutmose II), according to the custom of the Pharaonic Kings, who had no choice but to marry Hatshepsut to catch the scepter of power, and she gave birth to a son and two daughters, the son died in childhood, and his name has not survived on any trace of antiquities, and the two daughters are named (never-Ra), and (Meret-Ra Hatshepsut).

Her husband (Thutmose II), gave birth to a son (Thutmose III), from one of the concubines of the Royal Court, called IST.

Her reign,

The road was not paved for Hatshepsut, and it was furnished with flowers to reach the government, she persistently and stubbornly faced a society and a male religious authority, she refused to see the ruler except in the form of a man.

Hatshepsut began a difficult time of her life at the age of twenty, at the death of her father (Thutmose I), she had previously been a partner with her father in ruling, and the legitimate heir to the throne; so it was reasonable that she was the pharaoh who follows Thutmose I on the throne. However, the traditions of the court and the intrigues of the priests began to interfere in matters because the idea of ruling a woman and putting all the powers in her hands was something they did not like; for this reason, it was inevitable that her half-brother (Thutmose II) would involve in the government with her, that thin and frail person, inexperienced in managing the affairs of the country, and be a partner with her in the king as pharaoh of the country, while she would become a royal wife no more.

There was no point in protesting, all the circumstances were against her, and they began preparing for her marriage to Thutmose II, and Thutmose II obtained the legitimacy of the rule, and we know little about his short-term reign, except for a revolution that took place in the South. But, instead of leading the Army himself and marching to the enemies as his father used to do, he gave his teachings to his soldiers to be extremely cruel to those outside his rule.

Thutmose II was a weak person and maybe he was sick at the same time, and in fact it was Hatshepsut who managed the affairs of the state, ruling the country in his name from behind a curtain, and she was the owner of the order and the Prohibition, and after a short time it became clear that he was walking on the path of death, and the courtiers and senior officials There was no other prince who could succeed him to the throne, as if she would eventually rule the country on her own, while her friends who knew her ability and strength were delighted with this idea, and were ready to serve her faithfully when the time came.

However, her husband (Thutmose II) wanted to give his son (Thutmose III) the right to take the throne after him, and there was someone plotting with the temple of Amun in Karnak, stirring up the general feeling among the priests and people against the idea of a woman ruling them, and this person was (Thutmose III) himself, who lived in the temple as one of his priests.

Thutmose II died in 1501 BC, and one day shortly after his death, when Hatshepsut was in the temple to witness a ceremony in which the procession of the God Amon was coming out, the stretcher carrying the statue of Amon stood in front of a young priest, and refused to budge after that, and all those present agreed that what had happened was only a sign that Amon had chosen him to co-rule with her.

And this priest, before whom the chariot of Amun stood, was Thutmose III, the son of her deceased husband.

On the third day of May 1501 BC, Thutmose left his job as one of the junior priests in the temple of Amun, to enter the royal palace of the Pharaohs, Hatshepsut was thirty-four years old at that time, and from the first day competition and bitterness prevailed between them, Hatshepsut only gathered supporters around her and formed a party for her, and this party lasted only a little time until its influence intensified, and it became so strong that the pharaoh, who did not have sufficient experience, became completely unable to rule the country, and he had to vacate the place for Hatshepsut.

Hatshepsut was finally proclaimed in 1478 BC, king of Upper Egypt and the Delta, and ruled Egypt and its overseas possessions alone as Pharaoh.

And in the songs of praise that were sung in her praise, they called her (the female Horus), and added the feminine sign at the end of the word denoting (Majesty).

The Royal Khans in which Hatshepsut's name was written, which appear on the walls of Deir el-Bahri, Karnak, and other places in Egypt, were explicit in their meaning, it was added next to her name (the king of Upper Egypt and the Delta, the daughter of the sun, the friend of Amun Hatshepsut, the Golden Horus, the giver of years, the goddess of Radiance, the conqueror of all the country, who greets hearts, the strong lady).

This was the moment of victory for her, and the ancient Egyptian historian Maniton estimates her reign at 21 years and nine months.

The question may arise here what Hatshepsut did to Thutmose III, after she overthrew him, and some may think that she killed him or exiled him to a place far from Egypt. However, the fact is that she entrusted the upbringing and education of this Pharaoh, who was previously a young priest with a military upbringing and taught him the arts of State Administration, to lead some military campaigns against the rebels against the Egyptian rule outside the country at the end of her reign, and he took over after her death, after marrying her daughter (Meret Ra Hatshepsut), which gave him legitimacy to rule, and he was one of the strongest warrior Pharaohs who ruled Egypt, and being the first and most powerful Egyptian empire known to history.

Her works during her reign,

The period of Hatshepsut's rule was characterized by peace and prosperity, and her reign was characterized by the strength of the army, construction activity, and the great sea voyages that she sent to trade with neighboring countries. under the scepter of the Pharaoh, the woman was able to enrich Egypt and prosper. she reopened quarries and mines that had been neglected for a long time, especially copper and malachite mines in the Sinai Peninsula. work in those mines had stopped during the Hyksos rule of Egypt and what followed. We still find in Sinai a plaque with writing documenting this work, glorifying what she did.

Hatshepsut also activated trade with Egypt's neighbors, where trade was in a bad state, especially during the reign of King Thutmose II, and reused a canal connecting the Nile at the end of the Delta to the Red Sea, where she cleaned this canal after the Egyptians dug it during the Middle Kingdom, to direct Egypt's naval fleet to exit to the Gulf of Suez and then to the waters of the Red Sea. She ordered the construction of several facilities in the Karnak Temple and also established her temple in Deir el Bahri in Luxor.

Hatshepsut took care of the Egyptian merchant fleet, so she built large ships and used them for internal transportation to transport obelisks, which she ordered to be added to the Karnak Temple in glorification of the god Amun, and trade exchange missions with her neighbors. her reign was characterized by prosperity in Egypt, and the demand for entertainment items brought by commercial fleets from neighboring countries increased, the most important of which were incense, perfumes, spices, plants, tropical trees, predators, and skins.

Atlantic expedition: Queen Hatshepsut sent a large fleet to the Atlantic, and trade flourished with the Atlantic Ocean to import some species of rare fish.

Puntland expedition: Queen Hatshepsut sent a trade mission on large ships navigating the Red Sea loaded with gifts and Egyptian goods such as Papyrus and linen to Puntland (present-day Somalia, South Yemen), the king of punt received the mission well, and then returned loaded with large quantities of predators, wood, incense, ebony, ivory, leather, and precious stones. Queen Hatshepsut depicted the news of that expedition on the walls of the temple of Deir el-Bahri on the West Bank of the Nile at Luxor, and the colors that adorn the drawings of this temple are still bright and retain their splendor and beauty to a large extent.

The Aswan expedition: also depicted on the walls of the temple of Deir el-Bahri is the description of Hatshepsut's expedition to the granite quarries at Aswan to bring huge stones to the facilities, and it created two great obelisks of granite in Aswan in praise of the God Ammon, each of about 35 tons, then they were transported on the Nile to Thebes and the obelisks took their place in the Karnak Temple in Luxor, and when Napoleon visited during the French campaign on Egypt in 1879, he ordered one of the obelisks to be transported to France, and the French capital is Paris.

Historians and engineers to this day admire the ability of the Egyptians to transport these obelisks from Aswan to Luxor, the process of loading the obelisks on ships and then transporting them on the Nile and landing them on land, and then transporting them on land to the place of their construction is not easy at all, and what is also more than that is the construction of the obelisks in the place chosen for them exactly in front of the edifice built by Queen Hatshepsut in Karnak Temple a few meters from the edifice, and engineers are still with this titanic work, not only that, Hatshepsut issued her orders to create an obelisk that is considered the largest obelisk in the history of mankind consisting of one piece of The Stone weighed more than 1000 tons to be placed in the Karnak Temple, but the ancient Egyptian engineers abandoned it after discovering a crack in it that prevents its use. Tourists from all over the world are currently visiting to see the marvel of this unfinished obelisk in the Aswan quarry, asking themselves: how did the ancient Egyptians want to move this giant obelisk to the Karnak Temple One of the German Egyptologists describe the methods of cutting stone that the ancient Egyptians treated the stone as if it were butter, and indeed this can be seen in the quarry of Aswan, now called the (incomplete obelisk).

Military campaigns,
The prevailing in the era of Hatshepsut was peace, prosperity, and prosperity of trade with neighboring countries, they were not inclined to the policy of external invasion. However, there were a few military campaigns recorded during her reign, most of which were disciplinary, in addition to one military campaign recorded from the reign of Hatshepsut by Thutmose III, which was the capture of Gaza, and that was near the end of her reign. Some manuscripts, such as the one found in the Tomb of Senenmut (TT71), reveal disciplinary campaigns in Nubia and some other countries that were under Egyptian authority, as follows:

A punitive expedition on Nubia at the beginning of her reign was conducted by Hatshepsut. This was stated in a manuscript of the head of the Treasury tij Tij.
A punitive campaign against Syria and Palestine, according to a manuscript in Deir el-Bahri, in addition to a campaign against a rebellion in Nubia
A campaign against a rebellion in Nubia in the 20th year of her reign
A disciplinary crackdown on Mau Mau near the Firka squad area between the 20th and 22nd years of her reign.
The secret of Hatshepsut's appearance in the clothes of male Pharaohs
Hatshepsut did not want to create a novelty in the appearance of the ruling Pharaoh that people had composed for many decades, although at the beginning of her reign, she was depicted as a woman in full adornment, but later she became an example of a strong and muscular pharaoh, who wears a false beard. She began to wear clothes similar to those of her male Pharaohs at official ceremonies, and also appeared in some of her statues with a borrowed chin, as is customary in the statues of Pharaohs.

Although this did not diminish the fact that Hatshepsut possessed all the qualities of a beautiful female, she had a pleasant Khmer complexion, a slightly hooked nose, and a round face.

And she loved flowers, gardens, trees, and everything that was lush, brightly colored.

Was there a love story between the Queen and the engineer"We're going to die?"
"We will die" was an exciting mystery in the life of Hatshepsut, the engineer who built her famous temple in Deir el-Bahri, to whom she was awarded 80 titles, and who was responsible for the upbringing and education of her daughter, the little princess (nefer-Ra), and he reached out of his love for his queen to dig a tunnel between her tomb and his tomb, to be close to her in the next life, as he was close to her in the world. As for her, she appreciated his nobility and strength of character, so much so that she allowed him to build his tomb in the sanctuary of her temple to be next to her in his death, as he was doing in the world.

And if the hints of historians come to indicate the existence of a love affair that brought together the two, then she died, and Hatshepsut, after the death of her husband. But, this is not certain, and it may be just a relationship of mutual respect.

The Royal Engineer, senmut, is the one who built for Hatshepsut the most beautiful funerary temple built for a queen in history, both ancient and modern, which is the Deir el-Bahri temple, which he built in the bosom of the western mountain, and it was built with Royal white limestone brought from Tora, and in the form of three halls above one another so that the Queen's soul ascends and ascends to heaven to be immortalized with the stars.

Hatshepsut died on the 10th of the second month of autumn, which corresponds (January 14, 1457 BC) during the 22nd year of her reign, as stated in an inscription on a plate found in Armant.

Hatshepsut's mummy has been verified that the signs of her death are signs of a natural death and that the cause of her death is due to cancer or diabetes.

Hatshepsut's tomb is located in the Valley of the Kings and is denoted by the number KV20, Hatshepsut may have expanded her father's tomb to use it, and her coffin was found next to her father's coffin.

Recently, the mummy of Queen Hatshepsut took a picture in which she appears with a dreamy and pretentious smile; as one who performed his message to the fullest, and finally rested. The funny thing about the photo is also that the Queen had beautiful soft colored hair; it is clearly shown in the photo as well, and this shows that the science of mummification created by the ancient Egyptians is a great secret if discovered; it could change the appearance of burial in the whole world.

Whatever the matter of Queen Hatshepsut, she is one of the few women in the ancient world who reached the top of the administration in their country, and she made every effort to convince the man in her reign to accept her as a woman to rule him, and whether "Hatshepsut" convinced the men in Egypt at that time of her rule, or not, what she did was much greater than what some male Kings did.

Hatshepsut (meaning: one of the most prominent noble ladies; 1508-1458 BC.M.) Was the fifth pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty era of ancient Egypt. Egyptologists consider her one of the most successful Pharaohs, holder of the title longer than any other woman in Egyptian captivity. Her reign was marked by the strength of the army, construction activity, and the great sea voyages that she sent to trade with neighboring countries. She is the eldest daughter of the pharaoh of Egypt, King Thutmose I, and her mother, Queen Ahmose. Her father, the King, had given birth to an illegitimate son, Thutmose II. She agreed to marry him according to the custom of royal families so that they could jointly rule after his death, to solve the problem of having a legitimate heir to him.

Foreign missions,
Hatshepsut took care of the Egyptian merchant fleet, so she built large ships and used them for internal transportation to transport obelisks, which she ordered to be added to the Karnak Temple in praise of the god Amun or to send ships on trade exchange missions with her neighbors. her reign was characterized by prosperity in Egypt and peace, and the demand for entertainment items brought by commercial fleets from neighboring countries increased, the most important of which were incense, perfumes, spices, plants, tropical trees, predators, and skins.

Queen Hatshepsut sent a trade mission on large ships navigating the Red Sea loaded with gifts and Egyptian goods such as Papyrus and linen to Puntland (now Somalia), The King of Punt received the mission well, and then returned loaded with large quantities of predator, wood, incense, ebony, ivory, leather, and precious stones. Queen Hatshepsut depicted the news of that expedition on the walls of the temple of Deir el-Bahri on the West Bank of the Nile at Luxor. The colors that adorn the drawings of this temple are still bright and retain their splendor and beauty to a large extent.

Aswan expedition: also depicted on the walls of the temple of Deir el-Bahri is the description of Hatshepsut's expedition to the granite quarries at Aswan to bring huge stones to the facilities. She created two great obelisks of granite with lions in praise of the god Amun, each of about 35 tons, and then they were transported on the Nile to Thebes and the obelisks took their place in the Karnak Temple in Luxor. When Napoleon visited during the French campaign against Egypt in 1879, he ordered one of the obelisks to be transferred to France, and it still adorns the Place de la Concorde in the French capital, Paris.

To this day, historians and engineers admire the ability of the Egyptians to transport these obelisks from Aswan to Luxor. The process of loading the obelisks onto ships, then transporting them on the Nile, landing them on land, and then transporting them on land to the place of their construction is not easy at all. What is even more remarkable is the construction of the two obelisks in the place chosen for them exactly in front of the edifice built by Queen Hatshepsut in the Karnak Temple, a few meters from the edifice. Until now, engineers are still developing theories of the method that the ancient Egyptian engineer followed to do this titanic work. Not only that, Hatshepsut issued her orders to create the largest obelisk in the history of mankind consisting of a single piece of stone weighing more than 1000 tons for placement in the Karnak Temple, but the ancient Egyptian engineers left it after discovering a crack in it that prevents its use. Tourists from all over the world are currently visiting to see the marvel of this unfinished obelisk in the Aswan quarry. And they ask themselves: how did the ancient Egyptians want to transfer this giant obelisk to the Karnak Temple One of the German Egyptologists describes the methods of cutting the stone that the ancient Egyptians treated the stone as if it were butter, and indeed this can be seen in the Aswan quarry and is now called (incomplete obelisk)

Hatshepsut in popular culture,
One of the most famous queens who ruled Egypt and is considered one of the most beautiful ones, Hatshepsut was the first to wear gloves because of a birth defect in her fingers (6 or more fingers on one hand) people did not know this until after seeing her mummy.in most of the statues made for her, her hands looked natural because she was ordering sculptors to do so, she was also the first to embroider gloves with precious stones.

Military campaigns,
The only recorded military campaign of Hatshepsut's reign by Thutmose III was the capture of Gaza near the end of her reign. Some manuscripts, such as the one found in the Tomb of Senenmut (TT71), reveal disciplinary campaigns in Nubia and some other countries that were under Egyptian authority.

A punitive expedition on Nubia at the beginning of her reign was conducted by Hatshepsut. This is stated in a manuscript of the head of the Treasury Tij،
A punitive campaign against Syria and Palestine, according to a manuscript in Deir el-Bahri, in addition to a campaign against a rebellion in Nubia.
A disciplinary campaign in the 12th year of her reign (this is reported in writing in Tanger-West Tangur-West), in which the first date of Thutmose III's joint reign with Hatshepsut is mentioned.)
A campaign against a rebellion in Nubia in the 20th year of her reign (written on the Tombos Tombos plate.)
A disciplinary crackdown on Mau Mau near the Firka squad area between the 20th and 22nd years of her reign.

Her death,
Hatshepsut died on the 10th of the second month of autumn (corresponding to January 14, 1457 BC) during the 22nd year of her reign. This is stated in writing on a plate found in Armant. The ancient Egyptian historian Manitou Manetho estimated the period of her reign at 21 years and nine months. In the past, it was believed that she was killed because of a dispute over the verdict, but now it has been verified that Hatshepsut's mummy is clearly showing signs of natural death and that the cause of her death is due to cancer or diabetes. Her grave is located in the Valley of the Kings and is denoted by the number KV20. Hatshepsut may have expanded her father's tomb to use it, and her coffin was found next to her father's.