Hatshepsut Assumes Full Pharaonic Titles
Hatshepsut became regent for her stepson Thutmose III around 1479 BC and, within about seven years, had herself crowned pharaoh. She was the daughter of Thutmose I and the principal wife of her half-brother Thutmose II, and had no son. When her husband died, the throne went to his son by a secondary wife — an infant — and she governed in his name, which was ordinary. Taking the full titulary was not. She adopted the five royal names, was depicted in the kilt, the nemes headdress and the false beard, and was referred to in inscriptions sometimes as he and sometimes as she, with the grammar visibly unable to accommodate her. The iconography was the reason. Kingship in Egypt was defined by its images and rituals, and there was no version of them for a woman; the alternative to using the male ones was not being king. She justified it with two arguments carved at Deir el-Bahri. The first was a divine birth cycle showing Amun visiting her mother in the form of Thutmose I. The second was a coronation text in which her father names her his successor before the court. Her reign was prosperous, largely peaceful, and heavy on building and trade — the Punt expedition, obelisks at Karnak, and the terraced temple below the cliffs. Thutmose III ruled alone after her death around 1458 and campaigned for decades. Her images were chiselled out some twenty years later, a delay that suggests dynastic housekeeping rather than hatred. Her monuments were recovered by excavation in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and she is now among the best-attested pharaohs of the period.
- Year: 1479 BCE
- Category: Political
