The Woman Who Would Be King

Egyptologist Kara Cooney reconstructs the life and reign of Hatshepsut, the first woman to exercise long-term rule over ancient Egypt as king. Born around 1500 BCE into the Eighteenth Dynasty of the New Kingdom, Hatshepsut held power for almost 22 years as regent and then co-king. Despite her achievements, her monuments were destroyed and her legacy largely erased within decades of her death. Cooney argues that history remembers women who fail spectacularly but forgets those who succeed quietly, and that Hatshepsut's story illuminates why women are still systematically excluded from positions of authority.

Hatshepsut's path to power began with a dynastic crisis. Her father, Thutmose I, was not born into the royal family but ascended to the throne after King Amenhotep I failed to produce a living heir. To cement his legitimacy, Thutmose I married Ahmes, a woman likely connected to the older Ahmoside royal line, who became his Great Wife, the highest-ranking queen. Ahmes bore a daughter, Hatshepsut, instead of the hoped-for son. Two elder princes, Wadjmose and Amenmose, were groomed as heirs but both died young, and Hatshepsut's sister Neferubity also perished, leaving Hatshepsut the sole surviving child of the king's principal marriage.

From childhood, Hatshepsut received an unusually thorough education, learning hieroglyphic and hieratic scripts, mythology, ethics, and history. She trained for the powerful religious office of God's Wife of Amen, a priestess position second only to the High Priest of Amen in the sacred precincts of Thebes, the dynasty's capital. The role granted its holder economic independence, political influence, and intimate access to divine rituals. Hatshepsut's appointment transferred this office from the old Ahmoside family to the Thutmoside line, consolidating her father's control over the influential Amen priesthood.

When Thutmose I died, the young prince Thutmose, son of a secondary wife named Mutnofret, took the throne as Thutmose II. Hatshepsut married him at about age 12 and became King's Great Wife, while her mother, Ahmes, stepped in as regent. Together, Ahmes and Hatshepsut ran the regime, suppressing a rebellion in Kush, a colonial territory in Nubia, and commissioning an ambitious building program at Karnak Temple. During this period, a lowborn official named Senenmut rose to prominence, eventually becoming tutor to Hatshepsut's daughter Nefrure. His lack of elite ties made him wholly dependent on the royal women.

Hatshepsut bore Thutmose II a daughter, Nefrure, but no surviving son. After only three years of rule, Thutmose II died, leaving behind infant sons by lesser wives. Hatshepsut was about 16. A temple oracle selected one of the toddlers, a son of a minor wife named Isis, as the next king: Thutmose III. The child needed a regent, and Hatshepsut assumed control. The official Ineni recorded that Hatshepsut "was doing the affairs of the Two Lands," meaning Egypt, "with her plans" (78).

For seven years, Hatshepsut governed as regent while expanding her authority. She appointed loyal officials to overlapping positions, creating checks and balances, and built monuments throughout Egypt and Nubia. She transferred the God's Wife position to Nefrure, but this left Hatshepsut without a formally defined title connecting her to the reigning king: She was neither Thutmose III's mother, wife, nor sister. Cooney argues this gap in formal authority drove her toward an unprecedented claim.

Around year seven of Thutmose III's reign, Hatshepsut was formally crowned as king. The transformation had been gradual: She first depicted herself performing kingly functions while retaining queen's titles, then adopted the throne name Maatkare ("The Soul of Re Is Truth," invoking the sun god Re). She claimed the god Amen had personally selected her to rule. Her royal names were crafted with theological precision, attaching masculine elements of power to feminine linguistic bases and presenting her womanhood as complementary to kingship. She adopted Thutmose III's timeline rather than beginning her own regnal count, retroactively dating her kingship to his accession.

As co-king, Hatshepsut managed a coregency that inverted tradition: She was the senior ruler but had come to power second. In year nine, she sent an expedition to Punt, a distant land probably along the coast of modern-day Somalia, Djibouti, or Eritrea, which returned with incense trees, ebony, and exotic goods she used to reward the Amen priesthood. She expanded the priesthood, creating a vast network of officials dependent on her authority. Senenmut's career peaked when he was named Overseer of the House of Amen, making him steward of the entire temple complex. Hatshepsut's greatest architectural achievement was her funerary temple at Deir el-Bahri, called Djeser Djeseru ("Holy of Holies"), a radically innovative tiered structure built into the cliffs of western Thebes.

As Thutmose III matured, Hatshepsut progressively masculinized her public image, eventually adopting fully masculine depictions. Her inscriptions, however, retained feminine pronouns and the title "Daughter of Re," broadcasting different messages to literate elites and the general public. In year 16, she celebrated a Sed festival, a rare jubilee of kingship renewal, and published narratives of her divine conception, claiming Amen had fathered her. She also attempted to position Nefrure for unprecedented political power: An inscribed stone monument in Sinai gives Nefrure the title "Mistress of the Two Lands." These aspirations met resistance, and Nefrure's names were removed from temple reliefs.

In her final years, Hatshepsut built the Red Chapel, a sanctuary for Amen's portable ceremonial boat made of deep red quartzite at Karnak's heart. Cooney describes it as the theological culmination of her reign. Hatshepsut died around year 22, probably before age 40; the cause of death is uncertain, and there is no evidence of foul play. Thutmose III oversaw her burial, performing the Opening of the Mouth ceremony, a funerary rite believed to restore the deceased's senses in the afterlife. She was interred as a king in the Valley of the Kings.

Now sole ruler, Thutmose III launched a massive military campaign against a Syrian coalition at Megiddo. Over 32 years of sole rule, he led 18 campaigns and became one of Egypt's greatest warrior-kings. Initially he maintained Hatshepsut's monuments, but within five years he dismantled the Red Chapel and built his own shrine. He constructed the Akhmenu temple at Karnak with a Hall of Ancestors listing 62 previous kings, from which Hatshepsut was likely excluded. Senenmut's influence declined sharply; his tomb was left unfinished and his sarcophagus smashed.

Twenty-five years after Hatshepsut's death, Thutmose III faced the succession crisis he most feared. His chosen heir, the future Amenhotep II, had no genealogical connection to Hatshepsut's highborn side of the family. To shore up this prince's legitimacy, Thutmose III launched a systematic campaign to erase Hatshepsut's kingly images from temples across Egypt. Craftsmen chiseled away her figures and replaced her names with those of Thutmose I, Thutmose II, or Thutmose III. At Djeser Djeseru, dozens of colossal statues were pulled down and smashed. Images of Hatshepsut as queen were left untouched; only her kingly images were targeted. The destruction stopped once Amenhotep II was crowned as coregent, suggesting it served dynastic rather than personal purposes.

Thutmose III also weakened the office of God's Wife of Amen, stripping it of income and influence. Later Eighteenth Dynasty kings followed his precedent, refusing to depict their queens in public rituals. Cooney argues that Hatshepsut's success paradoxically drove influential women out of authority for generations. Yet Hatshepsut was never entirely forgotten: The fourth-century BCE historian-priest Manetho recorded a female ruler whose reign closely matches hers, and the later king Amenhotep III used her pious model of kingship as a template. Cooney concludes that Hatshepsut remains the only ancient woman who rose to formal absolute power during a time of peace, ruled successfully, and was rewarded with erasure.