Constructing a rich narrative history using the sources that remain, noted Egyptologist Kara Cooney offers a remarkable interpretation of how Hatshepsut rapidly but methodically consolidated power-and why she fell from public favour just as quickly. Scholars have long speculated as to why her images were violently destroyed within a few decades of her death, all but erasing evidence of her rule.
Just as women today face obstacles from a society that equates authority with masculinity, Hatshepsut had to operate the levers of a patriarchal system to emerge as Egypt’s second female pharaoh. Over a spectacular twenty-two-year reign, Hatshepsut proved herself a master strategist, cloaking her political power plays with a veil of piety and sexual reinvention. Such was the twist of fate that paved the way for her own scarcely believable rule: she ascended to the throne as a ‘king’. Married off to her own brother, she was expected to bear sons who would legitimize the reign of her father’s family. Hatshepsut, the daughter of a general who had usurped the throne of Egypt, was born into a privileged position within the royal household.
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