Hatshepsut: The Pharaoh Erased So a Male Line Could Rule
On the stone walls of Deir el-Bahari, on the west bank of Thebes in Egypt, a king’s name once appeared. The name was Maatkare Hatshepsut. Around the fifteenth century BCE, she did more than act as a king’s wife or stand in for a child. She directed the state, organised trade, performed royal rituals, and built monuments that still stand more than 3,000 years later. After her death, stone workers returned. Her name was scraped from cartouches, her images were cut from walls, and her statues were broken and buried in pits.
On the stone walls of Deir el-Bahari, on the west bank of Thebes in Egypt, a king’s name once appeared. The name was Maatkare Hatshepsut. Around the fifteenth century BCE, she did more than act as a king’s wife or stand in for a child. She directed the state, organised trade, performed royal rituals, and built monuments that still stand more than 3,000 years later. After her death, stone workers returned. Her name was scraped from cartouches, her images were cut from walls, and her statues were broken and buried in pits. Later king lists skipped the years in which she ruled.
On the stone walls of Deir el-Bahari, on the west bank of Thebes in Egypt, a king’s name once appeared. The name was Maatkare Hatshepsut. Around the fifteenth century BCE, she did more than act as a king’s wife or stand in for a child. She directed the state, organised trade, performed royal rituals, and built monuments that still stand more than 3,000 years later. After her death, stone workers returned. Her name was scraped from cartouches, her images were cut from walls, and her statues were broken and buried in pits.
On the stone walls of Deir el-Bahari, on the west bank of Thebes in Egypt, a king’s name once appeared. The name was Maatkare Hatshepsut. Around the fifteenth century BCE, she did more than act as a king’s wife or stand in for a child. She directed the state, organised trade, performed royal rituals, and built monuments that still stand more than 3,000 years later. After her death, stone workers returned. Her name was scraped from cartouches, her images were cut from walls, and her statues were broken and buried in pits.
On the stone walls of Deir el-Bahari, on the west bank of Thebes in Egypt, a king’s name once appeared. The name was Maatkare Hatshepsut. Around the fifteenth century BCE, she did more than act as a king’s wife or stand in for a child. She directed the state, organised trade, performed royal rituals, and built monuments that still stand more than 3,000 years later. After her death, stone workers returned. Her name was scraped from cartouches, her images were cut from walls, and her statues were broken and buried in pits.
On the stone walls of Deir el-Bahari, on the west bank of Thebes in Egypt, a king’s name once appeared. The name was Maatkare Hatshepsut. Around the fifteenth century BCE, she did more than act as a king’s wife or stand in for a child. She directed the state, organised trade, performed royal rituals, and built monuments that still stand more than 3,000 years later. After her death, stone workers returned. Her name was scraped from cartouches, her images were cut from walls, and her statues were broken and buried in pits.