43 Fun Facts About Hatshepsut

Of which Egyptian dynasty was Hatshepsut a pharaoh?

The Eighteenth Dynasty's later kings chiselled out her name and images, and she almost vanished from Egypt's records.

Who was Hatshepsut's mother, the Great Royal Wife of Thutmose I?

Ahmose, her temple reliefs claimed, was visited by the god Amun in Thutmose I's form, so Hatshepsut could call Amun her father.

What relation was Hatshepsut's husband, Thutmose II, to her?

Half-brother: Thutmose II was their father's son by a secondary wife, and some scholars think Hatshepsut already held the real power.

Hatshepsut was regent for the child king Thutmose III; what relation was she to him?

Stepmother to the boy, Hatshepsut was meant to rule only until he grew up, but instead had herself crowned pharaoh.

What did Thutmose III become once Hatshepsut was crowned pharaoh?

Her co-ruler in name only, Thutmose III is said to have been given command of her armies before her reign ended.

Who was the first confirmed woman to rule Egypt in her own right, before Hatshepsut?

Sobekneferu took the throne, perhaps because the king before her had left no male heir.

What did Hatshepsut wear in statues to present herself as a male pharaoh?

A false beard was worn by male kings too, a badge of office she took on along with the king's kilt and headdress.

Hatshepsut's mummy joined 21 other royal mummies in a golden parade to a new museum in which city?

Cairo put on the show hoping the mummies' new museum would help draw tourists back to Egypt.

Which foreign occupation had disrupted the trade networks Hatshepsut re-established?

The Hyksos had been driven out before her reign, and she cast herself as the heir to that victory.

What does the name Hatshepsut mean?

Foremost of Noble Ladies was a name she kept even as king, writing her titles in feminine grammar while her statues showed a man.

Which relative did Hatshepsut claim had publicly named her as his successor?

Her father, Thutmose I, was long dead, yet reliefs she commissioned show him naming her as his heir.

What did Hatshepsut claim had foretold her kingship during a festival of Amun?

An oracle, she said, predicted her rule, one of several divine claims she carved on her monuments to justify a woman on the throne.

Where was the Land of Punt most likely located?

The Horn of Africa had the gold, ebony, ivory and incense that Punt sent to Egypt, which makes it the likeliest site.

Where does Hatshepsut's great mortuary temple stand?

Deir el-Bahari is also where Thutmose III, whose reign later saw her images erased, built his own temple beside hers.

What does the temple's Egyptian name Djeser-Djeseru mean?

Holy of Holies suited a temple whose central sanctuary went to the god Amun, pushing her own mortuary cult to one side.

What stands against Hatshepsut's top-terrace pillars?

Osiris statues show her as the god of the dead, fitting a mortuary temple where her cult went on after her death.

Which king's neighbouring temple, six centuries older, inspired the design of Hatshepsut's temple?

Mentuhotep II was revered for reuniting Egypt, and she had hers built right beside his on a grander scale.

Shrines to which two deities stand on the temple's middle terrace?

Hathor and Anubis both had shrines: Anubis, guide of the dead, suited a mortuary temple, and Hathor was long worshipped at these cliffs.

Which priestly title gave Hatshepsut a religious power base before she became pharaoh?

God's Wife of Amun came with real temple power, and once she became pharaoh she passed the title to her daughter.

Which creator god fashions Hatshepsut's body in the divine-birth reliefs at her temple?

Khnum shapes her and her ka on his potter's wheel, a scene meant to prove she was born to rule.

Which official, of commoner birth, is often credited as architect of Hatshepsut's temple?

Senenmut also tutored her daughter, and some Egyptologists have wondered whether he was Hatshepsut's lover.

What is remarkable about the roof of tomb TT353, cut for Hatshepsut's chief steward?

Egypt's earliest star ceiling maps the northern and southern skies, yet some of its owner's figures in the tomb were later destroyed.

Which princess, Hatshepsut's daughter, held unusual prominence at court?

Neferure took on a queen's ceremonial duties, since her mother now ruled as king and a royal woman was still needed.

Where did Hatshepsut erect twin obelisks that were then the tallest in the world?

Karnak was the destination, and reliefs in her own temple show obelisks being transported there from the quarry.

What was Hatshepsut's Red Chapel, or Chapelle Rouge, built to hold?

A sacred barque bearing Amun's statue rested there; Thutmose III later took the chapel apart, and its blocks turned up inside other buildings.

Where does the Unfinished Obelisk, thought to have been ordered by Hatshepsut, still lie?

Aswan's quarries were famed for hard, high-quality stone, so obelisks for temples across Egypt were cut there.

Had it been raised, the Unfinished Obelisk would have been Egypt's tallest; why was it abandoned?

Cracks in the granite ended the job, so it still lies attached to the bedrock, about 42 metres long.

The Greeks named Hatshepsut's rock-cut temple to the lioness goddess Pakhet after which of their goddesses?

Artemis was the Greeks' match for Pakhet, and there Hatshepsut boasted of restoring what foreign rulers had left in ruins.

Which ancient historian recorded a queen called Amessis, reigning about 22 years, now identified as Hatshepsut?

Manetho's history survives only in later quotations, yet his division of Egypt's kings into 30 dynasties still frames its history.

Soon after Hatshepsut vanishes from the record, Thutmose III led his first great campaign against which city?

Megiddo: he reached it through a narrow mountain pass his generals had feared, catching the rebel coalition by surprise.

Hatshepsut's tomb held her father's sarcophagus beside her own; where was it cut?

The Valley of the Kings tomb is thought to have held them both until Thutmose III moved her father's body to a new tomb.

Which archaeologist cleared Hatshepsut's tomb of its rock-hard fill in 1903-04?

Howard Carter worked with Theodore Davis paying, and found that her father's sarcophagus there had first been carved for Hatshepsut herself.

Whose tomb, KV60, may Hatshepsut's mummy have been moved into?

Her wet nurse Sitre In had a coffin bearing her title, while the unnamed woman found with her was later proposed as Hatshepsut herself.

Which object from a box bearing Hatshepsut's name helped match her to a mummy in 2007?

A molar tooth seemed to fit a gap in the mummy's jaw, though doubts remain over whether it proves the match.

Which cause of death has been proposed for Hatshepsut?

Bone cancer from a toxic lotion is one theory: a flask of hers in a Bonn museum held an eczema cream laced with carcinogenic benzo(a)pyrene.

Which son of Thutmose III is suspected by some of ordering Hatshepsut's erasure?

Amenhotep II had a weak claim to the throne, and he went on to take credit for many of Hatshepsut's achievements.

What happened to Hatshepsut's temple statues during the erasure?

Smashed and buried in a pit, many were found by the Metropolitan Museum in the 1920s, yet some faces survive intact, so not all the damage may be spite.

Who called Hatshepsut 'the first great woman in history of whom we are informed'?

James Breasted wrote it in his 1905 History of Egypt, and he went on to found the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago.

Which decipherer of hieroglyphs was baffled by a king described with feminine verbs?

Jean-François Champollion could find no such king in the old king lists, because her successors had scrubbed her from the record.

Which later king had images of the god Amun hacked out of Hatshepsut's temple?

Akhenaten had no quarrel with her as a woman: he was erasing Amun, the god he replaced with the sun disc Aten.

What tragedy struck Hatshepsut's temple on 17 November 1997?

The Luxor Massacre killed 58 tourists and four Egyptians at the temple, dealing a heavy blow to Egypt's tourism.

Which nickname do modern writers give Thutmose III for his conquests?

The Napoleon of Egypt had boats carried overland across Syria so his army could cross the Euphrates.

Which trees did Hatshepsut's ships bring home alive from Punt?

Myrrh trees made the voyage home alive and were planted in the gardens of her great temple.