Hatshepsut: The Woman Who Ruled Egypt as Pharaoh

In Hatshepsut: The Woman Who Ruled Egypt as Pharaoh, Edward Harcourt brings to life one of the most extraordinary rulers of the ancient world. Born into Egypt's powerful Eighteenth Dynasty, Hatshepsut rose from royal daughter and queen to regent before assuming the full titles and authority of Pharaoh. For more than two decades, she presided over a kingdom marked by stability, prosperity, ambitious construction, and expanding trade.Drawing on surviving inscriptions, monumental reliefs, and archaeological discoveries, Harcourt reconstructs Hatshepsut's remarkable reign. From the towering obelisks of Karnak and the magnificent temple at Deir el Bahri to the famous expedition to Punt, her achievements proclaimed both the wealth of Egypt and the legitimacy of her rule.Harcourt explores how Hatshepsut mastered the traditions of Egyptian kingship while governing alongside Thutmose III, building a powerful court and securing her place at the head of one of antiquity's greatest kingdoms. Yet after her death, her names and images were systematically removed from monuments in an effort to diminish her memory.More than three thousand years later, archaeology restored Hatshepsut to history, revealing the extraordinary story of a ruler whose monuments survived the attempt to erase her and whose reign remains one of the most remarkable chapters in the history of ancient Egypt.