Hatshepsut Biography

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Hatshepsut Student’s name State University Hatshepsut Ancient Egypt and its pharaohs have always been by far the most interesting topics for any archeologist, because the life story of every pharaoh abounds in mysteries and legends. So does the story of Hatshepsut, an Egyptian Queen who dressed like a man to gain the support of the people, and whose accession to the throne, as well as what happened to her after death remain enigmatic. Hatshepsut was the daughter of Thutmose. Originally, she was not an heiress and became one after three of her siblings died. It is believed that she was already reigning when her father was still alive, perhaps, to learn how to be a queen. Some confusion surrounds her rule, for it is unclear whether she…show more content…
Nevertheless, this is not the most mysterious fact of Hatshepsut’s biography. What is more striking is that there is little evidence of her existence. Obviously, her relationship with Thutmose III was not quite peaceful, for when he became a king, he chiseled her images off the temples’ walls and monuments. When a distinguished archeologist Howard Carter found one of her tombs in 1903, her body was not there. The mystery had almost been solved in 2005 by Zahi Hawaas and his team who took a closer look at a mummy found a century ago which was named KV6oa. It was at first neglected, because it did not have any jewelry or clothes which might indicate this used to be a prominent person (Brown, p. 2). So, another theory concerns her mysterious disappearing, as well as the destruction of any evidence of her rule. Had not it been for an accidental discovery of her tooth, the mummy would still be left unacknowledged. Soon after that, it had been proclaimed the King Herself and now she stays at the Egyptian…show more content…
Ancient manuscripts contain no sign of her desire to change the sex – she always kept feminine endings in her writings. However, Hatshepsut tried to solve the paradox of a female pharaoh with the help of her appearance. For example, one of the granite statues represents her wearing a traditional headgear of a king – a nemes and uraeus cobra (Brown, p.4). She also sat in a position typical for pharaohs with her feet wide apart. Later, she started to depict herself clearly as a male. Anyways, she died (or was exiled) around 1479 BC, and Thutmose III finally became a new pharaoh, destroying much of the evidence of Hatshepsut’s existence. In conclusion, Hatshepsut, a King Herself, remains a mystery even nowadays. Her bloodline shows that she was the only possible successor after Thutmose I, but it is yet to be understood when exactly she became a pharaoh, why she wanted to look like a man, and what happened to her body after

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