Queen Hatshepsut Essay

Queen Hatshepsut achieved extraordinary power for a woman in Ancient Egypt, ultimately gaining the title Pharaoh in the eighteenth dynasty. In the twenty two year span of her reign, she lengthened trade and built extensively throughout Upper and Lower Egypt. Not only did Hatshepsut serve as the Queen of Egypt, but she ruled as a King. She reigned as a man, her statues show her as a man, complete with a traditional false beard that men wore. It is believed she was overthrown and was succeeded by Tuthmose III. He ordered her name and image be removed from public display. His attempt to erase the memory of her rule was amazingly successful. Tuthmose III completely eradicated nearly all her monuments throughout Egypt. Many historians believe that her remains have never been conclusively found, but others have released information that states that remains found were actually of King / Queen Hatshepsut. In June 2007, Dr Zahi Hawass, head of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities proclaimed a positive discovery of a mummy as Hatshepsut. DNA and CT scans were used to attempt the identification of the mummy. A canopic box was found with Hatshepsut’s name on it with four female mummies, inside was a molar tooth which was matched to one of the female mummies who has now been identified as Hatshepsut. The remains were from the Royal Mummy Caches, a series of secret tombs in the Valley of the Kings. The High Priests of Amun during the twenty-first and twenty-second dynasties hid the bodies of many of the kings and queens of the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth dynasties. This was claimed to be done to protect the remains from tomb raiders. It seems that the remains found on the floor exposed of the tomb KV60 in the Valley of the Kings, excavated in 1903 by Howard Carter. The mummy found was of an older woman, who was quite obese when she died. With recent technological