The Woman Who Would Be King: Hatshepsut's Rise to Power in Ancient Egypt

By Kara Cooney

An engrossing biography of the longest-reigning woman pharaoh in old Egypt and the tale of her audacious upward push to power.
 
Hatshepsut—the daughter of a basic who usurped Egypt's throne and a mom with ties to the former dynasty—was born right into a privileged position in the royal loved ones, and he or she was once anticipated to endure the sons who might legitimize the reign of her father’s relations. Her failure to provide a male inheritor used to be finally the accident that cleared the path for her unbelievable rule as a cross-dressing king.  At simply over twenty, Hatshepsut ascended to the rank of pharaoh in an problematic coronation rite that set the tone for her fantastic reign as co-regent with Thutmose III, the baby king whose mom Hatshepsut out-maneuvered for a seat at the throne. Hatshepsut used to be a grasp strategist, cloaking her political energy performs within the veil of piety and sexual reinvention. simply as girls at the present time face stumbling blocks from a society that equates authority with masculinity, Hatshepsut shrewdly operated the levers of energy to turn out to be Egypt's moment woman pharaoh.

Hatshepsut effectively negotiated a direction from the royal nursery to the very top of authority, and her reign observed one among historical Egypt’s so much prolific construction sessions. students have lengthy speculated as to why her monuments have been destroyed inside of a number of a long time of her dying, all yet erasing facts of her unheard of rule. developing a wealthy narrative heritage utilizing the artifacts that stay, famous Egyptologist Kara Cooney bargains a notable interpretation of ways Hatshepsut quickly yet methodically consolidated power—and why she fell from public prefer simply as quick. The lady Who will be King strains the radical lifetime of an almost-forgotten pharaoh and explores our advanced reactions to girls in power.

From the Hardcover edition.

Show description

Preview of The Woman Who Would Be King: Hatshepsut's Rise to Power in Ancient Egypt PDF

Similar Biography books

Becoming Richard Pryor

An immense biography—intimate, gripping, revelatory—of an artist who revolutionized American comedy. Richard Pryor can have been the main not going famous person in Hollywood background. Raised in his family’s brothels, he grew up an interloper to privilege. He took to the level, initially, to flee the hard-bitten realities of his youth, yet later got here to a reverberating discovery: that by means of plunging into the depths of his adventure, he can make stand-up comedy as exhilarating and harrowing because the existence he’d recognized.

Crazy Horse: A Life

Legends cloud the lifetime of loopy Horse, a seminal determine in American historical past yet an enigma even to his personal humans in his personal day. This awesome biography appears again throughout greater than a hundred and twenty years on the existence and demise of this nice Sioux warrior who grew to become a reluctant chief on the conflict of Little Bighorn.

A Life of Sir Francis Galton: From African Exploration to the Birth of Eugenics

Few scientists have made lasting contributions to as many fields as Francis Galton. He was once a tremendous African explorer, commute author, and geographer. He was once the meteorologist who came upon the anticyclone, a pioneer in utilizing fingerprints to spot members, the inventor of regression and correlation research in facts, and the founding father of the eugenics flow.

The Films in My Life

François Truffaut (1932-1984), possibly the main revered member of the hot Wave crew of French moviemakers, left a legacy of loved and influential motion pictures that come with The four hundred Blows, Jules and Jim, Stolen Kisses, Day for evening, and the tale of Adele H. both attention-grabbing is the very huge physique of movie feedback Truffaut wrote over a long time for Cahiers du Cinema and different best movie journals.

Additional info for The Woman Who Would Be King: Hatshepsut's Rise to Power in Ancient Egypt

Show sample text content

In all places Egypt, hammers and chisels rang out as they met stone; males have been laboring in her identify and construction temples that may eternally hyperlink Hatshepsut’s reign to Egypt’s present prosperity. In temples north and south, humans observed new clergymen employed and previous, overlooked gala's reinstated. by way of all appearances, every thing appeared so as and on the right track for Hatshepsut. other than that it wasn’t. Her nephew and co-king Thutmose III was once now 13 or fourteen years of age and buying extra wisdom and self assurance on a daily basis. Hatshepsut’s mom, Ahmes, can have died round this time, leaving her motherless and without ties to her previous existence as princess and queen. And her daughter Nefrure may quickly develop right into a younger lady able to conceive an inheritor. alterations have been coming. Hatshepsut would have to adapt to an volume that she had by no means imagined while she used to be scurrying round the royal nurseries as a small woman. whatever could quickly oblige her to take awesome steps with reference to how she depicted her female self. Enclosed within the protecting folds of his cloak during this cutting edge statue (one of many significantly new statue kinds that he invented), Senenmut embraces his younger cost, the King’s Daughter Nefrure. Senenmut used to be assigned to behave as Nefrure’s educate, a coveted position he was once more than pleased to flaunt to his fellow officers. Senenmut knew he couldn’t exhibit himself in Hatshepsut’s sacred presence, yet together with Nefrure’s photo was once the subsequent top approach to converse his shut courting with the royal kinfolk. And exhibiting Nefrure as a small baby granted him some of the best place. © Trustees of the British Museum amazing in its modernity, the multitiered facade of Hatshepsut’s Temple of hundreds of thousands of Years used to be situated majestically within the such a lot dramatic position in western Thebes. It acted as an immense degree for nice fairs of divine propitiation, wild party, and formality solemnity. It additionally associated Hatshepsut’s kingship to authorised traditions, simply because she outfitted it correct subsequent to the funerary temple of Mentuhotep II, the founding father of Theban kingship in old Egypt countless numbers of years sooner than her reign. Fly away along with your imagination/©2010 Karolina Sus Like her father prior to her, Hatshepsut confirmed herself because the god Osiris. right here at the facade of her Temple of thousands of Years, she depicted herself with the mummified physique and crossed fingers of the god of regeneration after demise. the 1st pores and skin colour she selected for those statues used to be yellow ocher, the normal colour of a girl. As time went on, she opted for orange, an androgynous combination. ultimately, she determined to completely masculinize her imagery, and the newest statues within the sequence betray the pink ocher of masculinity. ©Michelle McMahon through Getty photos Hatshepsut essentially grew up within the sprawling temple complicated devoted to the god Amen, whom she known as her father. while she grew to become king, she committed a brand new chapel, outfitted of deep purple quartzite (the first time any king used this pricey stone to construct a structure), to deal with the god’s sacred barque, and put it instantly in entrance of the holy and unique sanctuary the place the god’s statue dwelled.

Download PDF sample

Rated 4.64 of 5 – based on 35 votes