Hatshepsut

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• Special Education

Hatshepsut

Hatshepsut was born in Egypt (1508 BCE)

She was raised to be a royal princess and loved by her father.

When she was 12-years-old, her father died.

When she was 12 she married her half brother – Pharaoh Thutmose II and became Queen of Egypt.

As Pharaoh, Hatshepsut made many decisions about how the outside world would see her. 

She ordered statues and paintings to depict her as a male – with a large beard and muscles. This would be the image the outside world would come to know her by.

 In other, more personal paintings she would be a woman, shown wearing jewellery and suitable headwear.

The people loved her.

Egypt experienced a time of great peace and prosperity thanks to her decisions. 

For nearly 22 years, Hatshepsut ruled over Egypt until she died at the age of 50 – a good age to reach for an ancient Egyptian! 

After her death, her stepson took total control for himself and declared himself the new Pharaoh of Egypt. He led Egypt for another 30 years. 

During this time, he removed all evidence that his stepmother ever existed. This included removing her images from the walls of temples or monuments she had built and erasing her from the stories told in writing.

In 2006, Scientists revisited a body that had been found in the Valley of the Kings by Howard Carter in 1902. 

Using new methods of identification, they carefully matched a tooth found within a box belonging to Hatshepsut to the body! 

She was known again. Since then, historians have uncovered plenty of details about her life and the incredible achievements she made, undoing all the steps her stepson took trying to eradicate her from history.

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Go onto Google Drive, onto your Egypt fact file and add a page about Hatshepsut.