Hatshepsut (Maatkare)
1473 BCE–1458 BCE · New-Kingdom · Thebes
Hatshepsut (throne-name Maatkare) was one of the most successful women ever to rule Egypt, reigning in Dynasty 18 around 1473-1458 BCE (Shaw's conventional dates). She began as regent for her young stepson Thutmose III and then assumed the full kingship herself, ruling with the complete royal titulary. Her reign was prosperous and richly creative: she built the magnificent terraced mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahari, one of the masterpieces of Egyptian architecture, and sent a celebrated trading expedition to the distant land of Punt, recorded in detail in that temple's reliefs. Late in the reign of Thutmose III, her name and images were systematically attacked and she was struck from the official king-lists. That erasure is an act of ideology, not evidence that she did not reign, and its motives are still debated. She is restored here as one of the kings the later tradition tried to write out.
Did you know?
The woman who ruled as king — beard and all
Around 1473 BCE — roughly 3,500 years ago — Hatshepsut took the full titulary of a king rather than the role of a queen consort, becoming one of the few women to rule Egypt as pharaoh. Egyptian artists sometimes depicted her in the traditional royal regalia, including the ceremonial false beard worn by kings.
How we know
Hatshepsut adopted full pharaonic titulary c. 1473 BCE (regnal year 7 of Thutmose III's reign, conventionally 1479–1458 BCE); portrayed with the king's false beard. 1473 + 2026 = 3,499 ≈ 3,500 years ago.
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Thebes
What they did here
Her royal capital and the centre of her building works.
In Thebes at the same time
In the same place & time
Sages whose lives overlapped with Hatshepsut (Maatkare)’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.
In the same tradition
The world in their lifetime
Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Hatshepsut (Maatkare)’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.
Works
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