Hatsu or Hatshepsut
Famous Egyptian Queen, Builder and Explorer
1490 – 1468 B.C.

A celebrated queen of Egypt and the eldest daughter of Ahmasi and Sonisonbu. According to Professor Maspero, her father gave her to wife when young to her junior brother, known in history as Thotmosis II., but she being of the solar, i.e., “divine” birth, and thus higher than her husband, was the real ruler of Egypt, and sought to conceal her sex by changing the termination of her name, and appearing on all public occasions in male attire. On the Theban monuments she appears as male, with false chin beard, and minus breasts, but with her feminine pronoun, and claiming to be betrothed by the god Amon.

Her husband died at thirty, leaving two daughters by Hatasu and a son by a slave Isis. His son, Hatasu proclaimed as her successor and married by her surviving daughter to him. He appears in history as Thotmosis III.

Her reign was prosperous, as appears by the great buildings she caused to be erected, by her famous architect Sanmut, throughout the province of Thebes. One of those immense obelisks is yet standing among the ruins on Karnak.

She is represented as reigning eight years after this memorable expedition, and as opening the Sinai mines, and the canals in the Delta that had, because of the previous long continued wars, been silted up.

She was averse to war and so lost nearly all that her father had conquered in Syria; nevertheless she developed Egypt as but few before her had done. She resolutely kept the reigns of government in her own hands long after her son-in-law had come of age, dying when Thotmosis III, was twenty-five years old; he avenged himself by seeking to destroy the very remembrance of her from earth.

A richly carved chair belonging to this great queen was found in one of the royal tombs of Egypt recently.

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Reference: Woman: Her Position, Influence and Achievement Throughout the Civilized World. Designed and Arranged by William C. King. Published in 1900 by The King-Richardson Co. Copyright 1903 The King-Richardson Co.