The King Herself: Hatshepsut

[Butterfly]

The King Herself:  Hatshepsut
National Geographic
By Chip Brown
March 31 2009


http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2009/04/hatshepsut/brown-text


There was something strangely touching about her fingertips. Everywhere else about her person all human grace had vanished. The raveled linen around her neck looked like a fashion statement gone horribly awry. Her mouth, with the upper lip shelved over the lower, was a gruesome crimp. (She came from a famous lineage of overbites.) Her eye sockets were packed with blind black resin, her nostrils unbecomingly plugged with tight rolls of cloth. Her left ear had sunk into the flesh on the side of her skull, and her head was almost completely without hair.

I leaned toward the open display case in Cairo's Egyptian Museum and gazed at what in all likelihood is the body of the female pharaoh Hatshepsut, the extraordinary woman who ruled Egypt from 1479 to 1458 B.C. and is famous today less for her reign during the golden age of Egypt's 18th dynasty than for having the audacity to portray herself as a man.

[mickie88]

OMG!!! transgender history that doesn't exist. i have to add that i'm well educated enough to know about Hatshepsut. 

[Suzy]

That is a very interesting article.  Thanks for posting it.

I think something does need to be said, though, about the possible trans-ness of Hatshepsut.  Simply, there is no evidence that this is what she was after.  Rather, she wanted power.  And in her day, that meant wresting it from a religion that was entirely dominated by male kings.  She had to go through great lengths to appear legitimate, and IMHO, was not that successful.  As her reign wore on, her likenesses seemed to be more male, which indicates to me that her power base was somewhat eroding, rather than that she wished to be a man.   The evidence now unearthed in her mummy seems to bear this out also.  Her body was very female, despite her depictions wearing the fake beard of the pharaohs.

When I first visited her temple, I was amazed at the pride the Egyptians now take in her reign.  They proudly show it to the world as evidence of one of the world's first female rulers.  Well, accurate or not, it is an inspiring sight.  I think I walked around with my mouth open, bedazzled.  The things she was able to accomplish, the plants and gardens she was able to maintain at such a distance from the Nile are mind boggling.  And given the fact that she was able to reign for about 20 years, I would have to say she was one tough woman. 

Kristi