Hatshepsut
She was the daughter of Thutmose I and Queen Ahmose. Hatshepsut was favored by the Temple of Karnak over her two brothers who did not live into adulthood. She apparently also had a loving relationship with her parents and assumed the prestigious title of god's wife of Amun before either parent died. After the death of her father in 1492 BC she married her half-brother Thutmose II and assumed the title of Great Royal Wife. Thutmose II ruled for only a few years, during which Hatshepsut had tremendous influence. Thutmose II had only two daughters with Hatshepsut, Nefrure and Meritre, but managed to father a male heir, Thutmose III, by a lesser wife named Isis before his death.
As Thutmose III's aunt and stepmother, Hatshepsut was selected to be regent until the boy king came of age. At first it seemed that Hatshepsut was patterning herself after the powerful female regents of Egypt's then recent history, but it soon became apparent that she had only one model in mind, Sobeknefru, the last monarch of the Twelfth dynasty, who ruled in her own right. She took one step further than Sobeknefru and had herself crowned Pharaoh in 1473 BC and took the throne name Maatkare. Pharaoh was an exclusively male title, at this point in Egyptian history there was no word for a female ruler (the closest equivalent, the one used by Sobeknefru, was King's Wife), thus Queen Hatshepsut became King Hatshepsut. She assumed all of the regalia and symbols of that office including the false beard. The false beard was a symbol of Pharaonic power and by wearing it Hatshepsut was asserting her right and position as King or Ruler and not King's Wife or ruler's wife of Egypt. Her motivation for wearing men's clothing was political and not sexual.
The wealth of the 18th dynasty – so famous since the discovery of the burial of Tutankhamun – began to be collected under Hatshepsut. She personally led a mission to Punt to buy myrrh, which was said to be her favorite fragrance, and other goods. Though her foreign policy was mainly peaceful, she did lead a successful military campaign in Nubia.
As Pharaoh, Hatshepsut initiated building projects that were grander and more numerous than any of her New Kingdom predecessors. She employed two great architects: Ineni, who had worked for both her husband and father, and her friend and presumed lover the royal steward Senemut. Hatshepsut, like most Pharaohs, had monuments constructed at the Temple of Karnak. She had twin obelisks, at the time the tallest in the world, erected at the entrance to the Temple of Karnak. One still stands today; the other broke in two and toppled centuries ago. Karnak's [[The Red Chapel of Hatshepsut| Red Chapel]], or Chapelle Rouge, was intended as a barque shrine and may have originally stood between the two obelisks.
Djeser-Djeseru
After her death, her successor Thutmose III had many of her monuments defaced or destroyed, and he made enormous efforts to replace her names with his own or those of previous rulers. Replacing the names on older monuments with one's own was a common practice of Egyptian Pharaohs. There is much debate about whether and to what extent Thutmose III was motivated by being denied the throne for so long and/or the belief that a female Pharaoh was against Maat.
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