Long before Cleopatra, another female pharaoh redefined ancient Egyptian power

Cleopatra’s story is often seen through a prism of great drama, romance and spectacle, her rule coming at the very end of pharaonic history. But her position as the definitive image of the ‘female pharaoh’ obscures a much earlier ancient Egyptian experiment in female power – one that is arguably much more revealing.

More than 1,400 years before Cleopatra, another woman ruled ancient Egypt as pharaoh, operating within one of the most conservative political systems the ancient world produced.

She was Hatshepsut.

Speaking about her life on the HistoryExtra podcast, Egyptologist Campbell Price explains what her period of rule means for how power in ancient Egypt has been understood, and how she paved the way for the rulers who followed.

An ancient civilisation with a long history

Hatshepsut ruled Egypt from around 1479 to 1458 BC, nearly fifteen centuries before Cleopatra’s death in 30 BC. Her power base was the city of Thebes in southern Egypt, which at the time served as the religious and political heart of the kingdom. From there, she governed a state that stretched from the Nile Delta in the north, deep into Nubia in the south, overseeing one of the most expansive and stable empires Egypt had yet known.

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“With Hatshepsut, we’re talking about the Eighteenth Dynasty, and that is the first of several dynasties in what Egyptologists call the New Kingdom,” explains Campbell Price.

Egypt, at this point was anything but new, and had already transitioned through distinct phases of cultural transformation, including the Old Kingdom.

“The Old Kingdom is the time of the pyramids,” Price notes. “The pyramids are already a thousand years old by this point.”

So, Hatshepsut inherited a civilisation that was already ancient. In its long history, it had already survived periods of war, collapse, fragmentation and foreign rule during the Second Intermediate Period. The role of kingship was to maintain a cosmic order in a world that Egyptians knew could easily fall apart.

This was, therefore, not a culture inclined to experiment with authority.

What it meant to be an ancient Egyptian pharaoh

The Egyptian pharaohs upheld maat – the notion of balance, justice and order. The ruler was a mediator between gods and humans, who commanded armies and embodied Egypt itself. The visual language of this role was rigid, and defiantly masculine.

Although royal women could hold immense influence in ancient Egypt, formal kingship was almost always male. Before Hatshepsut, no woman had ruled for long as a fully recognised pharaoh in her own right. Queens could act as regents, especially for young heirs, but stepping beyond that role meant crossing a deeply embedded cultural boundary.

That’s why imagery of Hatshepsut shows her in a “male-coded” way, says Price.

“It’s not that Hatshepsut is necessarily dressing up as a man,” Price explains. “It’s that the only way to be shown as a legitimate pharaoh is to be shown in a male guise. That’s how she has to appear in statues and in reliefs.”

But how, exactly, did Hatshepsut rise to power in this system?

Hatshepsut began her rule as regent for her young stepson, Thutmose III. This was a role that fit comfortably within established norms. But what followed was a series of escalations that went beyond the regular role of a regent.

Thutmose III, the boy for whom Hatshepsut initially ruled, remained alive and present at court throughout her reign. He was trained as a king, led military campaigns, and was never formally removed from the line of succession. But all the while, Hatshepsut seemed to consolidate power toward herself.

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“There seems to be a bit of experimentation,” Price explains. “But by, say, year seven of her rule, she is fully declaring that she is a pharaoh.”

Legitimacy in ancient Egypt was decided by a small, powerful network of priests, officials and court elites who controlled administration. By securing their support through religious donations and favourable building projects, Hatshepsut ensured that her rule functioned smoothly at every level of the state. As long as order was maintained and prosperity continued, she was allowed to retain her power.

“And then a bit later on, she is shown [in iconography as] completely male, with essentially a man’s body,” Price adds.

In Egyptian terms this was not a denial of her sex, but an affirmation of her role as pharaoh. Kingship had fixed visual rules that couldn’t be tampered with. If she wanted power, Hatshepsut had to bend to fit those rules.

The innovation behind Hatshepsut’s rise

Hatshepsut’s authority rested on the success of the regime over which she ruled. Her reign coincided with a period of ancient Egyptian confidence and power.

“She is very good at, and very interested in, combining tradition and innovation,” Price says. “And undoubtedly there is an interest in doing things in a slightly different, slightly new way.”

Her construction regime made that clear.

Across Egypt, temples rose that echoed earlier models while pushing architectural styles onward. Her mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahri, cut into the cliffs of western Thebes, was unlike anything that had come before.

Also key to her success; her government looked outward, building relationships with other regions and leaders.

“She sends out these extraordinary international trading missions,” Price notes, including the famous expedition to a region called Punt, which returned with incense trees, exotic animals and luxury goods.

“She does keep her hand in with warfare,” he says. “And again, there’s this presumption that because she’s a woman, she must be meek and mild.”

But that wasn’t the case. Egyptian kingship required the credible projection of violence – which Hatshepsut understood.

“She is pretty mean,” Price says. “She shows herself as a sphinx, trampling foreigners. And she also – as all pharaohs have to do – threatens people,” Price adds. “She says, ‘Anyone who doubts my power, bad things are going to happen to them.’ She means business as king.”

These assertions of Egyptian dominance and strength were spearheaded by Hatshepsut.

The power behind the throne

But Hatshepsut didn’t rule in a vacuum. Her reign was a coordinated project, supported by elite administrators who understood how to secure her legitimacy.

“I have to mention someone very important,” Price says. “A key member of her inner circle at the royal court – a man called Senenmut.”

“Senenmut holds over ninety titles,” says Price. “A very important guy. He seems to be the spin doctor-in-chief, if you like. It seems fairly clear to me that he is personally responsible for creating the iconography of her kingship. So Senenmut is the person who really promotes this idea of her as the great pharaoh.”

It wasn’t an entirely benevolent move. Senenmut’s own power depended entirely on Hatshepsut’s success, giving him every incentive to craft a compelling vision of her kingship.

Was Hatshepsut’s reign successful?

Hatshepsut’s success didn’t bring permanent change to the rules of Egyptian kingship. After her death, efforts were made to remove her name and image from monuments, and later kings returned to exclusively male rule.

Nevertheless, by the measures that ancient Egyptians valued most, Hatshepsut’s reign worked.

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“I would say that the time we know of her on the throne is a prosperous one for Egypt,” Price concludes.

While maintaining internal stability, Hatshepsut’s rule also saw the continued progress of trade, and the expansion of monument building.

Cleopatra would, more than a millennium later, wield power in a radically different cultural context. She ruled as a Hellenistic monarch in a world now defined by Greek politics and Roman power. Unlike Hatshepsut, she didn’t need to present herself as male, but she also lacked the sacred framework that made Hatshepsut’s rule stable. Their shared label as ‘female pharaohs’ hides the fact that they were solving entirely different political problems.

It was Hatshepsut who demonstrated that even the rigid systems of divine kingship could be ruled over by a woman, if given the chance to master those systems.

Cambpell Price was speaking to Emily Briffett on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.