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Section III (Personalities): Hatshepsut, Pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty
Quick questions on Hatshepsut's rise to power and coronation: HSC Ancient History
15short Q&A pairs drawn directly from our worked dot-point answer. For full context and worked exam questions, read the parent dot-point page.
What is hatshepsut's starting position?Show answer
Hatshepsut began the reign of Thutmose III with three sources of authority.
What is the regency?Show answer
Thutmose II died around 1479 BC. His son by a secondary wife (Isis), Thutmose III, was a small child, probably around 2 or 3. Hatshepsut was the natural regent.
What is the transition to co-rulership?Show answer
Between year 2 and year 7 of Thutmose III's reign, Hatshepsut moved from regent to co-ruler. The exact chronology is debated. Some inscriptions show her with royal titles by year 2; others show her still as queen-regent in year 5. By year 7, she had clearly been crowned pharaoh with the full royal titulary.
What is coronation iconography and the royal titulary?Show answer
Hatshepsut adopted the full five-fold royal titulary:
What is the divine birth narrative?Show answer
The Deir el-Bahri mortuary temple includes a series of reliefs in the Middle Colonnade depicting Hatshepsut's divine birth.
What is theological and political logic?Show answer
The divine birth narrative addressed the problem of Hatshepsut's gender. As the begotten daughter of Amun-Re, she had a god's authority to rule regardless of human convention. The male regalia and titulary expressed her royal office without claiming she was biologically male.
What is senenmut and the official class?Show answer
Senenmut, Hatshepsut's chief steward and tutor to her daughter Neferure, was the most important official supporting the rise to power. Other key officials included the high priests of Amun (Hapuseneb), the vizier (Ahmose called Pen-Nekhbet), and the treasurer (Tjuyu).
What is historiography?Show answer
Joyce Tyldesley (Hatchepsut: The Female Pharaoh, 1996) is the standard biography and treats the rise to power as a gradual, ideologically grounded process rather than a usurpation.
What is senior royal lineage?Show answer
As the eldest daughter of Thutmose I and his Great Royal Wife Ahmose, she was the senior princess of the dynasty.
What is great Royal Wife of Thutmose II?Show answer
Her marriage to her half-brother had been the standard royal practice. Their daughter Neferure was the senior princess of the next generation.
What is god's Wife of Amun?Show answer
This religious office, inherited from her mother Ahmose, gave her an independent estate, priesthood, and revenues at the Karnak temple. By Hatshepsut's time, the office was a major independent power base.
What is treating Hatshepsut as a usurper?Show answer
She never displaced Thutmose III; they ruled jointly. The "usurpation" framing comes from older scholarship and is now largely rejected.
What is forgetting the God's Wife of Amun?Show answer
The office is the institutional power base.
What is misreading the male regalia?Show answer
Hatshepsut adopted male regalia as the king's regalia; she did not claim to be biologically male.
What is skipping the divine birth?Show answer
It is the central propaganda and routinely tested.