Hatshepsut: Transcending Gender in Ancient Egypt

Abstract

The Eighteenth Dynasty Egyptian Pharaoh, Hatshepsut (c. 1473-1458, has attracted a great deal of attention for doing gender wrong, at least according to modern scholarship ( Figure 1). She began her career as the regent for her step-son/nephew, Thutmose III, and then at some point within the first seven years, she ascended the throne as co-regent. 1 Hatshepsut's public gender identity fails to conform to our norms of cultural intelligibility, but the fact that this gender transformation occurred over the course of two decades indicates that it was a persistent and intentional gender 'identity' for Hatshepsut. 2 Hatshepsut was not making claims about who she was as a private person, but instead she was subscribing to the gendered expectations of rulership. This public identity has appeared to modern Egyptologists as gender incongruity, but I will argue that Hatshepsut's public representations were intelligible to ancient Egyptians and even a deliberate attempt to appeal to their sensibilities and provide them with solace in her rule.A study of Hatshepsut promises to contribute to our current understanding of gender in that it reframes our typical assumptions of ancient/traditional gender constructions and provides a model we can use to move forward with our own modern discourse about gender fluidity. For Egyptologists, this study elucidates the societal and historical factors that were complicit in keeping Hatshepsut in power. The existence of hermaphroditic creator deities, the composite nature of kingship, post-mortem gender fluidity and the rules of compositional decorum all intertwined to naturalise Hatshepsut's female masculinity and her ascension to the throne of Egypt.Hatshepsut was not the anomaly that we think she was. There were several other leaders in the New Kingdom who displayed non-binary gender identities, such as Queen Tiye, Akhenaten, Nefertiti and Tawosret. 3 Hatshepsut was only one example in an era of transgressors, who willingly played with composite imagery. The earliest elements added to her person were a masculine crown and the traditional title of male Egyptian king. Subsequently, she depicted herself in increasingly masculine poses, holding symbols reserved for male kings, in male dress and with male physiognomy. It was her unique position as King's Daughter, King's Wife and later Pharaoh that made her female masculinity more ubiquitous and therefore more discernible. Hatshepsut exemplified the virile woman who broke the bond between masculinity and the male body. In ancient Egypt, masculinity embodied the qualities that were culturally ascribed