Queen Hatshepsut, one of ancient Egypt’s most accomplished rulers and a rare female pharaoh who reigned 1,500 years before Cleopatra, saw her legacy nearly wiped out by her stepson and successor after her death.

Why her memory was so systematically erased has long puzzled historians. However, in a new study published Monday, Jun Wong, a scholar at the University of Toronto, contends that too much attention has been paid to her gender as the root cause.

It’s a very romanticized question: why was this pharaoh attacked after her death? Wong told AFP, expressing his fascination with a ruler who led Egypt during an era of remarkable prosperity.

Earlier theories suggested that Thutmose III, her stepson, sought to erase Hatshepsut’s legacy out of personal vengeance possibly because she had taken the throne and demonstrated that a woman could govern as effectively as a man.

But Wong says interpretations of Hatshepsut’s reign have long been shaped by gendered assumptions. He pointed to the popular notion that Thutmose III saw her as a wicked stepmother figure.

His research, published in the journal Antiquity, builds on recent studies that challenge this narrative. Wong proposes that Thutmose III’s motivations were more complex, casting doubt on the idea that he acted out of hostility toward a female ruler.

Hatshepsut ruled Egypt around 3,500 years ago after the death of her husband, Thutmose II. Initially serving as regent to her young stepson, she gradually assumed full power and became a ruling pharaoh in her own right.

She was known for expanding Egypt’s trade networks and initiating grand architectural projects, including a magnificent mortuary temple in the Valley of the Kings on the Nile’s western bank.

Wong re-examined materials from excavations conducted between 1922 and 1928, focusing on damaged statues associated with Hatshepsut. While it’s clear Thutmose III did attempt to erase her from history, Wong suggests these acts may have been motivated more by ritual practices than by personal animosity.

Rather than an act of revenge, Thutmose III might have seen the removal of her image as a standard procedure to symbolically neutralize the power of a former ruler.

Wong also discovered that some of the damage to Hatshepsut’s statues could have resulted from later generations repurposing them as construction material not from deliberate destruction.

For a long time, people believed Hatshepsut’s statues were destroyed out of spite,” Wong said. “But a closer look at the evidence shows that’s likely not the case.

Source: https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/gender-not-main-factor-in-attacks-on-egyptian-woman-pharaoh-study-8746524