Hatsheput

Hatsheput

The Woman Who Would Be King

Hatsheput’s Rise to Power in Ancient Egypt

By Kara Cooney

Cooney’s book gives detailed facts about Egyptian culture and the life of one of its rulers:  Hatsheput.  It begins with explaining how Egyptian history is recorded.  She explains how their religious beliefs, traditions and ceremonies shared their political structure.  This leads into the child-rearing practices and the training of royal offspring.  Royal children were taught leadership skills and expected duties of rulers.  Amongst royal siblings incest was a common practice to produce future male rulers.  Cooney sites incest as a possible reason that Hatsheput was unable to produce a biological heir.

The rest of the book tells of her rise to power, how it was possible for her to succeed in a male dominated society and how she maintained her power.  Suggestions for her success lie in her ability to connect herself with powerful rulers of her time including her own tutor.  Hatsheput also portrayed herself as masculine and strong and later as the wife of their god to authenticate her power and authority.

The book ends with photographs of building projects of Egypt and descriptions of the mummifying process.

While this book contained a lot of interesting facts I found it disturbing in its graphic description of sexually explicit religious practices.  I also found it a bit dry as there was not any emotional data such as diaries from which to draw an understanding of Hatsheput’s feelings or thoughts during her reign.

I received this book free from the publishers and was not required to write a positive review.