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.
