The second female ruler of ancient Egypt

Hatshepsut was the daughter of King Thutmose I & she became queen of Egypt when she married her half-brother, Thutmose II, at around the age of 12. After he died she acted as regent for her stepson, the infant Thutmose III, & later took on the full powers of a pharaoh. 

Hatshepsut was the elder of two daughters born to Thutmose I and his queen, Ahmes. After her father’s death, 12-year-old Hatshepsut became queen of Egypt when she married her half-brother Thutmose II, the son of her father and one of his secondary wives. They had one daughter, Neferure. 

Hatshepsut was only the third woman to become pharaoh in 3,000 years of ancient Egyptian history & the first to get full power. Whilst in power she sought to reinvent her image, and in statues and paintings of that time, she portrayed herself as a male pharaoh, with a beard and large muscles. In other images, however, she appeared in traditional female regalia. 

As pharaoh, Hatshepsut created ambitious building projects, especially in the area around Thebes. Her greatest achievement was the enormous memorial temple at Deir el-Bahri, considered one of the architectural wonders of ancient Egypt. 

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Hatshepsut probably died around 1458 B.C, when she would have been in her mid-40s. She was buried in the Valley of the Kings, located in the hills behind Deir el-Bahri. 
Scholars of ancient Egypt knew little of Hatshepsut’s existence until 1822, when they were able to read the hieroglyphics on the walls of Deir el-Bahri. In 1903, the British archeologist Howard Carter discovered a sarcophagus of queen Hatshepsut but it was empty. After launching a new search in 2005, a team of archaeologists discovered her mummy in 2007; it is now in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.