Hatshepsut (reigned c.1479–1458 BC) was the Egyptian queen who declared herself pharaoh — ruling as a king, in male regalia, for some twenty-one years — and presided over one of the most prosperous and peaceful reigns of the New Kingdom, famed for trade and monumental building.
Her reign produced a trading expedition to the land of Punt, a vast building program including the terraced temple at Deir el-Bahari, and two decades without major war. After her death her successor Thutmose III ordered her images chiselled away — a damnatio memoriae that kept her hidden from history until the 19th century.
