The Woman Who Would Be King: Hatshepsut's Rise to Power in Ancient Egypt

Kara Cooney

ott 2014 · Venduto da Crown

Informazioni su questo ebook

An engrossing biography of the longest-reigning female pharaoh in Ancient Egypt and the story of her audacious rise to power.
 
Hatshepsut—the daughter of a general who usurped Egypt's throne—was expected to bear the sons who would legitimize the reign of her father’s family. Her failure to produce a male heir, however, paved the way for her improbable rule as a cross-dressing king. At just over twenty, Hatshepsut out-maneuvered the mother of Thutmose III, the infant king, for a seat on the throne, and ascended to the rank of pharaoh.

Shrewdly operating the levers of power to emerge as Egypt's second female pharaoh, Hatshepsut was a master strategist, cloaking her political power plays in the veil of piety and sexual reinvention. She successfully negotiated a path from the royal nursery to the very pinnacle of authority, and her reign saw one of Ancient Egypt’s most prolific building periods.

Constructing a rich narrative history using the artifacts that remain, noted Egyptologist Kara Cooney offers a remarkable interpretation of how Hatshepsut rapidly but methodically consolidated power—and why she fell from public favor just as quickly. The Woman Who Would Be King traces the unconventional life of an almost-forgotten pharaoh and explores our complicated reactions to women in power.

Valutazioni e recensioni

Beutiful. Bad is not the real story of this queen. In the book there is no reference to Moses of the Bible, which is the adopted son of this Queen "Pharaoh's daughter". Moses was Senenmut, but it was not his lover, but his adopted son saved from the waters. This is proven history ... not accepted by the clan Zahi Havass, which is part of the Cooney (for convenience)! They will never accept that biblical sources end up in Egypt's history .. They know, but they will never accept (for clear reasons of convenience). The builders of the Pyramids were not Egyptians but rather the children of Israel in the days of Joseph in the Bible. The Cooney prefer Havass support for the privileges that can be achieved at the expense of historic truth. A book written to sell, far from the truth. A real archaeologist should never go against history, but writing it! Stephen Canepi [e-mail]

Informazioni sull'autore

KARA COONEY is an associate professor of Egyptian art and architecture at UCLA in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures. In 2005, she was co-curator of Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Cooney produced a comparative archaeology series entitled Out of Egypt, which aired on the Discovery Channel and is streaming on Netflix.