Chapter 29 - Aidan Norrie
Female Pharaohs in Ancient Egypt
The pharaohs of Ancient Egypt hold a special place in the popular conscious. Between the uniting of Upper and Lower Egypt by Narmer in c.3000BCE, and the Roman annexation of Egypt in 30BCE, Egypt was ruled by hundreds of pharaohs. Significantly, at least four of these pharaohs were women. This chapter provides one of the first academic studies of all four female pharaohs together—Sobekneferu, Hatshepsut, Tausret, and Cleopatra VII—and focuses on the way they legitimized their rule, and the way that their gender impacted their reigns and legacies.
In a monarchy that was generally conceived of as being male, female pharaohs were depicted in unique ways, which is visible in both their titulary, and the surviving material culture. Some female pharaohs adopted masculine artistic modes of representation and political conventions; some continued to present themselves as ruling women; and others combined the two styles. This chapter focuses on the way that female pharaohs reigned, and how they presented themselves and their reign: in doing so, it demonstrates that these women were not ‘usurpers’ or ‘temporary regents,’ but were legitimate rulers who reigned over their subjects as the earthly embodiment of the male god Horus.
By Aidan Norrie
Aidan Norrie
Aidan Norrie is a historian of monarchy, and a Chancellor’s International Scholar in the Centre for the Study of the Renaissance at The University of Warwick. He researches royal authority in cultures across the globe, with a particular focus on female kingship. Aidan is the editor, with Lisa Hopkins, of Women on the Edge in Early Modern Europe (Amsterdam University Press); with Marina Gerzic of From Medievalism to Early-Modernism: Adapting the English Past (Routledge); and with Mark Houlahan, of On the Edge of Early Modern English Drama (MIP University Press).
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Related Chapters
Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones: Harem Politics: Royal Women and Succession Crises in the Ancient Near East (c. 1400-300 BCE) (See Chapter 31)
Beverly Stoeltje: Creating chiefs and queen mothers in Ghana: obstacles and opportunities (See Chapter 33)
Susan Broomhall: Ruling Emotions: Affective and emotional strategies of power and authority among early modern European monarchies (See Chapter 40)