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Three and a half thousand years ago in Egypt,

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a noble pharaoh was the victim [br]of a violent attack.

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But the attack was not physical.

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This royal had been dead for 20 years.

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The attack was historical,

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an act of damnatio memoriae,[br]the damnation of memory.

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Somebody smashed the pharaoh's statues,

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took a chisel and attempted to erase [br]the pharaoh's name and image from history.

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Who was this pharaoh,[br]and what was behind the attack?

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Here's the key:

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the pharaoh Hatshepsut was a woman.

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In the normal course of things,[br]she should never have been pharaoh.

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Although it was legal [br]for a woman to be a monarch,

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it disturbed some essential Egyptian beliefs.

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Firstly, the pharaoh was known[br]as the living embodiment

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of the male god Horus.

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Secondly, disturbance to the tradition[br]of rule by men

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was a serious challenge to Maat,

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a word for "truth," [br]expressing a belief in order and justice,

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vital to the Egyptians.

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Hatshepsut had perhaps tried to adapt

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to this belief in the link between [br]order and patriarchy through her titles.

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She took the name Maatkare,

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and sometimes referred to herself[br]

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as Hatshepsu, [br]with a masculine word ending.

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But apparently, these efforts [br]didn't convince everyone,

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and perhaps someone [br]erased Hatshepsut's image

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so that the world would forget [br]the disturbance to Maat,

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and Egypt could be balanced again.

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Hatshepsut, moreover, [br]was not the legitimate heir to the thrown,

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but a regent, [br]a kind of stand-in co-monarch.

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The Egyptian kingship traditionally [br]passed from father to son.

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It passed from Thutmose I [br]to his son Thutmose II,

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Hatshepsut's husband.

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It should have passed from Thutmose II [br]directly to his son Thutmose III,

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but Thutmose III was a little boy [br]when his father died.

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Hatshepsut, the dead pharaoh's chief wife and widow,

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stepped in to help [br]as her stepson's regent

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but ended up ruling beside him [br]as a fully fledged pharaoh.

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Perhaps Thutmose III was angry about this.

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Perhaps he was the one [br]who erased her images.

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It's also possible that someone wanted [br]to dishonor Hatshepsut

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because she was a bad pharaoh.

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But the evidence suggests [br]she was actually pretty good.

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She competently fulfilled [br]the traditional roles of the office.

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She was a great builder.

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Her mortuary temple, Djeser-Djeseru,

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was an architectural phenomenon [br]at the time

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and is still admired today.

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She enhanced the economy of Egypt,

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conducting a very successful trade mission[br]to the distant land of Punt.

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She had strong religious connections.

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She even claimed to be the daughter [br]of the state god, Amun.

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And she had a successful military career,[br]with a Nubian campaign,

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and claims she fought alongside [br]her soldiers in battle.

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Of course, we have to be careful[br]when we assess the success

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of Hatshepsut's career,

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since most of the evidence [br]was written by Hatshepsut herself.

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She tells her own story [br]in pictures and writing

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on the walls of her mortuary temple

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and the red chapel she built for Amun.

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So who committed the crimes [br]against Hatshepsut's memory?

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The most popular suspect is [br]her stepson, nephew and co-ruler, Thutmose III.

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Did he do it out of anger [br]because she stole his throne?

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This is unlikely since [br]the damage wasn't done

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until 20 years after Hatshepsut died.

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That's a long time to hang onto anger [br]and then act in a rage.

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Maybe Thutmose III did it [br]to make his own reign look stronger.

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But it is most likely that [br]he or someone else erased the images

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so that people would forget [br]that a woman ever sat on Egypt's throne.

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This gender anomaly was simply [br]too much of a threat to Maat

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and had to be obliterated from history.

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Happily, the ancient censors [br]were not quite thorough enough.

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Enough evidence survived for us [br]to piece together what happened,

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so the story of this unique powerful woman[br]can now be told.