Hatshepsut Temple: Female Power in Stone

The Temple of Hatshepsut is unlike any other structure in Luxor. It rises from the desert in terraced levels, a massive structure carved from pale stone that glows in the desert light. This is the mortuary temple of Hatshepsut, one of Egypt's rare female pharaohs, and it is unmissable.

Hatshepsut ruled during the 18th Dynasty, a period of stability and prosperity. She declared herself pharaoh and had herself depicted in statues and reliefs as male (as was custom). But her temple is unquestionably her statement: this structure says "I was powerful, I was legitimate, I deserve to be remembered."

The temple walls are covered with reliefs showing her expeditions, her trade missions, her political achievements. Unlike the images in tombs focused on the afterlife, these images are about her actual accomplishments as a ruler. This temple is propaganda, yes, but it's also a historical record of a woman who took power in a male-dominated political system and left an architectural legacy that has lasted nearly three thousand years.

Standing in front of Hatshepsut Temple in the early morning, when the stone glows pink and gold, you're not looking at abstraction. You're looking at a woman's choice to assert her power through architecture and art. The temple's terraced levels echo the actual geography of the surrounding cliffs. The proportions feel perfectly balanced. It is, without question, one of the most beautiful structures ever built.

Hatshepsut's story is one reason to come to Egypt: to encounter historical women whose accomplishments were recorded in stone, and to understand them in the context of their actual landscape.