Hatshepsut

Blogging had taken a hiatus for a while- I was spending a few days in the Nile Valley and on the Red Sea Coast-

Obelisk of Queen Hatshepsut
(tallest obelisk in Egypt)
Karnak Temple
East Bank, Luxor, Egypt

As far as uppity women go, Hatshepsut was uppity enough. Tons of stories exist about her reign, but the one I'm sticking to (Egyptologists generally agree with this one, and I'm citing Lonely Planet and Lisa Sabahy, my professor from last semester along with my text books), she married Tuthmosis the II, and when he died declared herself Pharoah. Wearing men's clothes and even the beard that Egyptian pharaohs wore. Most Egyptologist agree that her 15 year rule when she declared herself Pharoah was a period of internal growth and peace within Egypt, she ruled with the help of the God Amun (Essentially, she convinced her constituents that she was eligible to rule by saying that she was the daughter of the god Amun). Disturbingly, Tuthmosis III, ordered all of her cartouches and depictions to be removed from Egyptian history, but the fact is that Hatshepsut was a badass.
Having spent the week listening to tour guides tell various tales of her life, some proclaiming she stole the throne, others claiming that she was fat and lazy and one going as far as to say that she was a violent ruler, it became increasingly apparently to me that that was the story that people wanted to hear about Hatshepsut. They wanted her to have failed in some form or fashion. And most importantly, they kept romanticizing some illicit affair between her architect that may never have happened. Why was it so important for her to have a romantic liason, I don't know?