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a
ANCIENT EGYPT CHRONOLOGY
Year Reign
ca 3200–3000 B.C. Nagada III/Dynasty 0
ca 3000–2890 B.C. Dynasty 1
ca 3000–2890 B.C. Merneith
ca 2890–2686 B.C. Dynasty 2
2686–2613 B.C. Dynasty 3
2613–2494 B.C. Dynasty 4
2494–2345 B.C. Dynasty 5
2345–2181 B.C. Dynasty 6
2181–2160 B.C. Dynasties 7 & 8
2160–2055 B.C. First Intermediate Period
2055–1985 B.C. Dynasty 11
1985–1773 B.C. Dynasty 12
1777–1773 B.C. Neferusobek
1773–1650 B.C. Dynasties 13 & 14
1650–1550 B.C. Dynasty 15
1650–1580 B.C. Dynasty 16
ca 1580–1550 B.C. Dynasty 17
1550–1295 B.C. Dynasty 18
1473–1458 B.C. Hatshepsut
1338–1336 B.C. Nefertiti
1295–1186 B.C. Dynasty 19
1188–1186 B.C. Tawosret
1186–1069 B.C. Dynasty 20
1069–664 B.C. Dynasties 21–25
664–343 B.C. Dynasties 26–30
343–332 B.C. Second Persian Period
332–305 B.C. Macedonian Dynasty
305–285 B.C. Ptolemaic Dynasty
51–0 B.C. Cleopatra VII Philopator
30 B.C.–a.d. 395 Roman Period
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Map
Ancient Egypt Chronology
Introduction: Why Women Don’t Rule the World
Chapter 1: Merneith | Queen of Blood
Chapter 2: Neferusobek | The Last Woman Standing
Chapter 3: Hatshepsut | Queen of Public Relations
Chapter 4: Nefertiti | More Than Just a Pretty Face
Chapter 5: Tawosret | The Survivor
Chapter 6: Cleopatra | Drama Queen
Epilogue: Why Women Should Rule the World
Acknowledgments
Notes
Further Reading and Essential Resources
About the Author
Photo Insert
Why Women Don’t Rule the World
I
n the fifth century B.C., thousands of years after her lifetime, the
Greek historian Herodotus wrote about a certain Nitocris, a queen
whose husband-brother had been murdered by conspirators. The
young, beautiful woman claimed her revenge by inviting all the
collaborators to a grand banquet in a fancy and newly commissioned
underground hall. When the men were all happily eating and
drinking, Nitocris ordered the floodgates opened through a secret
channel, drowning them all in Nile waters. The rebels thus
dispatched, her final act was to throw herself into a fiery pit so that
no man could exact his retribution on her. (One wonders whether the
fiery pit could have been any better than whatever torture they might
have meted out.) Two centuries after Herodotus, the Egyptian priest-
historian Manetho, compiler of Egypt’s most comprehensive history,
included a section on Nitocris, adding that she had light skin and
rosy cheeks, reigned alone for 12 years, and had a pyramid built in
her honor.
Nitocris’s story has everything: political intrigue, incest, fabulous
Egyptian booby traps—and, most important of all, a beautiful young
queen avenging her husband’s murder with cleverness and bravery.
Offing herself before they could take (presumably sexual) revenge on
her makes her even more appealing. There is only one problem.
There is no evidence from that time of Nitocris—no burial location,
no statuary, no texts, no monuments, nothing—to prove that she was
more than a historian’s fantasy. But her narrative fits some
extraordinarily familiar patterns for well-documented female rulers
of ancient Egypt: She was the last ruler of her family dynasty; she
acquired power by marrying her own brother; she acted in fierce
protection of her husband, her brother, her patriarchy; she resorted
to deceit and trickery to gain power over her enemies; and she was
misunderstood by her own people, who would erase her image from
monuments around Egypt. Indeed, there is enough to Nitocris’s
legend to suspect that what might seem like nothing more than a
salacious story is actually composed of kernels of truth, embedded in
a romanticized cultural memory that has come down to us in
fragmented and dramatized form.
In one place on our planet thousands of years ago, against all the
odds of the male-dominated system in which they lived, women
ruled repeatedly with formal, unadulterated power. Like Nitocris,
most of these women ruled as Egyptian god-king incarnate, not as
the mere power behind a man on the throne. Ancient Egypt is an
anomaly as the only land that consistently called upon the rule of
women to keep its regime in working order, safe from discord, and
on the surest possible footing—particularly when a crisis was under
way.
We might forget that a culture so beautiful—with its golden masks
and colossal statues, gods with crocodile heads, and hieroglyphs of
whimsical complexity—was also ruthlessly authoritarian. We might
also overlook that its tone—overtly masculine, defined by pyramids
and god-kings and obelisks—was not just supported but enabled by
its female foundation of power.
What about ancient Egypt allowed this kind of political and
ideological power among the acknowledged weaker sex, plagued by
pregnancy, nursing, monthly hormonal shifts, and menopause? It
might seem incongruous for ancient Egypt’s authoritarian state to
support potential threats to traditional masculine power. Perhaps
ancient Egyptian women were made of stronger stuff, gifted with
ability and ingenuity greater than women elsewhere. Or maybe the
Egyptians were more tolerant and less threatened by female political
rule because they had created a social system of gender balance
through laws that supported land ownership and social freedoms for
both sexes, allowing women decision-making power and access to
