|
Still, men were usually in charge. But that didn’t stop some women from defying tradition and taking over. Cleopatra, Hatshepsut, and Nefertiti were three outrageous queens who showed the ancient world what girl power was all about.
Cleopatra:
Political Party Girl
(Reign: 51 B.C. to 30 B.C.)
Marc Antony was fuming. The ruler of half the Roman empire waited impatiently for the queen of Egypt to arrive. She was late—on purpose. And when she finally glittered up the Cydnus River on a ship with silver oars, Cleopatra had the nerve to make him board her ship. How dare she?
Antony shouldn’t have been surprised at the queen’s bold behavior. Cleo had star power with the brains to match. Queen by 18, she had her hands full: bad harvests, a forced marriage to her brother, plots to overthrow her. (To fight back, she even ordered hits on some of her relatives!)
Forced to flee her capital of Alexandria, she convinced powerful Roman leader Julius Caesar to help her regain control. But four years later Caesar was assassinated. Cleo was back to square one.
Enter Marc Antony. She needed his political support. He needed money. Rich party girl Cleo tempted him with excess by betting that she could blow a fortune on dinner. Intrigued, Antony watched as Cleo crushed a pearl earring into her now-priceless drink. That’s all it took for the charmed yet greedy Antony to become hopelessly devoted to the queen.
With his help, Cleopatra battled to keep Egypt out of the hands of her enemies. She lost. But instead of surrendering, she took her life—probably with the help of a poisonous snake.
Cleopatra left few words. But Egyptologists think they may have found an order signed by the queen. On it, the busy ruler had scribbled: “Make it so.”
Hatshepsut: Built to Last
(Reign: 1479 B.C. to 1458 B.C.)
Wearing the royal headdress, with a pharaoh’s traditional fake beard on her chin, Hatshepsut was officially the “female king” of Egypt. Not bad for a girl who was forced to wed her 8-year-old half brother at 13.
Now for action! Hatshepsut waged successful warfare against fierce invaders. She created a magnificent temple to the sun god, Amun. Organizing a five-ship expedition to faraway lands, she brought ivory, ebony, gold, and trees to Egypt. Trees? Egypt needed them to grow fragrant incense, burned by the ton in the temple’s ceremonies.
To celebrate her 15th year of rule, Hat had two 100-foot obelisks erected. (They looked a lot like the tall, narrow Washington Monument.) Getting the granite for the structures down the Nile River took a long barge, 27 boats, and 850 rowers!
Hat was an excellent ruler—so good that she kept the pharaoh-to-be on the sidelines until she died. But she lives on in spirit. In modern Egypt, Hatshepsut’s wonders, from an obelisk to an incense tree, are still standing after nearly 3,500 years.
Nefertiti: Rebel With a Cause
(Reign: 1336 B.C. to 1334 B.C.)
Although Nefertiti translates as “the beautiful one has come,” Egyptologists hotly debate what she really looked like. But this
queen was more than just a face.
Nefertiti co-ruled with her pharaoh-husband, and they had big changes in mind. One day they made a shocking proclamation that Egyptians would now worship only one god. To honor the religion, the royal couple built a new capital city called Akhetaten that was filled with exciting new art and architecture.
Their world didn’t last. When Tutankhamun (King Tut to us) became pharaoh, the new capital was abandoned. Though some of the art was rescued, gone was the one-god religion from the ancient world. In the modern world, though, Nefertiti remains a name—and a face—that won’t soon be forgotten.
Text by Vicki León
Illustrations by Kimberly Schamber
|
