Hatshepsut ruled Egypt as pharaoh for over twenty years — wearing the false beard, using the male royal titles, and governing one of the most prosperous and peaceful periods in Egyptian history. After her death, her stepson Thutmose III systematically destroyed her statues, chiseled her name from monuments, and attempted to erase her from the historical record entirely. It took archaeologists three thousand years to piece her story back together.

This episode traces Hatshepsut from her royal birth through her unprecedented claim to the throne, the building programs and trade expeditions that defined her reign, and the campaign of erasure that nearly succeeded in wiping her from history.

• Hatshepsut’s royal lineage and the political maneuvering that made her pharaoh instead of regent
• The adoption of male royal iconography — the false beard, the kilt, the pharaonic titles
• The Punt expedition, the Deir el-Bahri temple, and the prosperity of her twenty-year reign
• Thutmose III’s systematic destruction of her monuments and the modern rediscovery of her story