Hello and welcome back to the Egyptian history podcast, The History of Egypt.

Episode 61, The Two Lands Serve Her, in which the infant king Tartmos III is upstaged by his stepmother,

a woman we know all too well, the world-famous Queen Hatshepsut.

Somewhere near 1495 BCE, Tatmos II was dead.

After a short reign of four to 14 years, the king had joined his ancestors in the afterlife.

Behind him, he left his young son, Tatmos III, his concubine, Isis, and his wife, the high priestess of Karnak and daughter of a king, Hatshepsut. When the old king died, his son was too young to wield

power effectively on his own. So, in a tradition dating all the way back to the First Dynasty,

Tutmos III was king in name only. Real power, executive power, was wielded

on his behalf by his closest female relative, the new king's mother, Isis. Wait, no, that's not right.

Isis wasn't in charge of anything. She disappears from our history after giving birth to

Tutmos III. Instead, the king's stepmother was in charge.

The god's wife of Amun, High Priestess of Karnak, and widow of the deceased king,

Hatshepsut took control of the situation soon after her husband passed away.

As Queen Regent acting on behalf of her stepson, she took the affairs of the kingdom into

her hands. Pretty soon, she would the affairs of the kingdom into her hands.

Pretty soon, she would be acting as a king in her own right, and the trajectory of the 18th

dynasty would never quite be the same. How did Hatshepsuit get to the amazing position that she did,

and, more importantly, why did she do what she did?

Tuttmose the second in Hatshepsut didn't have any sons together, which made for a bit of a complication

when he died.

There was a daughter, Neferu-Ray, but no heir to the throne that was the blood of both the

king and the queen.

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