Hatshepsut’s temple was a funerary temple with gardens and pleasant spaces for the spirits of her friends to gather in the afterlife. After all, what is the point of an afterlife if your friends aren’t there to share it with you? Hatshepsut ruled Egypt for twenty years which was unusual for a female. Her statues always show her as a male, but that is because the priests insisted that a female could not be Pharaoh, though there did not seem to be restrictions on cross dressing females. Her chief priest and architect was deeply in love with her and when she died, he wanted to design a funerary temple that was dramatically different than any other funerary temple. Looking at the pictures, I think you will have to agree that he achieved his goal. Its has three tiers and long staircase are unlike anything that went before or since. The architect wrote many poems describing her great beauty and limitless wisdom. Her mummy was recently discovered and she was short, very heavy , had diabetes and was generally not in good health. But as Henry Kissinger noted, “Power is a great aphrodisiac.”
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