And from Egypt on the other side of North Africa

Hatshepsut
and view of Africa including northern countries


Among the wonders of ancient Egypt we visited last February was the Luxor Temple of Hatshepsut, the only female pharaoh. She is much in the news recently, 1,500 some years after her death, because scientists believe they've located her long-missing mummy. The hype is that this is the most important Egyptian find since King Tut's tomb, but that is probably extreme.

The mummy shows that the pharaoh was no Princess Di; she was probably fat with bad teeth and cancer in the pelvis. She already has the rap of dressing like and looking like a man.

She also grabbed power like a man, taking over the top spot when her husband died and her stepson was a child. The kid's revenge when he got old enough was to try to blot out memory of her reign by smashing all her statues and likenesses. Which, as a fat, snaggle-toothed hag could not have been all bad.