QUEEN HATASU has been happily described as the Queen Elizabeth of Egyptian history; and she was undoubtedly one of the most extraordinary women in the annals of the ancient East. A daughter of Thothmes 1., third Pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty, and of his wife, Queen Aillnes N efertari, she inherited sovereign rights in virtue of her maternal descent from the old Twelfth Dynasty line. (6')

It has pleased historians to rank Thothmes II. as the immediate successor of Thothmes 1., and to place the reign of Queen Hatasu between the reigns of her two brothers, Thothmes II. and Thothmes III. By some she is described as Queen Consort during the reign of Thothmes II., and as Queen-regent during the earlier years of the reign of Thothmes III. By others, and most emphatically by Dr. Brugsch, she is stigmatized as a usurper. As a matter of fact, however, Hatasu was actually Queen, and Queen-regnant, during the lifetime of her father. Her accession, therefore, dates from a time long preceding that of her brother, Thothmes II. An important historical inscription sculptured on one of the pylons of the Great Temple of Karnak records this event in eighteen columns of hieroglyphic text, which were copied and translated by the late Vicomte E. de Rouge in 1872.