Who was Hatshepsut?
She was the daughter of king Tutmose the first. She was the only woman to become a pharaoh. Her name or title means The Ensigned Shepa of the South. ‘Hat’ means ‘The Sign’. ‘Shepa’ or ‘Sheba’ means a ‘scribe’ or ‘administrator’. In this title, Hatshepsut probably intends the reader to assume both roles because she had to write laws and administrate the combined kingdoms of Ethiopia and Egypt. The ‘Sut’ is short for ‘sut-en-bat’ or ‘south and north’. Hatshepsut ruled Egypt in the North and Ethiopia in the South. The temple she built at Deir el-Bahari is a copy of Solomon’s temple at Jerusalem. After returning from Jerusalem, Hatshepsut built a copy and set it against the clefts in the cliffs with secret tunnels and stairways (or causeways) like Solomon’s so that she could reflect the words of Solomon’s poem in Song of Solomon 2:14, “Oh my dove, you are in the clefts of the rock in the secret places of the stairs”. The Song of Solomon is about Israel’s King and a black woman who was sear
