Hatshepsut: Home

Pharaoh Hatshepsut enjoyed a peaceful and prosperous reign. She built magnificent temples, protected Egypt's borders and masterminded a highly profitable trading mission to the mysterious land of Punt. She should have been feted as one of the most successful of the 18th Dynasty kings. Not everyone, however, was impressed by her achievements.
From BBC History

BBC 4 television investigating Hatshepsut's seafaring adventures and achievements.

Historians debate the significance of Hatshepsut,
one of few female rulers of ancient Egypt. Traditionally
she has been viewed as a schemer who
usurped the throne, while more recent scholarship
acknowledges the complex difficulties she
would have faced as a female ruler some 3,500
years ago. Her seemingly uninhibited access to
natural and human resources, however, allowed
her to engage in a substantial building program
throughout Egypt.
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Hatshepsut, a woman who came to the throne under the titles of a king and appeared in public as one. She is the first recorded female ruler in history and the first recorded female patron of large-scale art and architectural projects. She left behind a number of artifacts testifying to the importance of her reign.
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It is almost inevitable that historians, using the model of the brothers Grimm, have cast Queen Hatshepsut in the role of the wicked stepmother to the young King Tuthmose III. However difficult it is to assess the character of ancient royalty from the distant perspective of 34 centuries, half of the label is accurate: she was indeed his stepmother.