Hatshepsut, forgotten female Pharoah of Egypt

The mummy of Hatshepsut, the most powerful female Pharoah of Egypt has been identified from her tooth.

Hatshepsut

Hatshepsut is a very interesting historical figure.
She reigned a little after Ahmose I drove out the Asiatic Hyksos from the north, and unified Egypt again under native rule, and bringing Egypt to it final age of glory in ancient times, called the New Kingdom.

She was the Pharoah of Egypt, marrying her half brother, Thutmosis II (a common practice then). Her half brother/husband had a son, Thutmosis III by a lesser wife, and co-ruled with her nephew.

Explorations of Punt and the Red Sea

She sent ships and explorers to the Land of Punt (thought to be Somalia).
The explorers who returned recorded their findings on the walls of her temple (El Deir El Bahari: modern name: the Northen Monastery, original "Djeser djeseru").

You can see amazing details of Red Sea fauna there, such as spiny lobster, squid and other creatures.
There are inscriptions of natives from Africa too in meticulous detail, as well as their dwellings (thatched huts). There is even an obese queen from Punt with some disfigurement.

You can see a replica of the inscriptions at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) in Toronto .(

Erasing history

So, when Thutmosis III finally took over, he went through a campaign of removing her memory from history. Although being his aunt, she was also his step mother, and God knows what relationship they had when his father was alive.
Although other Pharoahs did this regularly, it was not targeted towards any particular one specifically, but rather an attempt to claim the monuments of predecessors as his own.
Her statues were toppled in wells (where they were discovered in the 19th century).

Egypt's empire expands

Thutmosis III would rule as the pharoah who expanded Egypt's empire to far places, more than anyone else before or after him. He is recorded to have hunted elephants on the banks of Euphrates, on the borders of present day Syria and Iraq.

More detail on Hatshepsut.