Mighty Women: 10 Female Figures That Made Their Own Imprint in the History Books
by Girl power is not just a recent phenomenon for there are many women who have exerted and proved themselves in the male-dominated world of politics. Looking back into history, female absolute rulers are quite few in number when compared to male rulers.
A “queen regnant” is a female monarch who exercises ALL monarchical powers that a king would have without regard to gender. In contrast, a “queen consort” is merely the wife of a reigning king, and has no official state powers of her own.
As follows are ten queen regnant from different historical periods ranging from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages to modern history:
Hatshepsut
The first female pharaoh to reign over ancient Egypt (1479 to 1458 B.C.). After her husband Thutmose II’s death, she became regent to her newly crowned young nephew Thutmose III, but would proclaim herself “Pharaoh” after a few years. An able leader, she conducted military campaigns in Nubia, re-established trade routes disrupted by the Hyksos invasion, and constructed the awesome temple complex at Deir el-Bahri.
Christina
“Christina on horseback” (1653) by Sébastien Bourdon
Queen of Sweden, dubbed “The Minerva of the North” for her love and patronage for the arts and culture. In 1632 when her father King Gustav II Adolf died in battle, she was immediately declared as “king” of Sweden at only six years of age. Educated as a prince, this very mannish but gifted ruler began to rule in her own right on her eighteenth birthday, and was able to effectively negotiate the Treaty of Westphalia bringing to an end the Thirty Years’ War in 1648. Overburdened by the pressure for her to marry, she relinquished the throne in 1654 in favor of her cousin Charles Gustav (Charles X), converted to Catholicism, and settled in Rome, where she died and was buried in St. Peter’s Basilica in 1689.
Artemisia I
“Battle of Salamis” (by Wilhelm von Kaulbach) in which Artemisia commanded five ships
The daughter of Lygdamis and tyrant queen of Halicarnassus, the only woman whom Herodotus attributed with manly bravery. In 480 B.C., she commanded five ships to assist her Persian ally under Xerxes in the Battle of Salamis; but when she found herself about to be captured by the winning Greek fleet, she deliberately crashed and sunk a Persian ship in order to deceive the Greeks into thinking she had changed sides, and thereby, to spare her life.
Razia Sultana
An unknown artist’s rendition of Razia Sultana
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Post Commentjudith weingarten
On May 31, 2008 at 8:47 am
Re: the portrait bust of ‘Zenobia’. I don’t know who this lady is but (despite the claims on the Internet) she is emphatically not Queen Zenobia of Palmyra. There are no existing portraits of the queen except for those on coins — which are, alas, tiny and thus tell us little about her true appearance; alas.
I’m afraid, too, that Zenobia did not claim to be descend from Cleopatra & Marc Antony but from Cleopatra Thea & Antiochus VII of Syria.
For more on the real Zenobia, see my blog Zenobia: Empress of the East at http://judithweingarten.blogspot.com
eddiego65
On May 31, 2008 at 10:23 am
In fact, Zenobia made a lot of claims about her descent, including being a descendant of Dido, the queen of Carthage, and Semiramis, the legendary Assyrian queen. I guess her true ancestry will always be in doubt.
Regarding her portrait, it’s sites identified the bust as hers include women’shistory.about.com and the prestigious britannica online.
RYAN
On August 9, 2008 at 1:33 am
WU ZETIAN IS A BLOODY WOMAN
Mysticmaster49
On October 4, 2008 at 8:06 am
What happened to Cleopatra? I think she should be at the top of the list before Hatshepsut.
BC Doan
On January 28, 2009 at 12:41 pm
I love this article, and learning so much from it…