Egypt's most successful female pharaoh had herself depicted wearing a false beard

Hatshepsut ruled Egypt as pharaoh in her own right from roughly 1479 to 1458 BC, after starting as regent for her young stepson Thutmose III. To fit the traditionally male role, her statues and reliefs show her with the ceremonial false beard, while her inscriptions still carefully used feminine grammar. She oversaw ambitious building projects, including the Deir el-Bahari temple, and a major trading expedition to Punt — yet decades after her death, many of her monuments were defaced or erased.

— Joyce Tyldesley, Hatshepsut: The Female Pharaoh — Viking, 1996
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