Women Pharaohs

The names are legendary -- Cleopatra, Nefertiti and Hatshepsut. All were icons of the beauty and power that once dominated ancient Egypt, their command rivaling that of the mightiest male rulers in history. In the famed Temple of Karnak and across the Nile in the necropolis at Thebes, archaeologists have uncovered a major source of these well-known women rulers in a previously little known cult. Inside tombs and temples replete with statues and hieroglyphs, they are finding evidence of a 400-year-old period when this female cult, the Gods Wives of Amun, usurped the supremacy of male Pharaohs and ruled all of Egypt. From Nubia to the Nile Delta, and from the origins of Egyptian civilization to its demise, the program traces the history of this female cult and their influence on Ancient Egypt's greatest women rulers.