Predecessors of Cleopatra

This book was among the first English-language works to chronicle the powerful women who ruled ancient Egypt, from Princess Nefert of the 3rd Dynasty to the legendary Cleopatra herself. Written in the early 20th century when Egyptology was still in its infancy, Leigh North, actually the writer Elizabeth Stewart Phelps, assembled everything known at the time about these remarkable queens from fragmentary historical records and the latest archaeological discoveries. The book captures the excitement of an era when each new excavation promised to rewrite what scholars thought they knew about the ancient world. North treats these women not as footnotes to pharaohs but as rulers in their own right: Nefert, Hatshepsut, Nefertiti, and the Ptolemaic queens who married brothers and killed sons to hold power. Reading it now feels like peering over the shoulder of an early Egyptologist at work, complete with the limitations and educated guesses that come from working before radiocarbon dating and modern translation techniques unlocked the secrets of hieroglyphic texts.