April 10-17, 2006 issue - A thousand years after the Pyramids were built, Queen Hatshepsut, widow and half sister of King Thutmose II, ascended Egypt's throne when the latter died prematurely in 1473 B.C. As regent for her infant nephew and stepson, Thutmose III, she was not the first woman to rule Egypt. But, for reasons that remain unknown, a few years into her regency, Hatshepsut discarded the title "queen" and became "king." She claimed double legitimacy—as King Thutmose I's eldest daughter and by virtue of her mythic self-propagated descent from the great god Amun. Because Egyptian kings were near-divine and crowned for life, Hatshepsut could not then abdicate in favor of her stepson. She became his senior co-ruler and controlled the Two Kingdoms, Upper and Lower Egypt, until her death 20 years later. Her remarkable and successful reign is now being commemorated at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art in the show "Hatshepsut: From Queen to Pharaoh" (through July 9)…..

Archaeologists find evidence for ancient version of ‘Girls Gone Wild’

BALTIMORE - Today, it sounds like a spring-break splurge on the order of "Girls Gone Wild": Drink huge quantities of beer, get wasted, indulge in gratuitous sex and pass out — then wake up the next morning with the music blaring and your friends praying that everything will turn out all right.

But back in 1470 B.C., this was the agenda for one of ancient Egypt's most raucous rituals, the "festival of drunkenness," which celebrated nothing less than the salvation of humanity. Archaeologists say they have found evidence amid the ruins of a temple in Luxor that the annual rite featured sex, drugs and the ancient equivalent of rock 'n' roll.

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