One Egyptian dynasty produced Hatshepsut, Akhenaten, Nefertiti and Tutankhamun
Between roughly 1550 and 1292 BC, a single royal line took Egypt to the height of its power. It is the only native dynasty with two women who ruled as pharaoh, it spawned the religious revolution of Akhenaten, and its bloodline ended with the infant daughters of Tutankhamun.
The dynasty began with Ahmose I, who completed the expulsion of the Hyksos, foreign rulers of the north, and opened the New Kingdom. His queen, Ahmose-Nefertari, became perhaps the most revered woman in Egyptian history and was worshipped as a goddess after death. Under Thutmose I the empire reached its widest borders, from Carchemish on the Euphrates to beyond the Nile's fourth cataract. Four kings named Thutmose give the line its other name, the Thutmoside Dynasty.
Hatshepsut, daughter of Thutmose I, first acted as regent for her young stepson, then took the throne herself and reigned for more than twenty years, the longest of any woman pharaoh from a native dynasty. That stepson, Thutmose III, went on to earn a reputation as Egypt's greatest military pharaoh, campaigning as far as Syria around 1450 BC. Later, Amenhotep III presided over extraordinary wealth: more than 250 statues of him survive, more than of any other pharaoh, and scarabs record an artificial lake he built for his queen, Tiye.
His son Amenhotep IV renamed himself Akhenaten in his fifth year, moved the capital to a new city at Amarna and elevated the sun disc, the Aten, until it was treated as the only god. Scholars still argue whether that was true monotheism or the promotion of one solar cult over others. Later Egyptians regarded the episode as an embarrassing aberration. Tutankhaten, probably his son, took the throne in 1334 BC, restored the old gods and changed his name to honour Amun.
The end was messy. Two court officials, Ay and then the general Horemheb, ruled in turn, possibly with a coup between them, and Horemheb died childless after naming his vizier heir. That vizier became Ramesses I in 1292 BC, founding the Nineteenth Dynasty. Modern DNA studies of the royal mummies have produced conflicting results, and scholars have reached no consensus on their ancestry.
Source: Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt
