- [Narrator] When the Kushites conquer Egypt around 700 BCE, they decide to embrace the Egyptians' religious customs and beliefs.

This strategy is best seen at Karnak, a vast temple complex where pharaohs dedicated great building projects to Amun, the king of the gods.

One of the monuments reveals a new and distinctive level of power for women in Egypt.

It depicts two figures protecting a sacred tomb.

- On either side, the figures are facing outward as a way of protecting it.

In Egyptian art, it's very rare for figures to be facing outward and not toward the center.

The king is throwing four balls, and he's aiming at four targets: east, west, north, and south.

- [Narrator] Opposite the king, a female figure.

- She's complementing his actions, asserting the royal dominion over the four extremities of the Earth.

She is drawing an arrow through a double-arched bow, and this is very rare to find women actively arching.

Very rare.

- [Narrator] Who is this woman?

Her title is God's Wife of Amun.

(dramatic music) To understand how a woman might attain such power in Egypt, we need to go back 800 years, when the title of God's Wife of Amun first appears.

Carved on a stone slab, or stela, is the title's earliest evidence.

This is the Ahmose-Nefertari's Donation Stela.

- Ahmose-Nefertari was the wife of King Ahmose, the founder of the 18th Dynasty.

As part of his larger state policy to put trusted family members in key positions around the realm, she was appointed as the God's Wife of Amun.

As far as we know, she's the first woman to hold that title.

- [Narrator] With this stela, King Ahmose establishes the estate of a God's Wife as a source of revenue for his queen.

The stela records large amounts of gold, silver, and copper, as well as servants and land.

- [Narrator] On the donation stela of Ahmose-Nefertari, there is a very telling line.

It says, "No future king shall ever revoke the estate of the God's Wife of Amun."

The women who held that title remained financially independent, and it seems plausible to suggest that it's because of that initial endowment.

- In the 25th Dynasty, the God's Wife of Amun was much more important than in previous times.

The God's Wife of Amun was the female substitute of the king.

- The God's Wife of Amun was as important as a medieval pope in terms of the temporal and religious power that she held.

(dramatic music)