5 Pounds Queen Hatshepsut

Hatshepsut ruled Egypt for roughly two decades in the 15th century BC, yet her memory was systematically erased by her successor Thutmose III — her images chiseled from monuments, her name excised from king lists. She remained largely unknown to modern history until the late 19th century, when Egyptologists began piecing together her reign from the defaced reliefs at Deir el-Bahari. Egypt's 1994 commemorative program drew heavily on rediscovered pharaonic figures, and Hatshepsut — by then fully rehabilitated in the scholarly record — was an obvious candidate.