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Maat-ka-re was the daughter of the high priest Pennedjem the first, who seems to have given her the birth name of Queen Hatshepsut; he called his son, Menkhepere, after the great king, Tuthmosis the third.

Maat-ka-re held the position of "God's Wife of Amun," so she was considered to be the female head of the priesthood of Amun at Karnak, and therefore had almost the same status as a queen.

Her mummy was found with other mummies of members of her family in the Deir el-Bahari cachette. Hers was the earliest mummy of her period to have been stuffed to present a life-like appearance. The body was internally packed and molded into the shape of the living queen and the face was stuffed with mud and painted with yellow ocher. She had dark hair and her nails had been tied with string to prevent them from falling off.

Although she was "God's Wife of Amun" and was supposed to be a virgin, early examiners believed that her mummy had been prepared as though she was pregnant, with extra padding in her abdomen. A small mummy was found in her coffin that they supposed to be a stillborn child, however, x-rays have since shown the small mummy to be that of a baboon.