THE CONVERSATION 15 NOVEMBER 2022
It couldn’t have been a case of better timing. Egyptologists celebrating the centenary of the discovery of the tomb of
Tutankhamun, now have a promising new archaeological discovery that appears to have been made in
Egypt. Excavators have discovered a tunnel under the
Taposiris Magna
temple, west of the ancient city of Alexandria, which they have suggested could lead to the tomb of
Queen
Cleopatra. Evidence that this is really the case remains to be seen, but such a discovery would be a major find, with the potential to rewrite what we know about
Egypt’s most famous queen.
According to the ancient Greek writer Plutarch – who wrote a biography of
Cleopatra’s husband, the Roman general
Mark Antony, and is responsible for the lengthiest and most detailed account of the last days of Cleopatra’s reign – both
Antony and
Cleopatra were buried inside
Cleopatra’s
mausoleum.
According to Plutarch, on the day that Augustus and his Roman forces invaded Egypt and captured Alexandria, Antony fell on his sword, died in
Cleopatra’s arms, and was then interred in the mausoleum. Two weeks later,
Cleopatra went to the mausoleum to make offerings and pour libations, and took her own life in a way that is still unknown (a popular misconception is that she was bitten by an asp). She too was then interred in the mausoleum.
In the days that followed, Antony’s son Marcus Antonius Antyllus and Cleopatra’s son Ptolemy XV Caesar (also known as Caesarion, “Little Caesar”), were both murdered by
Roman forces, and the two young men may likewise have been interred there.
If the mausoleum of Cleopatra has not already vanished beneath the waves of the
Mediterranean along with most of the Hellenistic city of Alexandria, and is one day found, it would be an almost unprecedented archaeological discovery.
The
discovery of Cleopatra's tomb is almost sure to rewrite history,
as there is at present so much guesswork, and nobody knows for
sure where she in under the Mediterranean
Sea.
A DISCOVERY THAT COULD REWRITE HISTORY
While the tombs of many famous historical rulers are still standing – the mausoleum of Augustus, Antony and Cleopatra’s mortal enemy, in
Rome, is one example – their contents have often been looted and lost centuries ago.
One notable exception is the tomb of Philip II of Macedon, the father of
Alexander the
Great, uncovered at Vergina in the late 1970s. The tomb was found intact, and this has enabled decades of scientific investigation into its contents, advancing our knowledge of members of the Macedonian royal family and their court. The same would be true if Cleopatra’s tomb were discovered, and found to be intact.
The amount of new information Egyptologists, classicists, ancient historians, and
archaeologists could glean from its contents would be immense. For the most part, our knowledge of Cleopatra and her reign comes from ancient Greek and Roman literary sources, written after her death and inherently hostile to the Egyptian queen. We do not have much evidence revealing the Egyptian perspective on
Cleopatra, but what we do have, such as honorific reliefs on the temples that she built and votives dedicated by her subjects, gives us a very different view of her.
Bust
of Mark Anthony, the famous Roman General.
The
mausoleum of Augustus in Rome.
THE ETHICS OF UNEARTHING CLEOPATRA'S REMAINS
To date, no other Ptolemaic ruler’s tomb has been found. They were reportedly all situated in the palace quarter of Alexandria and are believed to be under the sea with the rest of that part of the city.
The architecture and material contents of the tomb alone would keep historians busy for decades, and provide unprecedented amounts of information about the Ptolemaic royal cult and the fusion of Macedonian and Egyptian culture. But if Cleopatra’s remains were there too, they could tell us a great deal more, including the cause of her death, her physical appearance, and even answer the thorny question of her race.
But should we be hoping to find Cleopatra’s remains, and to analyse them? From Tutankhamun to the ordinary ancient Egyptians whose
mummies have been excavated over the centuries, there has been a long history of mismanagement and mistreatment.
While the days when mummies were unwrapped as a form of entertainment at Victorian dinner parties have thankfully passed, concerns are increasingly being raised by those who work in heritage about the appropriate treatment of our ancestors.
While the discovery of Cleopatra’s tomb would be priceless for Egyptologists and other scholars, is it fair to deny the queen the opportunity for peace and privacy in death that she did not receive in life?
[We doubt the great Queen would mind contributing to history,
for the sake of accuracy. Or, that she may be the subject of
research or display. Since, she was such an important historical
figure, in that her story is one of both splendour and love.]
By Jane Draycott (Lecturer, Classics, University of Glasgow) Anna Walker (Senior Arts/Culture Editor)
A BRIEF HISTORY OF ANCIENT EGYPT
Here's everything you need to know...
* The Ancient Egyptians were an advanced
civilization who at one point owned a huge portion of the globe
* The civilisation began about 5,000 years ago when ancient humans began building villages along the
River Nile
* It lasted for about 3,000 years and saw the building of complex cities centuries ahead of their time – as well as the famous
Great Pyramids
* The Ancient Egyptians were experts at farming and construction
* They invented a solar calendar, and one of the world's earliest writing systems: The hieroglyph
* The Egyptians were ruled by kings and queens called pharaohs
* Religion and the afterlife were a huge part of Ancient Egyptian culture. They had over 2,000 gods
* Pharaohs built huge elaborate tombs to be buried in, some of which were
pyramids – at the time among the largest buildings in the world
* The Egyptians believed in life after death, and important people's corpses were mummified to preserve their bodies for the afterlife
* The Ancient Egyptian empire fell due to a mix of factors, including wars with other empires and a 100-year period of drought and starvation
https://theconversation.com/why-the-discovery-of-cleopatras-tomb-would-rewrite-history-194481 https://theconversation.com/why-tutankhamuns-curse-continues-to-fascinate-100-years-after-his-discovery-193766 https://news.artnet.com/art-world/archaeologists-tunnel-cleopatra-tomb-2205456 https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/archaeologists-discover-4300-foot-long-tunnel-under-ancient-egyptian-temple-180981099/ http://heritage-key.com/blogs/sean-williams/digging-cleopatras-tomb-taposiris-magna/ https://www.britannica.com/biography/Plutarch https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Antony*.html https://www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/news/snake-unlikely-to-have-killed-cleopatra/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/raising-alexandria-151005550/ https://www.mausoleodiaugusto.it/en/augustus-and-the-mausoleum/ https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1490/the-royal-macedonian-tombs-at-vergina/ https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=philip+macedon+tomb+vergina&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5 https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Cleopatra/GQZB28EegT4C?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover https://www.npr.org/2012/03/14/148537736/bad-girls-of-history-how-wicked-were-they https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010008923 https://www.thoughtco.com/rulers-of-the-ptolemies-172247 https://www.academia.edu/4662183/Reconstruction_of_the_palace_area_in_Alexandria https://blog.oup.com/2010/12/cleopatra-2/ https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2006/may/08/heritage.egypt https://theconversation.com/why-did-people-start-eating-egyptian-mummies-the-weird-and-wild-ways-mummy-fever-swept-through-europe-177551 https://theconversation.com/why-the-discovery-of-cleopatras-tomb-would-rewrite-history-194481
https://theconversation.com/why-tutankhamuns-curse-continues-to-fascinate-100-years-after-his-discovery-193766
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/archaeologists-tunnel-cleopatra-tomb-2205456
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/archaeologists-discover-4300-foot-long-tunnel-under-ancient-egyptian-temple-180981099/
http://heritage-key.com/blogs/sean-williams/digging-cleopatras-tomb-taposiris-magna/
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Plutarch
https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Antony*.html
https://www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/news/snake-unlikely-to-have-killed-cleopatra/
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/raising-alexandria-151005550/
https://www.mausoleodiaugusto.it/en/augustus-and-the-mausoleum/
https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1490/the-royal-macedonian-tombs-at-vergina/
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=philip+macedon+tomb+vergina&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5
https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Cleopatra/GQZB28EegT4C?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover
https://www.npr.org/2012/03/14/148537736/bad-girls-of-history-how-wicked-were-they
https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010008923
https://www.thoughtco.com/rulers-of-the-ptolemies-172247
https://www.academia.edu/4662183/Reconstruction_of_the_palace_area_in_Alexandria
https://blog.oup.com/2010/12/cleopatra-2/
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2006/may/08/heritage.egypt
https://theconversation.com/why-did-people-start-eating-egyptian-mummies-the-weird-and-wild-ways-mummy-fever-swept-through-europe-177551
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