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Why the discovery of Cleopatra's tomb would rewrite history

2022-12-13 21:18:42Histori SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
Why the discovery of Cleopatra's tomb would rewrite history
Why the discovery of Cleopatra's tomb would rewrite history

By Jane Draycott - The Conversation

It couldn't have been a better moment than this. Egyptologists celebrating the 100th anniversary of the discovery of Pharaoh Tutankhamun's tomb are now on the verge of a promising new archaeological discovery that appears to have occurred in Egypt.

Several archaeologists have announced in recent days that they have discovered a tunnel under the Taposiris Magna temple, west of the ancient city of Alexandria, which they believe may lead to the tomb of the famous queen Cleopatra. Whether this will be true remains to be seen.

But such a discovery would be very important and potentially rewrite what we know about Egypt's most famous queen. According to the ancient Greek writer Plutarch, who wrote a biography of her husband, the Roman general Mark Antony, and who is the author of the longest 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 Augustus and his troops invaded Egypt and Alexandria, Antony killed himself by jumping on his sword, died in Cleopatra's arms, and was then buried in the mausoleum.

Two weeks later, Cleopatra went to the mausoleum to make some sacrifices to the Gods, and then killed herself in a way that is still unknown (a popular legend is that she was bitten by a scorpion). Then she was also buried inside the mausoleum. A few days later, the Romans also killed Antony's son, Markus Antonius Antillus, and Cleopatra's son, Ptolemy XV Caesar (also known as Caesarion, Little Caesar), and the two young men may have been buried there.

If Cleopatra's mausoleum has not disappeared under the waters of the Mediterranean along with much of the Hellenistic city of Alexandria, and if it is ever found, it would be an almost unprecedented archaeological discovery.

While the tombs of many famous historical rulers still exist – one example is the mausoleum in Rome of Augustus, the enemy of Antony and Cleopatra – they were looted or lost centuries ago. A notable exception is the tomb of Philip II of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great, discovered in Vergina in the late 1970s.

The tomb was found intact and this enabled decades of scientific research, expanding our knowledge of the Macedonian royal family and their court. The same would be true if Cleopatra's tomb were discovered, and found intact.

The amount of new information Egyptologists and archaeologists could glean from it would be enormous. Our current knowledge of Cleopatra and her reign comes from ancient Greek and Roman literary sources written after her death, and they are essentially hostile to the Egyptian queen.

We don't have much evidence to give us the Egyptian perspective on Cleopatra. But what we have, like the reliefs in her honor in the temples she built, and the dedications from her subjects, give us a very different view of her.

To date, no other tombs of Ptolemaic rulers have been found. They are said to have been all in the palace district of Alexandria, and are believed to have ended up under the sea, with the rest of that part of the city. The tomb's architecture and material contents alone would keep historians engaged 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 are there, they could tell us a lot more, including the cause of her death, her physical appearance, and even answer the thorny question of her race. But should we hope that we can find Cleopatra's remains and analyze them?

From Tutankhamun to the common ancient Egyptians whose mummies have been discovered over the centuries, there has been a long history of mismanagement and abuse. While the days of mummies being opened as a form of entertainment at Victorian-era dinner parties in the 19th century are long gone, there is growing concern from experts about the proper treatment of our ancestors.

While the discovery of Cleopatra's tomb would be invaluable to Egyptologists and other scholars, is it fair to deny the queen the opportunity for peace and intimacy in death that she did not have in life?




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