Tea at Trianon: Where is Cleopatra’s Tomb?

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, March 29, 2022

Where is Cleopatra’s Tomb?

From Historical Eve:

The tomb of the last queen of Egypt, Cleopatra, has long been a mystery to archaeologists.

Despite the great fame of the legendary queen of ancient Egypt, immortalized for thousands of years as a beautiful seductress, her tomb is one of the great unsolved mysteries of archeology. Cleopatra was the greatest woman of an age and one of the most iconic figures in the ancient world.

Some believe that she was buried in Alexandria, where she was born and ruled from her royal palace, a city decimated by the 365 AD tsunami.

Others suggest that her final resting place could be some 50 kilometers away, in the ancient temple of Taposiris Magna, built by her Ptolemaic ancestors in the Nile Delta.

In 2020, two mummies of high-status individuals, who were contemporaries of Cleopatra, were discovered in Taposiris Magna, as they were originally completely covered with gold leaf, a luxury that could only be allow those who belonged to the highest echelons of society.

The mummies were radiographed, establishing that they were female and male. They could be priests who played a key role in maintaining the power of the pharaohs. One carries an image of a scarab, symbolizing rebirth, painted in gold leaf.

Although Cleopatra was the last of this dynasty to rule the Ptolemaic kingdom in Egypt for almost three centuries, not a single tomb of any Ptolemaic pharaoh has been found.

In the place of the altar of the temple (Taposiris Magna), where the priests would have made offerings to the gods, 200 coins with the name of Cleopatra and her face have been discovered.

This find directly links the queen of Egypt to Taposiris Magna and reveals a strong image of the queen on these coins, appearing with a prominent nose and double chin, not like the classic beauties about her that have been immortalized in movies. (Read more.)