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The ancient coin of Cleopatra: There could have been pyramids in Paris

3/11/2014

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Found in an archaeological dig in Bethsaida, this rare bronze coin tells of love, trade ties and globe-shaking jealousies. And what if Marc Antony had won the war?

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The Lover's Coin
Great rulers come but a rare few leave a mark echoing down the millennia. Two such were Cleopatra and Marc Antony, who fleetingly placed Egypt at the center of the ancient world, only to unleash unrest and eventually war on the region.

A few thousand years is a mere blink of an eye when it comes to the vital ties between this land and Egypt, as attested by a rare coin carrying historical weight far greater than its 7.59 grams, which depicts the notorious lovers – and which emerged last year from the ruins of a first-century house at Tel Bethsaida on the Sea of Galilee.

Tel Bethsaida rises from the northern coast of the Sea of Galilee, but the coin was minted in another city by another sea – the Mediterranean port of Akko - today better known as Acre. The coin, made of bronze, is about the size of a quarter, being 21–23 millimeters in diameter (it is not perfectly round, at least not any more). Its date shows that it was minted in the last half of the year 35 or the first half of 34 BCE.

Mark Antony, the most powerful man in the world at the time, is on one side of the coin and Cleopatra graces the other. On her side are the Greek words “of the people of Ptolemais.”

Ptolemais is the Greek name for ancient Akko, which was founded in the 3rd century BCE and named after Ptolemy II Philadelphus. The name appears in the New Testament (Acts 21:7) as the home of an early Christian community that Paul the apostle visited: "And when we had finished our course from Tyre, we came to Ptolemais, and saluted the brethren, and abode with them one day."

The coin was minted some two and a half centuries after the city was founded, a time when both Mark Antony and his bitter rival Octavian were in their prime and no one knew who would prevail, Arav says.

Why depict them? The cities of the ancient Middle East had a habit of minting coins bearing the portraits of whoever was in power, says Dr. Donald T. Ariel, head of the Israel Antiquities Authority Coin Department.

And Marc Antony was most definitely powerful in the year stamped on the coin. Prof. Rami Arav, director of the Bethsaida Excavations Project, suggests that the minting of the coin may have had to do with Marc Antony's victory over the Parthians, rulers of a land in what is now northeastern Iran and Armenia, in 35 BCE. He then granted Armenia to Cleopatra’s sons and gave Cyprus to her daughter Selene.

Cleopatra also appears on coins from the same period, found in cities further north up the Lebanese coast, that were among gifts Marc Antony gave his consort.

That same year Marc Antony, still deeply involved with Cleopatra, moved the capital of the empire from Rome to Alexandria, Egypt.

The west could have been worshipping cats

Had Antony not lost the battle of Actium in 31 BCE, there might have been a dramatic change in the history of the Western civilization, Arav says.

“We can only imagine what could have happened to Western civilization if the capital of the empire was not Rome, but Alexandria," Arav says. "Until Augustus turned it ‘from a mudbrick city to marble’ Rome was a very unimpressive town. It could have remained an unimportant city on an insignificant peninsula of Italy, way in the west, where according to the Greeks, demons and giants lived.”

When pressed to imagine what could indeed have happened, Arav, says: “I am not sure that we would be worshipping cats today or building pyramids, but Greek could have been much more important than it was and perhaps the rise of Europe in the 15th century would not have happened. Who knows?”

But Antony did lose that battle, and 11 months later, he took his own life, dying in Cleopatra's arms in an immortal star-crossed lovers’ moment.

Other coins from Akko have been found in Bethsaida, showing the trade connections between the port city, an international commercial hub at the time, and Bethsaida, a regional one, Arav points out.

The "lovers' coin" recalls Bethsaida around the turn of the first millennium, when its main claim to fame was being the New Testament home of the apostles Peter, James and John.

Bethsaida was where Jesus is believed to have healed a blind man (Mark 8:22-25) and fed the 5,000 (Luke 9:5-17). But much of the efforts of Arav’s team involve uncovering remains that go back a thousand years before that – to a time the city was the capital of the ancient, strategic kingdom of Geshur, the homeland of one of the wives of David’s youth, Maacah.

Coins with the portraits of Antony and Cleopatra are extremely rare. Only six have been found anywhere in the world, says Ariel. But to him the coin recalls Cleopatra’s connection with a man who doesn't even appear on it - the man who, after Jesus, is perhaps the best-known figure of this land: Herod the Great.

Cleopatra managed to persuade Marc Antony to wrest Herod’s priceless balsam plantations from him and hand them over to her. As a client king of Rome, there wasn’t much Herod could do about that (in fact, it is said Herod rented the plantations back from her and still turned a profit).

However, Ariel notes, Herod, who was no stranger to romantic imbroglios, was able to resist the queen’s wiles - unlike Julius Caesar and Marc Antony - and hold on to the rest of his kingdom.

In fact, Herod confessed to Augustus, the victor of the battle of Actium, that he had always counseled Marc Antony to kill Cleopatra, to put an end to the long civil war that tortured Rome after the assassination of Julius Caesar.


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Cleopatra's Sanctum Sanctorum

1/27/2014

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Since the early 1990s, the topographical surveys have allowed the research team led by French underwater archaeologist Franck Goddio to conquer the harbor of Alexandria. The field of vision is clearer. 

"This location is a unique site in the world," said Goddio who has spent two decades trying to find the lost city.

This photo is from the exploration that took a team of divers to the palace and temple complex of Isis. This is a central and essential part of the palace compound. The goddess Isis was special to Cleopatra. Isis was the goddess of magic and power. 



Cleopatra is reputed to have been schooled in the mysteries of Isis and Osiris, and the priests of these gods were very powerful. They were thought to have means of magic, telepathy and clairvoyance, which legend says were taught to the young princess from her youth.

It is in this temple, in a small room known as "The Sphere of Destiny," that Cleopatra was supposed to have kept a large quartz block. It had a smooth polished surface about the size of two hands on one of the upper faces of the stone. 



It was by scrying into that dark mirror that Cleopatra was supposed to be able to see the past and future, communicate with her generals and even it was said, she was to first see the face of Mark Antony. 


This stone of power was called the "Eye of Cleopatra," or "Cleopatra's Eye" and was rumored to be as old as Egypt itself. After the death of Cleopatra and Antony, the stone disappeared never to be seen again. Could it still be buried somewhere here beneath the bay?

It was in the Temple of Isis where Cleopatra's love affair with the Roman general Antony took place--his rooms were there. The pair allegedly committed suicide following the defeat by his former ally Octavian. Octavian then appeared with the name of the Roman Emperor Augustus.

Teams of divers find a central place in the life of Cleopatra and Antony, the dramatic pair whose love was so famous, including the Timonium where Antony withdrew from the outside world after the defeat of Octavian by Brutus in the Civil War. The building has not been completed because Antony committed suicide.



They also found a large head-shaped stone monument, which is strongly suspected as that of Caesarion, son of Cleopatra and her lover before Antony, Julius Caesar. The team also found two sphinxes that one of them is probably the picture of Cleopatra 's father , Ptolemy XII . 


Discovery in the waters of Alexandria will be on display at the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia , United States ( U.S. ) from June 5 to January 2, 2010 in the exhibition titled "Cleopatra : The Search for the Last Queen of Egypt ". Exhibition will then continue to other cities in North America.

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This is a photo of the area of Alexandria where Cleopatra's Palace lies.
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This is a map of the Palace of Cleopatra excavations. Mark Anthony's rooms are marked. The Temple of Isis, where Cleopatra's sanctum and Mark Antony's rooms were located was a sumptuous and lavish compound that was more of a palace of its own than a cultic shrine.

Much has been made of the last days of Cleopatra's rule, but in fact, the complex is revealing of her whole reign and her industrious and brilliant architectural, military and artistic knowledge. Her brain and wit were more important to her success than her beauty. She seemed to have knowledge and resources way beyond that of those she dealt with, and the scribes of the day attributed this to her deep Egyptian magic.

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The Search for Cleopatra by Zawi Hawas

1/26/2014

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PictureZawi Hawas
When I first set out to become an archaeologist, the mystery of Cleopatra already mesmerized me. At age 16, I enrolled as a student with the Faculty of Arts in the Archaeology Department of the University of Alexandria. I asked Dr. Fawzi El Fakhary, one of my professors, a question hovering in my mind for quite some time: Where was the tomb of Cleopatra? 

My professor believed her to be buried near her palace with Mark Antony, in a tomb that had long been lost beneath the depths of the ocean. My professor’s answer, however, was only an educated guess. 

He did not know where Cleopatra was buried, and this uncertainty only fueled the mounting flame of my curiosity. I used to visit the location that people thought was her palace and conjure her in my mind, marveling at how little we knew about Egypt’s last queen and how much remained to be discovered.

After graduating from the university, my interest in Cleopatra waned until, in 2004, Kathleen Martinez, a Dominican scholar of Greek and Roman history, explained her theory about Cleopatra. She described her as a philosopher and linguist, and a shrewd politician—a woman to be reckoned with. Kathleen was certain that Cleopatra and Mark Antony were buried together inside the temple of Taposiris Magna, a site located 45 kilometers [28 miles] west of Alexandria, far from the submerged tomb my professor had described. According to Kathleen, this temple represented the dwelling of the god Osiris, which possessed a profound meaning for Cleopatra, who frequently portrayed herself as the human representation of the goddess Isis, wife of Osiris. Mark Antony, Cleopatra’s lover leading up to her death, was often seen as the human manifestation of Osiris. Thus the temple of Taposiris may have held a deeply sentimental importance for this queen, who lost Antony just before Egypt fell to the Romans.

Kathleen had searched for Cleopatra’s tomb in other temples by carefully analyzing a wealth of architectural, archaeological, and iconographical evidence as well as the symbolism, chronology, and mythology surrounding these temples. The only possible burial place that embodied all the symbolism of divinity and religious ritual, while simultaneously conveying Cleopatra’s personal legacy, was Taposiris Magna.

Many have searched for the tomb of Alexander the Great, but no one had searched for that missing piece of ancient Egypt’s story—the tomb of Cleopatra, who took her own life rather than surrender her homeland to the Romans. This bright young scholar rekindled my old passion for the story of Cleopatra. It occurred to me that we had before us an opportunity to recover the last page in that the book of ancient Egyptian civilization, an opportunity we could not pass by. And so Kathleen and myself, together with an Egyptian archaeological team, began the search for Cleopatra’s tomb in hopes of removing some of the great mystery that hangs thick around this famous queen.



from: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/events/cleopatra/zahi-hawass/

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The Temple of Hathor -- Cleopatra's Tomb

4/15/2009

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PictureTemple of Hathor
Dendera Temple complex, (Ancient Egyptian: Iunet or Tantere; the 19th-century English spelling in most sources, including Belzoni, was Tentyra) is located about 2.5 km south-east of Dendera, Egypt. 
It is one of the best preserved temples in Egypt. The area was used as the sixth Nome of Upper Egypt, south of Abydos.

The whole complex covers some 40,000 square meters and is surrounded by a hefty mud brick enclosed wall. Dendera was a site for chapels or shrines from the beginning of history of ancient Egypt. 

It seems that pharaoh Pepi I (ca. 2250 BC) built on this site and evidence exists of a temple in the eighteenth dynasty (ca 1500 BC). But the earliest extant building in the compound today is the Mammisi raised by Nectanebo II – last of the native pharaohs (360–343 BC).

PictureDendera Temple Complex
The features in the complex include

  • Hathor temple (the main temple),
  • Temple of the birth of Isis,
  • Sacred Lake,
  • Sanatorium,
  • Mammisi of Nectanebo II,
  • Christian Basilica,
  • Roman Mammisi,
  • a Bark shine,
  • Gateways of Domitian & Trajan and
  • the Roman Kiosk.

PictureReliefs of Cleopatra VII and her son by Julius Caesar
The all overshadowing building in the Complex is the main temple, namely Hathor temple (historically, called the Temple of Tentyra). 

The temple has been modified on the same site starting as far back as the Middle Kingdom, and continuing right up until the time of the Roman emperor Trajan. 

The existing structure was built no later than the late Ptolemaic period. The temple, dedicated to Hathor, is one of the best preserved temples in all Egypt. 

Subsequent additions were added in Roman times.

PictureCeiling of the Temple
Depictions of Cleopatra VI which appear on temple walls are good examples Ptolemaic Egyptian art. One depicts Cleopatra and her son, Caesarion. On the rear of the temple exterior is a carving of Cleopatra VII Philopator and her son, Ptolemy XV Philopator Philometor Caesar, fathered by Julius Caesar.

PictureDendera Zodiac
The sculptured Dendera zodiac (or Denderah zodiac) is a widely known relief found in a late Greco-Roman temple, containing images of Taurus (the bull) and the Libra (the balance).


A sketch was made of it during the Napoleonic campaign in Egypt. and in 1820 it was removed from the ceiling and is now in the Louvre. 


Champollion's guess that it was Ptolemaic proved correct and Egyptologists now date it to the first century BC, the time when Cleopatra would have studied magic and astrology under the tutelage of the priests of Isis and Osiris.

PictureThe Dendera Light
Hathor Temple has a relief sometimes known as the Dendera Light because of a controversial fringe thesis about its nature. 

The Dendera light images comprise five stone reliefs (two of which contain a pair of what fringe authors refer to as lights) in the Hathor temple at the Dendera Temple complex located in Egypt. 

The view of Egyptologists is that the relief is a mythological depiction of a djed pillar and a lotus flower, spawning a snake within, representing aspects of Egyptian mythology. 

In contrast to this interpretation, there is a fringe science suggestion that it is actually a representation of an Ancient Egyptian lightbulb. 
These depictions are much more related to the magic rituals of the priests of Isis and Osiris of which Cleopatra was an initiate, than of any ancient alien or super civilization technology. Because of Cleopatra's powerful magical worldview--inculcated in her from birth by the priests--it is no wonder that she thought she could command her armies from a darkened room, by communing in a quartz mirror. The Sphere of Destiny in the Temple of Isis, now underwater in the Harbor of Alexandria, was the room in which the mystical glass known as the Eye of Cleopatra was harbored.

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    Marcus Devol

    I am an archaeologist and adventurer. I love dogs, food, wine, and books. Most of all, I love to dig.

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