Tutankhamun

LIFE 

Tutankhamun was born in c1341. He was the son of the pharaoh Amenhotep IV (later Akhenaten). His mother was Akhenaten's sister. Her name is not known but his wet nurse was called Maia.

Wooden bust of the boy king, found in his tomb. Wikipedia

He ascended to the throne in 1333 BC, at the age of nine taking the throne name Tutankhaten, means "Living Image of Aten."

Tutankhaten wed his half-sister Ankhesenpaaten, daughter of Queen Nefertiti, his step mother, at the age of nine when he ascended to the throne. They had two children, both stillborn.

In his third year on the Egyptian throne, Tutankhaten reversed several changes made during his father's reign. This included ending the worship of the god Aten and restored the god Amun to supremacy. 

He changed his name from Tutankhaten to Tutankhamun to mark a change of worship from Aten to Amun as supreme God.

Tutankhamun was slight of build, and was roughly 180 cm (5 ft 11 in) tall.

Tutankhamen's garments were dyed red using alizarin, a pigment extracted from the madder plant. 

Tutankhamun reigned as pharaoh of Egypt for nine years before dying in c. 1323 BC.

Tutankhamun's infant daughters are unnamed, being referred to only as "the Osiris" on their coffins.

He is thought to have had a club foot and was buried with 130 staffs and walking sticks.

DEATH

He was only about 18 years old when he died. Tutankhamun's cause of death is still not totally clear. Sickle cell anaemia, epilepsy, malaria, an infected broken leg and assassination have all been suggested. 

Tutankhamun's mummified body contains the oldest known genetic proof of the existence of malaria.

In 2013, CT scans revealed that King Tut was bitten by a hippopotamus, perhaps contributing to his death.

The solid gold coffin of Tutankhamun is 73 inches long. The value of its gold is $4,3 million, but the casket is priceless.

He was buried with a home beer brewing kit in case he felt dry on the other side. 

Equipment similar to that used in backgammon was excavated from Tutankhamun's tomb.

A game box and pieces for playing the game of Senet found within the tomb of Tutankhamun

A dagger found in Tutankhamun's tomb was made from iron from a meteorite. Its finding proved early metal-working in Egypt.

Tutankhamun’s successors tried to erase his name from history. This meant his memory was preserved as the location of his tomb was forgotten, hiding it from robbers. It remained virtually untouched for thousands of years.

EXCAVATION OF TOMB 

In 1914, George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon, employed the British archaeologist Howard Carter to lead the archaeological dig in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor, Egypt. Excavations and study were soon interrupted by the First World War, but they resumed towards the end of 1917. 

On November 4, 1922, Howard Carter's waterboy stumbled across some steps leading under the desert surface. Carter had the steps partially dug out until the top of a mud-plastered doorway was found. 

Picture below shows the Earl of Carnarvon, his daughter Lady Evelyn Herbert and Howard Carter at the top of the steps leading to the newly discovered tomb of Tutankhamun in November 1922.

On February 16, 1923, Carter opened the sealed doorway and found they led to the burial chamber of the ancient Egyptian Boy King Tutankhamun.

Tutankhamun's tomb is the only tomb to date to be discovered intact and complete. All others were looted some time during the years. 

The death mask of Tutankhamun, possibly made for Queen Nefertiti, was uncovered for the first time in 3,250 years on October 28, 1925.

The beard of Tutankhamun's golden mask fell off during the cleaning process in the Egyptian Museum in 2014. The workers used epoxy glue to reattach the beard, but since that was not the professional method and permanent damage was done to the mask they were prosecuted for this in 2016.

Tutankhamun's death mask. By Roland Unger

Within a few years of Carter's discovery, rumors of a "curse of the pharaohs" started, emphasizing the early death of some of those who had entered Tutankhamun's tomb. The most prominent was the  Earl of Carnarvon who died two months after the boy king's burial chamber was found. However, a study showed that of the 58 people who were present when the tomb and sarcophagus were opened, only eight died within a dozen years. 

FUN TUTANKHAMUN FACTS

It's estimated that the iceberg that sank the Titanic started to develop during the reign of Tutankhamun.

When London held a Treasures of Tutankhamun exhibition in 1972, a taxi driver was reported to have taken a man to Tooting Common by mistake.

The comedian Steve Martin released a song in 1978 called "King Tut" in 1978 with a backing group 'The Toot Uncommons'.

Source Daily Express 

Rosetta Stone

The Rosetta Stone is a large black stone stele bearing a translation of Ancient Egyptian text, the first recovered in modern times. It was taken from building material in Fort Julien near the town of Rashid (Rosetta) in the Nile Delta when it was rediscovered on July 15, 1799 during the Napoleonic campaign in Egypt.

The discovered part of the stone is 114.4 centimeters (45 in) high at its tallest point, 72.3 centimeters (28.5 in) wide, and 27.9 centimeters (11 in) thick.

The Rosetta Stone in the British Museum.By © Hans Hillewaert,

Weighing nearly one ton, the Rosetta Stone is inscribed with three versions of a decree issued at Memphis, Egypt on March 27, 196 BC during the Ptolemaic dynasty of King Ptolemy V. The texts are in Ancient Egyptian using hieroglyphic script and Demotic script and in Ancient Greek. This meant the stone could serve as a translation key, with the Greek portion, in particular, helping scholars crack the hieroglyphics, which had died out around the 4th century.

Study of the decree was already under way when the first full translation of the Greek text appeared in 1803. English physician and polymath Thomas Young "made a number of original and insightful innovations" in the decipherment of the Rosetta Stone in 1814. However, it was 20 years before the transliteration of the Egyptian scripts was announced by Jean-François Champollion in Paris in 1822; it took longer still before scholars were able to read Ancient Egyptian inscriptions and literature confidently.

Champollion's table of hieroglyphic phonetic characters with their Demotic and Coptic equivalents (1822)

After British troops defeated the French in Egypt in 1801, they seized the stone and transported it to London. It has been on public display at the British Museum since 1802, and is the museum's most-visited object.

During World War I, bombing scares prompted British Museum officials to move the Rosetta Stone, along with other select artifacts, to a nearby Postal Tube station situated 50 feet underground.

France finally got its chance to host the Rosetta Stone in 1972. The occasion was the 150th anniversary of the publication of Champollion’s Lettre a M. Dacier, which outlined his translation of the artifact's hieroglyphics. It was housed at the Louvre in Paris for a month.

Since its rediscovery, the stone has been the focus of nationalist rivalries, including a long-running dispute over the relative value of Thomas Young's and Jean-François Champollion's contributions to the decipherment, and demands for the stone's return to Egypt.

Source Mental Floss

Ramesses II

Ramesses II was the third king of the 19th dynasty of Ancient Egypt. He is often regarded as the greatest, most celebrated, and most powerful pharaoh of the Egyptian Empire. His successors and later Egyptians called him the "Great Ancestor". Dubbed Rameses the Great by the Egyptologists of the 19th century, his reign from 1279 to 1213 BC marked the last peak of Egypt’s imperial power. However, his reputation in part can be attributed to his flair for self-publicity.

Ramesses is remembered principally for the colossal statues he commissioned and for his huge building program.

One of the four external seated statues of Ramesses II at Abu Simbel. By Hajor 

Ramesses, born around 1303 BC, was made captain of the army by his father Seti I aged just ten. He was appointed regent four years later.

Becoming king in his early 20s, Ramesses expanded his empire, leading an army north to recover the lost provinces his father had failed permanently to conquer east of the Mediterranean (the location of the modern Israel, Lebanon and Syria). He also led expeditions to the south, into Nubia, part of which is now in northern Sudan.

During Ramesses's reign, the Egyptian army may have included about 100,000 men, a force that he used to strengthen Egyptian influence over neighboring lands.

In Kadesh, Syria, Ramesses was fed false information by two captured enemy spies, which saw the Egyptian pharaoh and his small corps of household troops surrounded by some 2,500 enemy Hittite chariots. He was saved by reinforcements and although he had failed to take Kadesh, Ramesses had a long poem about his proud last stand carved on temple walls in Egypt.

The Battle of Kadesh is generally dated to 1274 BC and is the earliest battle in recorded history for which details of tactics and formations are known. It is believed to have been the largest chariot battle ever fought, involving between 4,500 and 5,600 chariots in total.

Ramses II at Kadesh

The Hittite Mursili III fled to Egypt, after being usurped as king by his  uncle, Hattusili III. When Ramesses refused to return Hattusili's  nephew back to Hatti, the two empires came close to war. Eventually, in 1258 BC, Ramesses decided to make an agreement with Hattusili III, to end the conflict. The document they agreed is the earliest known peace treaty in world history.

Tablet of treaty between Hattusili III of Hatti and Ramesses II . Picture taken by deror avi 

Ramesses II built six temples in Nubia including Abu Simbel, whose image of his face cut into the rocky sides of the Nile Valley may have inspired the vast depictions of American presidents at Mount Rushmore.

Ramesses' building projects included the Great Hypostyle Hall, with its roof supported by columns, at Thebes – part of modern-day Luxor – and his own funerary temple, known as the Ramesseum, across the Nile from Luxor.

He established the city of Pi-Ramesses in the Nile Delta as his new capital and used it as the main base for his campaigns in Syria. According to the latest estimates, the city was spread over about 18 km2 (6.9 sq mi) or around 6 km (3.7 mi) long by 3 km (1.9 mi) wide., Ramesses himself lived there surrounded by gardens and orchards.

Ramesses kept a harem of 100 women and had more than 100 children. The most important and famous of Ramesses' Queen consorts was discovered in 1904. The tomb of Nefertari is extremely important, because its magnificent wall painting is regarded as one of the greatest examples of ancient Egyptian art.

Tomb wall depicting Nefertari

Experts say he understood that visibility was central to the success of his reign, and built bombastic structures to project his strength as a leader.

Ramesses II lived to about 90. He was originally buried in the Valley of the Kings but his mummy, which has the face of an old man with a long, narrow face, striking nose and large jaw, was moved to the nearby Deir elBahari to thwart looters. Still with its hair, some skin and teeth, it was rediscovered in 1881 and is kept in Cairo’s Egyptian Museum.

Mummy of Ramesses II. By Wolfman12405 -  Wikipedia

Nine subsequent pharaohs took the name Rameses, as it was seen as an honor to be descended from him.

Ramesses II is one of the more popular candidates for the Pharaoh of the Exodus. He is cast in this role in Thomas Mann's 1944 novella Das Gesetz ("The Law") .

Ramesses was portrayed by Yul Brynner in Cecil B. DeMille's 1956 biblical movie classic The Ten Commandments.

Source Daily Mail

Pharaoh

The Pharaoh was the kingly title in ancient Egypt. In the pyramid age this term denoted the royal estates, and during the Middle Kingdom it tended to be used symbolically for the royal household.

During the reign of Thutmose III (circa 1479–1425 BC) in the New Kingdom, pharaoh became the form of address for a person who was king.

Thutmosis III statue in Luxor Museum

Around the time of the reign of Shoshenq I (c.943-922 BC, presumed to be the Shishaq mentioned in the Bible) the title accompanied the personal name. He was referred to as "Pharaoh Shoshenk, beloved of Amun." Thereafter Pharaoh denoted colloquially, the reigning king.

A female pharaoh was unknown in Egypt before Hatshepsut, who began her reign in 1502 BC In order not to shock convention, she had herself portrayed in male costume, with a beard, and without breasts.

The pharaohs of ancient Egypt wore garments made with thin threads of beaten gold. Some fabrics had up to 500 gold threads per one inch of cloth.

Pharaohs never showed their hair.

Statuette of Pepy I (ca. 2338-2298 B.C.E.) wearing a nemes headdress Brooklyn Museum

Pharaohs lived in spectacular palaces (the word "pharaoh" comes from the Egyptian word Per-aa, meaning "great house".).

Many ancient Egyptian pharaohs were overweight and unhealthy, likely due to a sugary diet of alcohol, bread and honey. Examinations of various royal mummies show that many suffered from obesity, heart disease, and diabetes. Hatshepsut, Egypt's most famous woman pharaoh, was obese and had tooth decay.

Pharaohs were believed to be descended from the gods. When a Pharaoh died, all the treasure that they owned would be buried with them.

Cleopatra VII's death in 30 BC ended the line of all Egyptian pharaohs as Egypt became a Roman province.

The Pharaonic Period of Ancient Egypt lasted three Millennia. The timespan between the first Pharaoh of a Unified Egypt, Narmer, and the last Pharaoh of Egypt, Cleopatra VII was over 3,000 years.

Mummy

Mummification is a process in which the skin and flesh of a corpse can be preserved. The process can occur either accidentally or intentionally, as the result of exposure to chemicals, extreme cold, very low humidity, or lack of air.

MUMMIFICATION OF HUMANS

While the ancient Egyptians may be the best-known mummy makers, they were far from the first. The Spirit Cave mummies of Fallon, Nevada in North America were accurately dated at more than 9,400 years old and a fishing tribe called the Chinchoros, who lived on the north coast of what is now Chile, were embalming their dead as early as 5000 BC.

The oldest known naturally mummified human corpse is a severed head dated as 6,000 years old, found in 1936 AD at the site named Inca Cueva No. 4 in South America.

The bandaging of an ancient Egyptian mummy often took from six to eight months. It required a collection of special tools, including a long metal hook that was used to draw the dead person's brain through one of the nostrils. The brain was then placed in a jar.

Mummy in the British Museum

Most Egyptian mummies have hearts because Ancient Egyptians believed the center of thought and personality was in the heart, not the brain.

The linen bandages that were used to wrap Egyptian mummies averaged one thousand yards in length.

Mummies in ancient Egypt were often buried with an emerald on their necks carved with the symbol for eternal youth.

When the mummy of Ramses II was sent to France in the mid-1970s, it was issued a passport . Ramses’ occupation was listed as ‘King (deceased)'

Howard Carter opens the innermost shrine of King Tutankhamen's tomb near Luxor, Egypt.

Xin Zhui, the wife of Li Cang, the Marquis of Dai, during the Han dynasty is considered the best preserved mummy in the world. Xin Zhui died in 163BC and she gained fame more than 2,000 years after her death, when her tomb was discovered inside a hill known as Mawangdui, in Changsha, Hunan, China. Upon discovery she still had moist, soft skin, movable limbs, intact organs and veins with still small amounts of type A blood in them and distinct fingerprints.

Europe's Egyptomania in the 18th and 19th centuries led to a fascination with mummified remains, which merchants trafficked into the continent for macabre purposes. 

MUMMIFICATION OF ANIMALS

Not only humans are mummified. Many animals in ancient Egypt were considered sacred, including two species which frequent temples - ibises and cats.

Researchers believe more than 70 million animals were mummified between 800 BC and 400 AD.

An estimated 300,000 mummified cats were found at Beni Hassan, Egypt. In 1888 They were sold at $18.43 per ton, and shipped to England to be ground up and used for fertilizer.

In Ancient Egypt, the sacred temple of the jackal-headed god Anubis once held nearly 8 million mummified dogs in its catacombs.

FUN FACTS

King Francis I of France (1494 – 1547) took a daily dose of ancient Egyptian mummy to build strength—like a multivitamin made of corpse.

A pigment called mummy brown, made from real ground-up mummies, was popular among European artists during the 16th century.

During the late 19th century, it was popular for wealthy families to host mummy-unwrapping parties—using real Egyptian mummies.

Source History World

Egypt (Ancient)

The Egyptians usually only had one main meal every day, at lunchtime, with light snacks for breakfast and supper.

Rich Egyptians never ate fish as they regarded them as evil creatures.

Everybody ate bread, for which the Egyptians had 15 different words, it was the most important part of most peoples diet.

Alcohol was very important in ancient Egypt. This is indicated by the fact that while most gods were only worshiped locally, Sesmu- the god of wine- was worshiped throughout the country.

The Egyptian term for "Pharaoh" means literally the "Great House." Originally, it designated part of the large palatial complex at Memphis, one of the early cạpitals of Egypt in the 3rd millennium BC. Soon thereafter, it denoted the Egyptian government itself. The king and his administration not just the buildings from which they gave governed.

The process by which the king of Egypt became known as "Pharaoh" was gradual, involving various stages. In the first stage, sometime before. Thutmose Ill became king (1479 BC), the title occasionally applied to Egypt's monarch. A more advanced stage occurred before the end of the New Kingdom period (1069 BC), when the use of "Pharaoh", referring to the king moved from everyday speech into the official language of the country. From the time of King Ghosheng 1 (or Sheshonk, 945-924 BC) "Pharaoh" was added to the king's official title.

Pharaohs lived in spectacular palaces (the word “pharaoh” means “great house”.)

Hatshepsut, the sixth pharaoh of the 18th dynasty, was one of the few—and by far the most successful—women to rule Egypt as pharaoh. During her remarkable reign  between c. 1479-1458 BC, she donned male clothing and wore a fake beard. Below is a large granite sphinx bearing the likeness of Hatshepsut, depicted with the traditional false beard, a symbol of her pharaonic power.

By Keith Schengili-Roberts - Wikipedia

The Greeks laughed at the Egyptians' strangely constructed tombs, calling them "wheaten cakes," which gave us the word "pyramid."

The cat was proclaimed to be sacred in ancient Egypt. Thousands of cats were mummified after their deaths to ensure them eternal life.

In Ancient Egyptian religion there were 42 commandments and 42 gods who ruled on the fate of the dead in the afterworld.

Ancient Egyptians would shave off their eyebrows in order to properly mourn the death of their cats.

In ancient Egypt, priests plucked every hair from their bodies, including their eyebrows and eyelashes as part of their ritual.

According to Greek historian Herodotus, Ancient Egyptian men never became bald. The reason for this was that, as children, Egyptian males had their heads shaved, and their scalps were continually exposed to the health-giving rays of the sun.

Green was a sacred color to the Egyptians representing the hope and joy of spring. The floors of Egyptian temples were green.

About 3,000 years ago, most Egyptians died by the time they were 30.

Reports of people receiving shocks from electric fish date back to ancient Egyptian texts of 2750BC.

Archery was a sport in ancient Egypt. The ancient Egyptians were famous for their skill with the bow.

The Ancient Egyptians trained baboons to wait at tables.

Along with the Mesopotamians, the Egyptians were the first people to develop their language into a codified form of writing. The Ancient Egyptians also invented the first paper-like material from the papyrus plant.

In Ancient Egypt, the tax system was linked to water levels of the River Nile. It was used to predict farmers' wealth each year.

Memphis, Egypt remained the largest city in the world from at least 3100 BC to 2240 BC when the Babylonian city of Akkad claimed the title.

Sources Europress Enyclopedia,  Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia, So That's Why Bible, Thomas Nelson Bibles

Cleopatra

Cleopatra VII (69 BC - 30 BC), known to history as Cleopatra, was the last active Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt,

The name Cleopatra is derived from the Greek name Κλεοπατρα, which meant "glory of the father" in the feminine form.

Her father, the fat and dissolute Ptolemy XII Auletes was nicknamed "Pipe Player" for his love and music and dance - Ptolemy Auletes (The flute player)

Her mother was probably Auletes's sister, Cleopatra V Tryphaena.

Cleopatra was the oldest child of Auletes, since two older sisters had died. She also had one younger sister whose name was Arsinoë.

Cleopatra was well educated, the cultural superior of many of her male admirers. She spoke eleven languages and was expert in mathematics and astronomy. She was later described as a ruler “who elevated the ranks of scholars and enjoyed their company.”

She was the only Ptolemy to bother to learn Egyptian (Cleopatra was the 13th).

Cleopatra was forced to marry her younger brother, Ptolemy XIV, according to the tradition of the Pharaohs.

She ascended the Egyptian throne at the age of 18 on the death of her father with her 10-year-old brother Ptolemy XIII.

Cleopatra's fell from power in 48BC and Ptolemy XIII became sole ruler.

When Cleopatra heard that Julius Caesar was in the palace at Alexandra she had one of her attendants carry her to him rolled up in a rug as a gift for the Roman. Captivated by her charm, the emperor helped her regain the throne with another younger brother Ptolemy XIV as her new co-ruler..

Caesar spent three months as her lover in Egypt. (Cleopatra was 21-years-old when they met and Caesar was 52).

Screenshot of Rex Harrison and Elizabeth Taylor from the trailer for the film Cleopatra.

Cleopatra had a son by Caesar called Caesarion (he was murdered by Octavian's agents aged 17) . He was Caesar's only known biological son,

Cleopatra befriended and subsidized the Egyptian astronomers. It was rumored that she introduced Caesar to her astronomer Sosigenes of Alexandria, who first proposed the idea of leap days and leap years..

Cleopatra, Ptolemy XIV and Caesarion visited Rome in the summer of 46 BC. The Egyptian queen resided in one of Caesar's country houses but their relationship was a scandal to the Roman people because the Roman dictator was already married to Calpurnia Pisonis.

Cleopatra and her entourage were in Rome when Caesar was assassinated on March 15, 44 BC.

Caesar giving Cleopatra the throne by Pietro de Cortone

After Caesar was assassinated Cleopatra returned to Egypt and lived in luxury in one of the smaller palaces in Alexandria with marble statuary.

Ptolemy XIV died in 44BC, allegedly poisoned by his older sister, making Clepatra sole ruler.

Cleopatra was part Macedonian, part Greek, part Iranian.

Cleopatra was actually quite plain, it was really her famous lovers that gave her the reputation as a great beauty. She was quite masculine looking with a bony face, hooked nose, tick necked and jutting chin.

Cleopatra was 5ft 3ins, medium build with curly hair, pulled back into ridges, a loose curl dangled in front of her ear.

 Marblebust of Cleopatra VII of Egypt from 30-40 BC Wikipedia Commons

   
She would have worn plenty of make up, underside of eye painted green with black heavily outlined along the upper eyelashes and upwards at the corners.

She wore kohl, an eyeliner made up of ground up minerals.

70,000 beetles were needed to yield one pound of the carmine dye used by Cleopatra to paint her lips.

Cleopatra would have worn a dark wig and worn fine linen sandals made of papyrus reeds.

The Cleopatra bob, a long fringe parting down the middle a perfectly straight fringe and long tresses to the tip of shoulder was a 1930s fashion.

Cleopatra was charming, wily, sensual and bewitching and quite an enchantress. "The charm of her conversation and the character and intelligence of all that she said was bewitching. It was a delight merely to hear the sound of her voice." Plutarch (Roman Historian)

She wasn't so charming to the lower ranks. Slaves were tortured for Cleopatra's amusement. She also tested the efficiency of her poisons by feeding them to her slaves.

In 42BC Cleopatra was summoned to attend leader of the Caesarion faction, Mark Antony, in the Turkish city of Tarsus to explain her refusal to aid the Roman general in the civil war he was occupied in.

Summoned by Mark Antony, Cleopatra dressed as Venus in her river barge where she worked her charms on him. Her barge was like a burnished throne. She supposedly sprinkled perfume on the sails of her river vehicle. It’s sails were of purple silk and it’s poop was covered with gold. The oars of silver beat time to the music of flutes and fifes and harps.

The Meeting of Antony and Cleopatra, 41 B.C by Lawrence Alma Tadema, 

Instead of punishing her, Antony fell in love with the Siren of the Nile. On December 25, 40 BC, Cleopatra gave birth to twins fathered by the Roman general - Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene.

Though Mark Antony married Octavia, the sister of Augustus in 41BC, he renewed their relationship  in 36 BC after visiting Alexandria again en route to make war with the Parthians. From this point on, the Roman general  made Alexandria his home and they had another child, Ptolemy Philadelphus.

According to Shakespeare Antony called Cleopatra "The serpent of old Nile".

On one occasion Cleopatra gave a lavish banquet for Antony at Alexandra. The Roman expressed his surprise at the outlay involved. Cleopatra, to impress him further, took a pearl earring and dissolved it in vinegar to prove she could consume a fortune in a single meal.

Antelope was a favorite meat of the Egyptian queen. She was also fond of figs.

Cleopatra  had a cat called Charmain.

Cleopatra took Mark Antony to the library in Alexandria and read rare manuscripts to him.

Mark Antony gave Cleopatra the town of Jericho. She ungraciously gave it to Herod the Great who built his winter palace there.

Her hieroglyphics can be seen on cosmetics, weights and measures and coins.

During Cleopatra’s reign, she would soak the sails of her ships in perfume so the scent would drift to Rome before her arrival.

The gem, amethyst, is a symbol of sincerity. It was said to be Cleopatra's favorite gem.

Cleopatra was one of the wealthiest women of all time. Her net worth today would be around $95.8 billion.

In 31 BC Antony's forces faced Augustus and General Agrippa in a naval action off the coast of Actium. Cleopatra was present with a fleet of her own. She took flight with her ships at the height of the battle and Antony followed her.

Cleopatra watched the Battle of Actium from her barge.

Dreading her husband, Antony's wrath when her fleet deserted him, Cleopatra caused Antony to be told that she'd committed suicide ion order to pacify him and as a lover's ruse. When Antony heard this untruth, he stabbed himself and when almost dead heard it was a lie. So he was carried to her place of refuge and was reunited with Cleopatra shortly before his death.

Cleopatra committed suicide in Alexandra on August 12, 30 BC by inducing an Egyptian cobra to bite her after Antony had committed suicide. (Dying of snakebite Egyptians believed conferred immorality.)

Cleopatra's death ended the line of all Egyptian pharaohs as Egypt became a Roman province.

The Death of Cleopatra by Reginald Arthur, 1892

The three children of Cleopatra and Antony were spared and taken back to Rome where they were taken care of by Antony's wife, Octavia Minor. The daughter, Cleopatra Selene, was married through arrangements of Octavian to Juba II of Mauretania.

Legend has it that the mummy of Cleopatra was accidentally left behind in Paris museum when the treasures looted from Egypt by Napoleon were returned. In the 1940s workmen found a mummy case and emptied its contents into the sewers . The case was later identified as that of Cleopatra.

The three Cleopatras Needles in London, Paris and New York are nothing to do with her and were already over a thousand years old in her lifetime. The London and New York "needles" were originally made during the reign of the 18th Dynasty Pharaoh Thutmose III. The Paris "needle" dates to the reign of Ramesses II in the 19th Dynasty.

Cleopatra was Hollywood's 1963 big, expensive, 243 minute production which seemed as long as the Nile. Elizabeth Taylor, who played the Egyptian Queen,  received Hollywood's first million dollar contract for her role. She said the wildly over-budget film’s finances "had $3 million for 'miscellaneous,' and $100,000 for paper cups."

Cleopatra lived closer in time to the first Moon landing than to the building of the Great Pyramid.

In 2010, a papyrus document featuring Cleopatra's handwriting went on display at Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute. The document refers to a tax break for a friend of Mark Antony. Cleopatra signed it with a Greek word meaning "make it happen".

"Had Cleopatra's nose been shorter, the whole history of the world would have been different. " Pascal Pensees 8:29

Sources Readers Digest, Wikipedia

Akhenaten

King Amenhotep IV was a pharaoh in ancient Egypt of the 18th dynasty (c. 1353–1335 BC). During his reign Amenhotep displaced all the Egyptian gods with a single deity, the sun god, Aten, in honor of whom he built many temples. The pharaoh renamed himself Akhenaten meaning, “It is well with Aten.” This was the first concerted attempt to establish a form of monotheism (the worship of a single god).

Statue of Akhenaten wearing the Egyptian Blue Crown of War

Akhenaten's favourite wife was Nefertiti. Her name roughly translates to "the beautiful one is come". She also shares her name with a type of elongated gold bead that she was often portrayed as wearing, known as "nefer" beads. Her beauty is now famed through celebrated portrait busts of the period.

Akhenaten was married to Nefertiti at the very beginning of his reign, and six daughters were identified from inscriptions. However, Akhenaten fathered his successor Tutankhamen with one of his biological sisters.

The fashion for ladies of the Egyptian court to wear beehive hairstyles and polish their heads to achieve a smooth, elongated profile, was begun by Nefertiti’s six daughters. Their heads were narrowed by doctors during birth to minimize their mother's labor pains.

Akhenaten's religious reforms were detested and his successor Tutankhamen restored the traditional Egyptian religion with the original gods. The Aten temples were demolished, and Akhenaten became known as "the Enemy."