Cleopatra’s Tomb – Latest
An excerpt from an otherwise ‘standard’ piece from ABC: One of them is the last Queen of Egypt, Cleopatra. Legend has it that when the Romans entered Egypt in 30 BC and after losing the Battle of Actium, Cleopatra and her lover Mark Anthony took their own lives in order to avoid being captured by [...]
This Week in Cleopatra News
Most of the press coverage this week comprised of variations on an AP piece on Franck Goddio’s explorations of the underwater ruins of Alexandria, with a special focus on Cleopatra’s palace (to coincide with the exhibition in Philadelphia). Here’s the incipit of a representative item: Plunging into the waters off Alexandria Tuesday, divers explored the [...]
File This One Away for Future Reference
An excerpt from a feature on Zahi Hawass in Speigel … I don’t think comment is necessary …. Hawass reserves the right to announce all discoveries himself. Not everyone likes this. Some people feel that he is about as interested in serious research as Rapunzel was in having her hair cut. He boasted that there [...]
Citanda: Cleopatra Podcast Series: Day 1
Image via Wikipedia The Oxford University Press blog seems to be running a series of podcasts about Cleopatra over the next few days (?). In this first installment, we have an interviewish thing with Duane Roller, who, of course, has recently written a biography of our favourite Alexandrian. via Cleopatra Podcast Series: Day 1 | [...]
Blaming Islam Redux: The Fate of the Library of Alexandria
John O’Neill again, in a different forum: American Thinker: The Fate of the Library of Alexandria. … we’ll direct our readers to our previous comments on a similar feature by Mr. O’Neill …
Hellenistic Tombs
Haven’t heard of any reports of this in any greater detail, alas: Eight tombs dating to the Hellenist Period were partially revealed recently in the region of Gonous, Larissa prefecture, after flooding caused by heavy rainfall swept away a rural dirt road. The Archaeological Service subsequently conducted an excavation, which brought to light the tombs [...]
“Alexander” from Alexandria followup
Putting together Explorator I note that Al Alhram has a much better photo of the statue we mentioned last week (as part of a montage of photos of recent finds in Egypt): Sorry … that’s an athlete in the midst of his athleting; it’s a stretch to make that into an Alexander, no matter what [...]
Cleo’s ‘Tomb’ ~ Further Thoughts
This one’s starting to bother me, even though I’ve now seen the ‘mask’ being identified with varying degrees of certainty as ‘possibly’ Marcus Antonius. A correspondent sends in a nice video from the site (from a German version of Reuters; the video is in English), which I can’t embed, so here’s the link. What I [...]
Cleo’s Tomb Update: the Anthony Photo
This just in as I’m putting together Explorator … Reuters has entered the ‘Cleopatra’s Tomb’ hype with an article that includes an interesting slide show, among which is: … presumably the alabaster Cleopatra, the coins, and — most importantly — the mask I’ve been curious about for over a year. Here’s another photo with the [...]
Cleopatra’s Tomb Again!!
Okay … this is a long-developing story. Last year — almost to the day — Zahi Hawass was all excited about some major underground tomb at Tabusiris Magna; it seemed to be building on something announced a couple of years before that. A month later, we were pretty much getting the same story. Then we [...]
Unsubmerging Alexandria
We’ve heard about this one before and it’s back (coincidentally, so is the piece which is below this one). Excerpts from a piece in the Guardian: Some of the world’s most exciting sunken treasures could soon be on view after Egypt confirmed plans to build a giant underwater museum in the Mediterranean. But as preparation [...]
