Cleopatra's Suicide by Snake a Myth?

Popular lore holds that in Cleopatra's last moments, the distraught queen -- who had just lost her kingdom and learned of her lover's demise -- smuggled a poisonous snake into her locked chamber and died along with two ladies-in-waiting, of a self-inflicted snake bite. Such a scenario is next to impossible, according to Egyptologist Joyce Tyldesley, who shatters the "snakebite suicide" myth in her new book, Cleopatra: Last Queen of Egypt, just published in Europe and slated for an upcoming U.S. release. "It seems to me that the snake theory is just too difficult to sustain, as it leaves too many loopholes," Tyldesley, alecturer at the University of Manchester in England and museum fellow, told Discovery News.

She posed the following questions: Do we imagine one snake killed all three women, or were three snakes brought in? How did the snake(s) get into the room? Where did the snakes then go? Since not all snakes are poisonous, how did the women ensure their own deaths? "Basically, I think there are better and more reliable ways of killing oneself," she said, adding that some elements of the story are probably true. Based on a number of historical accounts, Cleopatra did die in Alexandria at around 30 B.C., and there is no historical evidence of a prior illness. The moments leading up to her death are also plausible to Tyldesley, particularlyCleopatra's dismissal of her servants, save for two women, Charmian and Eiras. "The decision to die in front of her female servants made good practical sense, as even the dead (according to ancient Egyptian spiritual beliefs) needed a chaperone," she explained. "One of the horrors of female suicide was that the body might be glimpsed partially naked, by strangers," she added. The queen therefore safeguarded her virtue in life and in death by retaining the company of her ladies-in-waiting. In accounts written about by the Greek historian Plutarch and the Roman historian Cassius Dio, Cleopatra had a snake smuggled into her chamber inside a jar of figs or water, but both historians expressed doubts about the scenario. Tyldesleysaid the most likely. ...

A review of studies performed on Egyptian mummies over the past 30 years has revealed that the ancient Egyptians suffered from a plethora of dental problems as well asseveral other diseases and disorders."Worn teeth, periodontal diseases, abscesses and cavities tormented the ancient Egyptians, according to the first systematic review of all studies performed on Egyptian mummies in the past 30 years."

View: Full Article | Source: Discovery News.

The first scientific autopsy on an ancient Egyptian mummy probably got the cause of death wrong, research suggests. Dr Augustus Bozzi Granville caused a sensation when he described the autopsy to the Royal Society of London in 1825. He concluded the mummified woman, Irtyersenu, died of ovarian cancer.

But a University College London study, published in the Royal Society journal Biological Sciences, strongly suggests she died of tuberculosis. Italian-born Dr Granville, a surgeon and a gynaecologist, had practised medicine across the world, and had survived malaria, bubonic plague and yellow fever. In the mid 19th century interest in Egyptian mummies was intense. So when one of Dr Granville's patients told him he had brought back a mummy from the necropolis at Thebes, still sealed in its coffin, he jumped at the chance to investigate further.

He carried out a long-lasting and exhaustive study of the tissues.

By studying the thinning of the pelvic bone, he established the woman was 50-55 when she died. He also determined that she was a mother, and overweight.

He then found that she had an ovarian tumour, and concluded that this - a condition he called ovarian dropsy - probably caused her death.

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Controversial new research aimed at determining the exact date on which the Great Pyramid of Giza had started construction has come up with August 23, 2470 BC as the mostlikely answer."The Egyptians started building the Great Pyramid of Giza on August 23, 2470 B.C., according to controversial new research that attempts to place an exact date on the start of the ancient construction project."

View: Full Article | Source: National Geographic.