Posted on 09/22/2005 4:43:04 PM PDT by blam
Cleopatra Found Depicted in Drag
By Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News
Sept. 21, 2005— A relief image carved approximately 2,050 years ago on an ancient Egyptian stone slab shows Cleopatra dressed as a man, according to a recent analysis of the artifact.
The object is only one of three known to exist that represent Cleopatra as a male. The other two artifacts also are stelae that date to around the same time, 51 B.C., at the beginning of Cleopatra's reign.
Researchers theorize that the recently discovered 13.4 x 9.8-inch stela probably first was excavated in Tell Moqdam, an Egyptian city that the ancient Greeks called Leonton Polis, meaning "City of the Lions."
"It shows Cleopatra dressed as a male pharaoh with the (characteristically male) double crown offering the hieroglyph of a field to a lion crouching on a pedestal," said Willy Clarysse, who conducted the analysis. "Above the lion, a hieroglyphic text calls him 'Osiris the Lion,' that is, the deceased and mummified lion who is identified with the god of the underworld, Osiris."
Osiris was an important god in Egyptian culture. Royals made offerings to him in hopes of receiving life, stability and dominion over their lands.
Clarysse, an Egyptologist and classics scholar at the Catholic University in Leuven, Belgium, told Discovery News that Cleopatra's apparent sex change was probably due to the artist's laziness.
"Up to 51 B.C., Ptolemaios XII, the father of Cleopatra, was king over Egypt," he said. "When he died, some of the stelae were already carved. The stone cutter then added the name of the new sovereign in the cartouche, but he did not change the picture of the male pharaoh into a female because this was too difficult or too much work."
Clarysse added that one of Cleopatra's legs had been recarved, so perhaps someone started to redo the initial image "but then gave up."
The findings will be published next year in the German publication Antique World.
Queen Hatshepsut, who lived during the 16th and 15th centuries B.C., often was represented without breasts, in male clothing and with a full beard. Many historians believe she assumed these symbols of masculinity to assert her power and claim to the throne at a time when most women did not wield much official authority.
It could be people poking fun at her.
Others will now want to believe she was a cross dreser and Oh how wonderful that is - even Cleo did it! Just wait and see.
Was Cleopatra black or a moor? Some African-American professors at colleges claim that she was a black woman.
Cleopatria was of Greek ancestory.
The Greeks ruled after Alexander conquered Egypt.
I've always thought she looked a lot like Liz Taylor...
"We are told by historians Cleopatra was an ugly woman"
so that's why liz taylor played her in the movie version?
WADR to Blam, Cleopatra was Macedonian, not Greek. The identity of one of her grandmothers isn't known, but the Macedonians were a little nutty about "ethnic purity" (to borrow a phrase from Jimmy Carter), so it's generally believed that she was a Macedonian too. I know the first names of a number of my female ancestors, but don't have a clue what their maiden names were. :')
One of those photo URLs I posted was this:
http://www.martinlutherking.org/images/cleopatra.jpg
That's the image accompanying an essay by none other than Mary Leftkowitz, entitled "Not Out of Africa", hosted right on the Martin Luther King website. The essay is similarly titled to the book of that name, which refutes claims that Greek philosophy and so on was stolen from Black Africa.
Remarkable as that is, you won't believe what's behind door number three...
http://www.martinlutherking.org/ma-chapter18.html
That was type casting...
;')
Whoops, forgot this:
http://www.martinlutherking.org/not-out-africa.html
Ah! I see. That's not the official site at all, not by a long shot. It's another Stormfront, uh, front.
Sign of the times. There was a time when a journalist wouldn't have dreamed of using a title such as this article has. In my studies of ancient history, I remember frequently encountering female rulers who were depicted as men in art. Not uncommon, and certainly not worthy of the title "Cleopatra in drag." Journalism has died. Sensationalism has taken over.
Sigh.
"so that's why liz taylor played her in the movie version?"
Michael Jackson was too young to play the part at that time.
Did they have to use a lewd cross-dressing term to classify this find? I am sure that is not an accurate categorization of the clothing depicted.
I always thought those Cleopatra films had slashy elements.
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Just updating the GGG info, not sending a general distribution. |
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The face of Cleopatra: Scientists recreate the first true image of the legendary beauty
DailyMail.uk | 15th December 2008 | Fiona Macrae
Posted on 12/15/2008 9:59:29 AM PST by yankeedame
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2149098/posts
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