Posted on 03/15/2005 8:10:16 PM PST by nickcarraway
LONG before Shakespeare portrayed her as history’s most exotic femme fatale, Cleopatra was revered throughout the Arab world — for her brain.
Medieval Arab scholars never referred to the Egyptian queen’s appearance, and they made no mention of the dangerous sensuality which supposedly corrupted Julius Caesar and Mark Antony. Instead they marvelled at her intellectual accomplishments: from alchemy and medicine to philosophy, mathematics and town planning, a new book has claimed.
Even Elizabeth Taylor, who famously played the title role in the 1963 epic Cleopatra, would have struggled to inject sex appeal into this queen. Arab writers depict Cleopatra’s court as a place of intellectual seminars and scholarship rather than the more traditional vision of kohl-rimmed eyes and hedonistic intrigue.
“They admired her scientific knowledge and her administrative ability,” the book’s author Okasha el-Daly, who is based at the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology at University College London, said.
In Egyptology: The Missing Millennium he writes that “Arabic sources often refer to Cleopatra as ‘the virtuous scholar’ and cite scientific books written by her as the definitive works in their field”. She was also regarded as a great builder, he claims, responsible among other things for a canal to supply Alexandria with Nile water.
Cleopatra was born in 69BC, the last of the Greek Ptolemaic dynasty that ruled Egypt after Alexander the Great’s invasion in 332BC. The few images of her that survive suggest that she was not a great beauty by modern standards. Despite this she succeeded in seducing Caesar and his former ally Mark Antony, who left his Roman wife Octavia for her.
European scholars finally learned to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics in 1822 with the help of the Rosetta Stone. But Dr el-Daly believes that a ninth-century Arabian alchemist, Ibn Wahshiyah, got there first, opening up original Egyptian sources to medieval Arab writers.
“There has always been a snobbery which suggested that medieval Arab scholars only cared about science and engineering,” he said. “They wrote about everything they found interesting. I even found one medieval scholar who had written a book on sex.”
Kate Spence, a lecturer in Egyptology at Cambridge University’s Faculty of Oriental Studies, described Dr el-Daly’s work as very important.
“Everybody has known that these Arab sources were around for ages.” she said, “but most of us working in this field don’t know enough Arabic to use them properly.”
Modern standards don't count. Tastes change. Besides which their is much more to sexiness than great beauty.
Not that won't get me banned.
Why do you have difficulty believing Caesar would be attracted to a beautiful mind?
A woman with a great mind is a most wondrously attractive thing :-).
Thanks for correcting me. I had forgotten my History lesson. But isn't it interesting that human nature hasn't changed? Would it be plausible that Cleo's wealth and connections to wealth was the greater attraction for such ambitious men?
Suddenly I find myself thanking God that I don't have so much ambition. I mean, I honestly find Paris Hilton to be on the fair side of attraction, but I keep waiting for her to develop into a woman (like I'd really have a chance with her anyway LOL).
And some say history lacks relevance or is boring. There is nothing new under the sun. Ecclesiastes 1:9.
You may be onto something.
I thought they said she was actually Greek.
Uh oh...
Nice sculpture here;
http://www.touregypt.net/cleopatr.htm
LOL!
LOL about the obelisk. Truly awesome though.
Sounds like a PC rewrite of history if you ask me.
She was a ROYAL...so ANYONE having a relationship with her including C.I. Caesar or Marcus Antonius would have to understand that that would mean POLITICAL implications which would be beyond matters of mere 'wealth'...but why could it not be simply that strong men recognized an extraordinary woman and found the idea of a 'relationship of true equals' with her highly appealing?
The thought of what two strong minds might accomplish together in such a relationship would also have to be attractive would it not?
Especially in the case of Caesar and Cleopatra...if they could have begun a strong Julian/Ptolemaic dynasty ruling over a united Empire of Rome and Egypt for centuries...what marvels might have been...perhaps enough to cleanse Caesar's karma of the Greatest Crime?
...alas the Ides of March...-sigh-...
Maybe he just plain and simple Loved her eh?
Thanks for posting that...I knew of it in general terms, but not the meat and potatoes. Again, thanks!
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