CLEOPATRA THE LIVING GODDESS, LUNAR LADY & ISIS AUGUSTA
With August always starting with Yorkshire Day and ending with an Immortal-style birthday, this year also featured a partial eclipse, all of which links to our ‘Cleopatra and the Queens of Egypt’ exhibition in Barnsley.
So this month brings us to Case 5 and the great Cleopatra herself, appearing beneath the watchful gaze of our final exhibition goddess Isis who appears in golden outline (above). And in the same way Cleopatra drew together the inherited influences and epithets of her earthly predecessors, so too Isis, who by the last few centuries BC had similarly drawn together the names, titles, epithets and regalia of all other Egyptian goddesses to become ‘Myrionymos’ - ‘She of Countless Names’.
The goddess had also crossed the Mediterranean by the last few centuries BC, and with devotees across southern Europe the very name Isis is Greek. As a version of the original Egyptian Aset which simply means ‘the Throne’, the goddess wore this as her trademark crown to emphasise that it was she who literally supported every ruling monarch and formed the very basis of their power (above). And soon just as popular within the Roman world too, Isis ‘Augusta’ is particularly relevant for this month of course, our Yorkshire Day posting as part of the Council for British Archaeology’s ‘Festival of Archaeology’ portraying Isis in this same throne crown, as painted by Barnsley-born Harold Jones and again featured in the exhibition (https://www.instagram.com/p/Dbf0aBWiYcP/).
Even the recent eclipse is relevant here, since Isis also came to be worshipped as an aspect of Selene ‘the Moon’, whose lunar crescent she later wore in crown form. And with Cleopatra Selene the likely grandmother of the great Cleopatra herself, the name was sufficiently meaningful that she gave it to her only daughter Selene, whose sculpted image complete with lunar headdress we identified back in 1995 and featured in both our PhD thesis and 2008 book ‘Cleopatra the Great’ (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cleopatra-Great-Woman-Behind-Legend/dp/0060585587 - even if credit for our discovery later taken by someone else……..!). But not only was the Moon important in the case of Cleopatra’s daughter, Cleopatra’s father Ptolemy XII died during a partial eclipse in March 51 BC, when the Son of Ra was quite literally eclipsed by his legendary daughter who now became pharaoh herself and ‘Living Isis’.
And it’s as ‘Living Isis’ that Cleopatra appears in the exhibition in the form of a superb black granite bust, a most suitable choice of stone since black was the Egyptian colour of new life and resurrection, and Isis herself hailed as the ‘Black Robed Queen’. With the original bust created c.47 BC and now in the Royal Ontario Museum (https://collections.rom.on.ca/objects/181138/sculpture-probably-of-cleopatra-vii%20&), we’ve displayed our exact replica beside a bronze figurine of Isis wearing the cow-horn crown she had taken from Hathor, emphasising Isis’ nurturing aspect as she breastfeeds her baby son Horus. Made between c.600-300 BC, the figurine was discovered at North Saqqara by the Egypt Exploration Society during their excavations at the Sacred Animal Necropolis 1964-1971, when the society also discovered the third of our displayed objects: a bronze situla (basically a ritual bucket). With its breast-shaped base emphasising that it was made to contain the milk offered to the deities adorning its surface, these include Sekhmet, Mut and of course Isis-Hathor along with the phrase ‘may Isis give life’. And with both the situla and accompanying figurine both presented to Bolton Museum who’ve kindly loaned them to us, this trio of objects create a real sense of maternal magic.
And they certainly reflect a role Cleopatra herself played to the hilt, particularly after 47 BC when her Living Isis persona was hugely enhanced with the birth of her first child, son Ptolemy Caesarion, who by extension automatically became the living child god Horus.
Yet Cleopatra could also demonstrate her divine connections through an extraordinary family tree stretching back to Alexander the Great himself, a lineage represented in the lower half of this same display case thanks to some very special loans from our friends at Scarbrough Museums (below).
Nothing less than some of the first gold coins ever minted in Europe c.340 BC, the series begins with an example minted by Alexander’s father Philip II (above left), whose one-time lover Arsinoe of Macedon was the mother of Ptolemy I. And even if doubted by modern historians, there were always widespread claims that Philip was Ptolemy I’s true father and Ptolemy himself the half-brother of Alexander, whose own coinage features in the exhibition too. This includes three more gold coins borrowed from the Scarborough collections, minted between c.328-321 BC and featuring female deities, on one side Nike, aka Winged Victory, and on the other side Athena, whom the Greeks equated with Egypt’s goddess Neith and the very first deity in our exhibition (see: https://www.immortalegypt.co.uk/post/the-goddess-of-creation-history-s-first-queens-the-power-of-regalia).
Alexander’s own image then appears on a silver coin from Bolton (above). Dressed in the lion-skin of his ‘ancestor’ Hercules in the same way he later wore rams’ horns to imitate goddess Mut’s husband Amun of Karnak, later coins even show him with an elephant skin headdress he’d adopted after conquering India. As an image so powerful it became emblematic of Egypt’s new capital Alexandria which Alexander himself had founded in 331 BC as a centre of international trade, the example in our exhibition discovered in Gawber in Barnsley(!) is certainly evidence for a vast trade network, as established by Alexander, continuing under his Ptolemaic successors including Cleopatra of course, and then by the Romans (above right).
For Alexander’s original empire had stretched across much of the known world as far as India and Afghanistan and of course including Egypt. Arriving there in 332 BC when he was crowned pharaoh, Alexander spent the next 6 months touring the country, restoring its ancient temples, building new shrines and blending together Egyptian and Greek religions and traditions.
At his death in 323 BC succeeded by his putative half-brother Ptolemy I, he in turn was succeeded by his own children Arsinoe II and her younger brother Ptolemy II, siblings who later married to rule jointly as co-pharaohs, as the male and female king of Upper and Lower Egypt, the son and daughter of Ra, and Arsinoe, like Ptolemy, adopting the same distinctive crowns and regalia as their Egyptian predecessors stretching back several millennia (for more about Arsinoe see our BBC History Extra article https://www.historyextra.com/period/ancient-egypt/the-female-kings-of-ancient-egypt/).
Arsinoe was also worshipped as a goddess, as both Aphrodite and her Egyptian equivalent Isis-Hathor after her brother-husband ordered that “her statue be set up in all the temples. This pleased their priests for they were aware of her noble attitude toward the gods and of her excellent deeds to the benefit of all people”, according to temple inscriptions at Mendes.
And despite a very short reign 275-268 BC, Arsinoe’s impact was enormous. As the first of Alexander’s successors to make official contact with Rome in 273 BC, an Athenian decree acknowledged Arsinoe’s lead role by stating that Ptolemy II was “following the policies of his ancestors and his sister”, whose early death in 268 BC was followed by the annual ‘Arsinoeia’ festival and in the renaming of streets, towns, cities and entire regions both in Egypt and around the Mediterranean. In fact the deceased Arsinoe’s spiritual presence was so strong that for the next 22 years Ptolemy II continued to appear with her in official portraits and naming her on official documents. He even continued to issue her coinage (above left), on which she appears with the Ptolemaic diadem worn over hair swept up Greek-style into a neat bun, with what look like curved earrings actually small rams’ horns paying tribute to her likely uncle and role model Alexander (as featured 51 minutes into our BBC film ‘Egypt’s Lost Queens’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmFM-rPerL4).
And having set the bar for the rest of the Ptolemaic dynasty, whose male rulers were all called Ptolemy and their female counterparts Arsinoe, Berenike or Cleopatra, the first of these, Cleopatra I, was a Syrian princess who married Ptolemy V in 193 BC. Continuing the Ptolemaic practice of co-rule, both Ptolemy V and wife Cleopatra I were regarded as joint pharaohs, named male and female Horus and their names both written in kingly cartouches in a tradition stretching back to Neith-hotep. And as Egyptian influences expanded ever further into Ptolemaic royal practice, Cleopatra I’s coin portraits are also quite revealing, her hair sometimes shown in a neat Greek-style bun (below left) but sometimes as the long ringlets of goddess Isis, as portrayed in a rare coin on loan from Scarborough Museums (below right).
And just like her powerful predecessor Arsinoe II, the first Cleopatra similarly made a lasting impact on Egypt’s Ptolemaic royal family, this female pharaoh and ‘female Horus’ the mother to three successive sibling pharaohs and paving the way for the last of her namesakes, Cleopatra VII. Rightly termed ‘the Great’ and surely the most famous woman from the ancient past, she was born in 69 BC to Ptolemy XII and a minor wife who was most likely Egyptian, with Cleopatra herself conversant in at least nine languages including Egyptian - the first of her dynasty to be able to do so.
Rightly remembered as a scholar by Egyptian historians, Cleopatra was credited with writing various works both philosophical and scientific (all very timely given the first Highclere Literary Festival coming up on 3rd-4th October, details below). Even her very handwriting was discovered less than 30 years ago, the Greek command γίνεσθοι, ‘make it so!’ having been added at the bottom of a tax document issued from her royal capital Alexandria on 23rd Feb 33 BC. So a copy of this precious document features in the exhibition, along with other ancient papyri, a glazed ceramic ink well and reed ink pen cut diagonally at the base Greek-style, all found by the EES and presented to Bolton Museum who’ve kindly loaned them to us (above).
With such linguistic skills allowing Cleopatra to communicate and converse with international delegations throughout her reign (51-30 BC) with no need for an interpreter, her ability to speak directly to her Egyptian subjects was further enhanced when she appeared dressed as their goddess Isis when undertaking ancient rites she fully understood. And certainly her ability to read the inscriptions on temple walls and the texts stored in the temples’ libraries meant she was also fully aware of her Egyptian heritage, allowing her to draw on role models as far back as Neith-hotep almost three thousand years earlier, as emphasised by our Queens’ Timeline (below).
For Cleopatra’s public image was truly multi-faceted. And in the same way all these women had ruled as either queens or female pharaohs like so many in the Ptolemaic royal house, so too Cleopatra, whose goddess persona as Isis was easily switched into Aphrodite for the Greeks and Venus for the Romans. Literally a queen, pharaoh or goddess for every occasion, she was ultimately a mother, as reflected in the timeless figure of Isis nursing Horus the child god, embodied by every ruling pharaoh.
And with his sacred creature the falcon flying high between heaven and earth, Horus was one of Egypt’s most ancient deities. As Horus-in-the-Horizon or Horemakhet (Greek Harmachis) worshipped at Giza, one of his cult centres Nekhen was renamed Hierakonpolis (‘City of the Falcon’) by the Greeks, and the temple at Horus’ main cult centre Edfu completely rebuilt by the Ptolemies. For this was the traditional home of pharaonic kingship, where Cleopatra’s father Ptolemy XII built Edfu’s great pylon entrance adorned by his supersized figures smiting enemies, its doorways flanked by granite statues of Cleopatra’s son Ptolemy Caesarion protected between the claws of monumental falcons yet again emphasising successive generations of Egypt’s monarchy.
And of course, Horus also represents the wonderful Horus Egyptology Society. Among the largest such societies in the UK now celebrating 25 years since it first came into being, its bi-monthly lectures, film shows and hieroglyph classes continue to thrive. With their events also raising multiple thousands for the Colossi of Memnon excavations, it’s been a genuine privilege to have been the society’s patron for quarter of a century, a milestone marked by the most wonderful presentation gift: a first edition of Thomas Pettigrew’s 1834 work ‘History of Egyptian Mummies’ complete with specially commissioned bookplate marking someone’s 60th birthday at the end of what has been a very special month (above).
So roll on the next 60 years……
Jo will be appearing at the first Highclere Literary Festival on 3rd-4th October along with Hugh Bonneville (aka Lord Grantham!), Dr. Hilary Jones, Santa Montefiore, Charles Dickens’ great-great grandson Gerald Dickens & many other fantastic speakers – tickets at: https://highclerecastleshop.co.uk/categories/literary-festival-castle-general-admission
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