Ptolemaic Tapestries & the Finest Dining: at home with Cleopatra & the Queens
In a month which has seen the famous Bayeux Tapestry arrive in the UK (aka ‘London’), it’s all about ancient décor, palatial interiors and fine dining here at Immortal Egypt as we unpack our 6th case in the ‘Cleopatra & the Queens’ exhibition featured in this month’s Aroundtown lifestyle magazine at: https://www.aroundtownmagazine.co.uk/aroundtown-meets-professor-joann-fletcher/.
Focussing on life within the great woman’s dynastic capital Alexandria founded by her ancestor and role model Alexander the Great in 331 BC, Alexandria was a cosmopolitan city with harbours, lighthouse, underground water system, parks and public buildings https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhTWSTofwCM. There were theatres, racetracks, Greek and Egyptian temples, a state-funded research centre and Great Library beside which stood the sprawling royal palace complex so brilliantly replicated for the 1963 blockbuster Cleopatra starring Elizabeth Taylor, whose initial set at Pinewood Studios began construction in September 1960.
With this candid shot below snapped over a hedgerow, the black and white image captures something of weather so inclement it wilted the imported Egyptian-style foliage and Taylor herself fell victim to severe pneumonia, all far removed from the celebrated warm sea breezes around the original city where we’ll be again in a few weeks with our friends from The Cultural Experience https://www.theculturalexperience.com/tours/ancient-egypt-hidden-treasures-expert-led-archaeology-and-history-tour/.
With the real palace of the Ptolemies built along the Mediterranean shoreline complete with its own private harbour, this prime location allowed them to control their growing empire and trade as far afield as India, China and even Britain, as reflected in their ability to blend multicultural influences with the most luxurious imported materials. And with their seaside palace expanded by each monarch into a gleaming complex of imported multicoloured marble, even its doors were inlaid with gold, jewels, tortoiseshell and ivory (below). Equally elaborate mosaic floors, widely copied at least as far afield as Pompeii, were made from both stone and glass pieces, a superb example of Ptolemaic mosaic found at Tell el-Defenneh by the Egypt Exploration Society in 1886 presented to Bolton who kindly loaned it to us (below). Featuring the face of an owl, sacred to Greek Athena, goddess of wisdom and warfare, the Egyptians equated her with their own warlike creator goddess Neith whom we met in our very first display case https://www.immortalegypt.co.uk/post/the-goddess-of-creation-history-s-first-queens-the-power-of-regalia.
Descriptions from the time reveal the royal interiors were also adorned with paintings from family portraits to rather larger works with the suggestion that Alexander the Great fighting the Persians at the Battle of Issos, later replicated in mosaic form at Pompeii, was a theme taken from one of the Ptolemies’ famous paintings. Their palace also housed hundreds of statues, all manner of antiques, and of course the most sumptuous soft furnishings, from the finest linen curtains to scarlet ceiling canopies and of course the palace’s famous tapestries “made of purple and gold threads”. As supported by the survival of a very rare piece of gold and purple textile of late Roman date preserved in waterlogged conditions in France (below left), the use of purple-dyed textile with gold embroidery was also identified at microscopic level (below left) in one of the embalmed bodies from Roman York we displayed in Barnsley as part of our Romans exhibition back in 2013.
Yet the Ptolemies’ palatial tapestries and wall-hangings are also described as having “whirling dancing figures woven upon them” and “portraits of the kings woven in them, others depicting subjects taken from mythology” including the gods who “stand and turn so naturally, they’re alive, not woven”. And with surviving examples again supporting such splendid-sounding accounts, a large section of woollen wall hanging (below) preserved in the deserts of central Asia reflects the extent of Alexander’s vast empire, stretching far to the east to regions with whom Cleopatra’s dynasty continued to trade. Portraying a spear-bearing military figure who has been likened to Alexander’s portrait on a gold medallion from Egypt, the colourful fragment also features his gold diadem and blue eyes while the Greek centaur on its upper border wears a lion skin cape evoking Hercules, mythical ancestor of Alexander who similarly adopted the lion skin as did Cleopatra’s husband Mark Antony. So we were thrilled to be able to borrow a piece of tapestry again from Bolton’s world-class Egyptology collection to make that link back into Cleopatra’s luxurious and colourful world.
With such lavish soft furnishings found throughout the Ptolemies’ palace, even just one of their many dining rooms “could hold one hundred and thirty couches in a circle”, with comfort guaranteed by the use of pillows and cushions. By that time having been produced in Egypt for over a thousand years, a feather-stuffed cushion was part of the burial equipment of Yuya and Tuya, great-grandparents of Tutankhamen, with feather and wool fibre stuffing found at his birthplace Amarna displayed in our previous Barnsley exhibition ‘Tut’22: the Life of Tutankhamen’.
And in our current Cleopatra displays we’ve been able to draw on some fabulous objects from Barnsley’s own collections too, including this marble dining scene (below) in which the two figures seated upon a couch were identified as goddess Isis and her male partner Serapis by C.17th historian Sir George Wheler. As Serapis drinks his wine from a horn-shaped rhyton, a form of cornucopia usually made of highly glazed pottery, silver and gilded versions with matching cups were manufactured at Egypt’s ancient capital Memphis and again appear in scenes of celebration in Ptolemaic Egypt and across the ancient world.
Wall paintings and descriptions from the time also reveal drinking vessels made of the finest glassware, precious stones and gem-studded gold and silver, Cleopatra’s own dining service described as “entirely of gold and jewelled vessels made with exquisite art” with her personal wine cup set with a large amethyst, the symbol of sobriety believed to offset intoxication. So our display case features a bowl of lapis-lazuli on loan from Bolton’s collection, together with drinking bowls and jugs from Barnsley’s collection of exquisite Roman glass.
As the perfect receptacles for the finest foods and wines served at Cleopatra’s table, often imported at great cost as a way to display her wealth and sophisticated tastes, she was certainly famous for her lavish banquets and personal dining club ‘the Inimitables’ to which only select friends were invited. So once again our displays not only feature a large ceramic amphora of the type in which her wines were imported into Alexandria but a payment receipt for such an amphora, written on papyrus in the everyday Greek script Cleopatra is known to have used https://www.youtube.com/shorts/d5bdtoRhaBQ. Found at the Egyptian site of Oxyrhynchus by the Egypt Exporation Society in 1906 and presented to Bolton Museum, we even have an ancient invitation to dinner found at the same site announcing: ‘Heratheon invites you to dine with him… at his house to-morrow, the 5th, at the 9th hour’, an extraordinarily intimate glimpse back into a long-lost world of fine dining and luxury as lived within the palatial home of Cleopatra and the Queens of Egypt.
Jo will be appearing at Highclere's literary festival 'Tales from the Castle: a Celebration of Reading, Writing and Story Telling' on 3-4th October, booking at: https://highclerecastleshop.co.uk/categories/literary-festival-morning-talks-and-guided-tours-with-event; on 17th October she’s speaking at ‘Mummies in the Hall’ at Bolton’s Smithills Hall: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/mummies-in-the-hall-tickets-2000147003530 and on 25th October she goes to Egypt with The Cultural Experience https://www.theculturalexperience.com/tours/ancient-egypt-hidden-treasures-expert-led-archaeology-and-history-tour/
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