Secret Cleopatra Revealed in Sands and Waves of Alexandria, Egypt
Treasures from her palaces and temples are starring in “Cleopatra: The Search for the Last Queen of Egypt” now through Sept. 5 at Cincinnati Museum Center.
The Search for Cleopatra Continues-With Astonishing Finds Every Year
With so much to learn, “we have centuries of work ahead,” Goddio said. He has estimated that they may have discovered five percent of the treasures under Alexandria’s waves. “I may be extremely optimistic and it’s only one percent.
“Heracleion is two times as big a city as Pompei, and they’ve been excavating that for centuries,” Goddio said.
“Every year we think we’ll never find anything more beautiful than we’ve already found, but every year we’re finding unbelievable things. They add to the history of art, the history of the region and the history of the world.”
Franck Goddio and His Team Have Mapped and Dived the Rich Alexandria Harbor-You can Worship God Serapis
Goddio is helping to open the exhibit at Cincinnati Museum Center, pointing out some of his favorite pieces from 20 years of underwater archaeology in the harbor of Alexandria.
“This is the original Serapis,” Goddio said of the large stone headbrought up from the sea at Canopus. Serapis represented a melding of Greek and Egyptian deities.
“People would spend the night to pray for a miracle in front of Serapis,” he said. “Especially for hearing problems. It’s very emotional to see it here. So,” he said with a hint of mischief in the museum gallery, “you can spend the night here,”
No one can overnight at the museum, of course, but curators are expecting large crowds for this first American tour of Cleopatra-era treasures brought up from the Mediterranean. The exhibit began its tour in Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute.
You May Soon be Able to Walk through Cleopatra’s Palace in an Underwater Museum
“Egypt has led the world in underwater archaeology,” said Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities in his Cairo office. “UNESCO is doing a feasibility study for an underwater museum, with a tube for walking through.”
“There are architect’s drawings of the underwater museum in the port of Alexandria, on the site of Cleopatra’s island,” Goddio confirmed. “So people can see the red granite columns with hieroglyphs, sphinxes and limestone pavement of her actual palace where she was living, with the real artifacts in situ.”
Cleopatra Show in Cincinnati Showcases the Chiseled Faces of Cleopatra’s Father and Son
One of Goddio’s favorites is a small sphinx with the likeness of her father, Ptolemy XII. The other is a statue of a priest holding Isis, from the Egyptian creation myth.
“This temple was close to her palace,” Goddio said, “ and since she considered herself the Goddess Isis, she must have gone very often to this small sanctuary. To me, it’s fascinating to see the things she worshipped.”
In just 20 years, Goddio and his team have discovered a cluster of three lost Egyptian cities: Heracleion, a strategic trading post; Canopus, a religious pilgrimage site; and the Portus Magnus of Alexandria.
Egypt’s Lead Archaeologist Searches for the Tomb of Cleopatra and Marc Anthony
While Goddio and his team dive into the Med at Cleopatra’s three cities, Hawass leads the land-based search for the queen’s tomb.
“All the travelers of the Roman period explain about the tomb of Alexander, but not about Cleopatra and Marc Anthony’s,” Hawass said. “But from Plutarch we know they were buried together—Anthony got permission from the Roman Senate to be buried here.”
Hawass is excavating 70 miles west of Alexandria in Taposiris Magna in search of their joint tomb.
So far, Hawass has found tunnels, three statues of Cleopatra, a mask with a cleft chin that may depict Anthony, and coins with Cleopatra’s image.
Cleopatra: A Woman of State, Surely, but of Beauty?
“They show Cleopatra has a big nose, and that makes people think she was not beautiful,” Hawass said. “But nobody would believe that the lady who could capture the hearts of Julius Caesar and Marc Anthony would be ugly.”
“Cleopatra was obviously a woman of state, extremely clever and well-organized,” Goddio said of the portrait emerging. “She dreamed the same as Alexander the Great, a political vision of unifying the West and East. Her seduction of Caesar and Marc Anthony was aiming only at that.”
Discover Cleopatra’s World with Her Gods and Personal Objects-Fresh from the Mediterranean
The show has nearly 150 artifacts, including statues, jewelry, coins and religious items that are all visiting the US for the first time. The towering king and queen figures from the Temple of Amon at Heracleion, at 5.5 tons and 4 tons respectively, are the heaviest artifacts every displayed in the museum.
The marvel of the show is that “most of the artifacts were underwater five or six years ago,” Franck Goddio, director of European Institute for Underwater Archaeology.
“These artifacts do not come from museums around the world, but they have been crafted, designed, to be together. It’s so good to see them here together.”
