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Credit: Joyce Tyldesley
Fans of the ancient Egyptians will be interested to know that University of Manchester Egyptologists have published two new books.
'Cleopatra – Last Queen of Egypt' is a revealing biography of one of Egypt’s greatest rulers told, not through the histories of the Romans or the lens of Hollywood myth-making, but through the expert knowledge of Joyce Tyldesley.
Joyce, an Egyptian queens specialist in the KNH Centre for Biomedical Egyptology and Manchester Museum, has stripped away preconceptions and used her skills as an Egyptologist to give a rich picture of a country and its queen.
“Cleopatra was the last monarch of the Macedonian dynasty of Ptolemies who had ruled Egypt for three centuries,” said Joyce.
“Highly educated – she was the only one of the Ptolemies to read and speak ancient Egyptian as well as the court Greek – and clever – her famous trysts with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony were as much to do with politics as the heart – Cleopatra steered her kingdom through impossibly taxing internal crises and defended it against Roman imperialism.”
The book explores the debate surrounding Cleopatra’s provenance and beauty, uncovers the history of the now-submerged ancient city of Alexandria, home to Cleopatra’s palace, as well as Cleopatra’s cultural afterlife – how the myth was made and preserved.
A second book – 'Egyptian Mummies and Modern Science' – has also been published, this time written by a long-established team of Manchester scientists.
Edited by the Director of the KNH Centre, Rosalie David, the book aims to show how the team’s investigative methods are being used for new international research into disease evolution and ancient Egyptian pharmacy.
Highlighting the unique resource of Manchester’s Egyptian Mummy Tissue Bank, the book looks at the progress of ancient DNA research and the treatments available for conserving mummified remains.
“The main aims of this book are to show how biomedical and scientific techniques have led to a new understanding of some aspects of ancient Egyptian society,” said Rosalie.
“There has been a remarkable increase in the number of scientific studies on mummies over the past two decades and people are now aware of the information that can be gained from such investigations, in terms of explaining the cultural context of human remains and in adding knowledge to how disease has evolved from ancient to modern times.”
'Cleopatra – Last Queen of Egypt' by Joyce Tyldesley is published by Profile Books and is priced £20 (hardback).
'Egyptian Mummies and Modern Science', edited by Rosalie David, is published by Cambridge University Press and priced £60 (hardback).