Roman Egypt Quiz!

Caroline and fans at the Petrie 18 Feb 2015

I have just returned from the fabulous Petrie Museum in London, where I was doing a family event about Roman Egypt. The museum put on a Treasure Trail (and everybody got a signed book) but I made a more challenging quiz which I handed out at the end. One of the things I wanted to emphasise was that the Romans thought of Egypt as upside down (from our modern perspective). So here is my ROMAN EGYPT QUIZ, along with the answers (right at the bottom). Bona fortuna! Good luck! 

In Roman times, people though of Egypt as being upside down. In other words you went UP the Nile to go to Nubia, which is in the south! Also, the wind usually blew from north to south and the current flowed from south to north. Those tricky facts (and my map) will help you answer some – but not all – of the following multiple choice questions. But be careful... thinking about upside down Egypt too much might do your head in!

1. In Roman Egypt, during the first century AD, most people spoke: 

a Roman

b Latin

c Greek

d Egyptian

2. The mouth of the Nile resembled 

a the Latin capital letter V

b the Greek capital letter delta (a triangle)

c the hieroglyphic for an eye

d the Latin capital letter O

3. As you travelled upriver in Roman times, the country on the left was known as

a Scotland

b Arabia

c Libya

d Nubia

4. When you see a picture or model of an Egyptian ship with the sail up, it is probably travelling

a upriver

b downriver

c to Rome

d to Alexandria

5. When you see a picture or model of an Egyptian ship with the sail down, it is probably travelling

a upriver

b downriver

c to Rome

d to Nubia

6. In the early Roman Empire (first century AD) the greatest city in Egypt was

a Cairo

b Crocodilopolis

c Aswan (Syene)

d Alexandria 

7. A cataract is a place where the river changes level. How many cataracts would a Roman have found travelling from Alexandria to Nubia? 

a 7

b 70

c 700

d only one, but it marked the border of Egypt and Nubia.

8. In ancient times, the great Pyramids of Giza were covered with 

a dazzling gold leaf

b thin sheets of white limestone

c sticky pitch to discourage climbing

d colourful paintings of the pharaohs

9. In Egyptian wall paintings, which three things show that a figure is meant to be a child?

a wearing nappy, dummy in mouth, no hair

b wearing kilt, open mouth, short hair

c wearing nothing, finger at mouth, one lock of hair over ear

d wearing amulet, sticking out tongue, no hair

10. Which hieroglyph was considered very bad luck:

a the crocodile king

b the anubis dog

c the ankh

d the seth animal

11. Cleopatra VII (the one who liked Caesar and Mark Antony) was not actually Egyptian by background. Her ethnic background was mainly

a Arabian

b Roman

c Greek

d American

12. Speaking of Mark Antony, his actual Roman name was:

a Marcus Antonius

b Marcus Antonius Postumus

c Marcus Antonius Superbus

d Marcus Antonius Ptolomeus

If this post has whetted your appetite for more, check out The Scribes from Alexandria, my Roman Mystery set in 1st century AD Egypt. It's available in paperback, Kindle and abridged audiobook. You might also enjoy my blog posts called Ugly Cleopatra and one called Upside Down Egypt. 

Answers to Roman Egypt Quiz: 1c; 2b; 3b; 4a; 5b; 6d; 7d; 8b; 9c; 10d; 11c; 12a

Ugly Cleopatra

Liz Taylor as Cleo

by Caroline Lawrence
author of the Roman Mysteries

Contrary to what we would love to believe, Cleopatra VII (i.e. the famous one) was probably not a stunning beauty like Elizabeth Taylor.

Nefertiti

Cleopatra is associated with Egypt, so many modern film-makers and book cover designers use the beautiful portrait of the Egyptian queen Nefertiti as their inspiration.

This portrait bust of Nefertiti, who lived around 1350 BC, was probably idealised (i.e. made to look nicer than the real woman).

But even if Egyptian Nefertiti was that beautiful, remember Cleopatra was not Egyptian. She was a Macedonian Greek, a descendant of Ptolemy, one of Alexander the Great's commanders.

When I was researching the 14th book in my Roman Mysteries series, The Beggar of Volubilis, I was shocked to see contemporary depictions of Cleopatra on coins. These portraits showed Cleopatra as a frizzy-haired, bull-necked hag with a hooked nose and jutting chin. And a man's Adam's apple! She looks like a transvestite, for goodness sake.

Scholars tell us she had herself shown like this because the "masculine" features reminded people of her power and lineage. In other words, it was a kind of political propaganda.

BM exhibition catalogue

But what did she really look like?

A 20th century French writer named André Malraux said this: "Nefertiti is a face without a queen, Cleopatra is a queen without a face." What he meant was that we have a perfect idea of what Nefertiti looked like, but we know almost nothing about her. Whereas we know tons about Cleopatra but nobody can agree what she looked like.

In the glossy catalogue accompanying a 2001 British Museum exhibition about Cleopatra, scholar Guy Weill Goudchaux suggests that Cleopatra was probably slender. Why? Because she had to be light enough for one man to carry her rolled up in a sleeping mat along corridors of the palace and into Caesar's presence. But she probably wasn't too petite or she wouldn't have been able give birth to four children with no problems.

OK. She was slender and not too tall. But what did her face look like?

There are two other famous quotes about Cleopatra that relate to her looks.

The first one is by Plutarch, a Greek historian who was born around AD 45, about 75 years after she died. In his biography of Mark Anthony he writes this about Cleopatra (and I paraphrase): "Her beauty was not exceptional enough to instantly affect those who saw her, but she had a charming way of conversing, and an invigorating presence. Her sweet voice was as well-modulated as a lyre, and she could speak whichever language she pleased."

So she was melodic, intelligent, charming and charismatic. But not a jaw-dropping beauty, like Elizabeth Taylor up above.

The other famous quote is by a French philosopher named Blaise Pascal who lived in the 1600s. He had a big nose himself and was certainly familiar with the startling coins showing big-nosed Cleo. He wrote this: "If Cleopatra's nose had been shorter, the whole face of the world might have been changed."

This statement has intrigued generations of scholars since, and even the creators of Asterisk refer to it in their own witty way.

witty nose reference by Julius Caesar in Asterix and Cleopatra

But Monsieur Pascal knew that in the ancient world – and many periods since – a strong nose showed strength of character. If her nose had been weaker, maybe her character would have been weaker, too. Maybe her strong nose was one of the things that attracted Julius Caesar and Mark Anthony, two of the most powerful men in the world, to fall in love with her and marry her.

bust of Cleopatra in Berlin

In the 21st century, everyone wants babyish good looks, with big eyes and a button nose. Women will pay good money to have a strong nose made smaller, to fit in with modern conventions.

But at the time when Cleopatra and Anthony were struggling with Octavian for control of the entire Roman Empire (c. 37 - 30 BC) a big nose did signify strength of character and power. This marble bust, now in Berlin, is accepted as one of the few accurate depictions of Cleopatra VII. It shows that she did indeed have a strong nose, even if it wasn't the eagle's beak depicted on the coins.

To my mind, the most inspired portrait ever done of Cleopatra is the one painted in 1888 by J.W. Waterhouse. I am going through a bit of a Waterhouse phase, and have blogged about his fabulous paintings of Adonis, Ariadne, Circe, Hylas, Narcissus and Orpheus. Waterhouse was famous for painting dewy-eyed nymphs and nubile girls.

His Cleopatra is quite a departure from his usual type.

But what a departure. He shows a woman sitting on a throne, with her head down. This reminds me of a phrase from the Iliad: hypodra idon, looking out from beneath her eyebrows. The phrase is usually applied to the great warrior Achilles.

Waterhouse has shown us a woman with frizzy rather than glossy black hair. Her face is in shadow so we have to get right up close to see her features and read her expression. She has a low, heavy forehead and a monobrow. Dark, smouldering eyes, full of intelligence and ambition with a hint of regret. A strong nose, sensuous lips and a firm, rounded chin.

Cleopatra by J.W. Waterhouse (1888) sadly in a private collection

Her posture speaks volumes, too. She is seated on a throne to represent power. One arm akimbo, a gesture of authority often seen in parents, teachers and police when enforcing their rules. Her left arm rests on a lioness arm-rest of her throne, another symbol of power. But one of her mannish fingers is almost gouging out the lioness's eye. This reminds us that she was ruthless when she had to be.

What Waterhouse has done is to combine the two contrasting personae of Cleopatra: the slender charismatic charmer who held men in her thrall and the power-craving, ruthless ruler who was not afraid to have herself portrayed as a man in drag.

a Waterhouse nymph

I called this post "Ugly Cleopatra" to gain your attention. In fact she was the woman of her century. Brilliant, witty, charismatic, courageous, fluent in several languages and – most unusually – politically ambitious.

I think Waterhouse totally got Cleopatra.

Compare his soft, watery nymphs to the smouldering, tortured despot above and I think you will agree that in her own way Cleo is just as beautiful as any of them.

Only a hell of a lot scarier! 

P.S. In April 2016, I attended Les Grands Jeux Romains at the ancient Roman arena at Nîmes. Over four hundred re-enactors restaged the (sea) battle of Actium with Cleopatra playing a major part. The attention to detail was superb and I was delighted to see Waterhouse's influence in Cleopatra's throne with its lion-head arms. (photo of Cleopatra by Christelle Champ)

[Two of my Roman Mysteries feature references to Cleopatra VII, the famous one. In The Beggar of Volubilis a plain, frizzy-haired, big-nosed girl claims to be her great, great granddaughter. In The Scribes from Alexandria Cleo makes a "guest appearance" on the beach at Canopus. The 17+ books in the Roman Mysteries series are perfect for children aged 9+, especially those studying Romans, Greeks or Egyptians as a topic in Key Stage 2. Carrying on from the Roman Mysteries, the Roman Quests series set in Roman Britain launched in May 2016 with Escape from Rome.]

Upside Down Egypt

by Caroline Lawrence (author of the Roman Mysteries)

The ancient Romans thought of Egypt quite differently than we do today. (Click the map on the right to get a bigger image of upside down Egypt)

The Delta was the fertile triangular area where the Nile branched out to flow into the sea. When you look at Egypt upside down, this triangle resembles the capital letter delta from the Greek alphabet. (In Roman Egypt most people spoke Greek, the lingua franca of the early Roman Empire.)

To a first century Roman, the Delta was Lower Egypt and the Nile Valley was Upper Egypt. If you went 'upriver' you were travelling south and 'downriver' was north.

To an ancient traveller everything on the right bank travelling upriver was 'Libya' and everything on the left bank (the eastern bank) was 'Arabia'.

The current always flowed downriver, from Aswan to Alexandria, but the wind conveniently blew upriver or south. Wherever a ship is shown in Egyptian wall paintings and carvings – or as a model – you can tell which direction it's travelling. If its sail is up, it's probably travelling upriver. If there is no sail, it's probably going with the current, downriver towards Alexandria.

A 'cataract' is the place where a river changes level. It can be anything from some fast water to an enormous waterfall. Traveling from Alexandria upriver, you could sail for over 700 miles before coming to a cataract. The first cataract marked the southern border of Egypt. It was located at Syene (modern Aswan). Beyond the first cataract was Nubia, the Land of Gold.

P.S. To see 12 Fun Facts I learned at Giza, go HERE. And A Day in Old Cairo caused me to come across a sharp-nosed fish, but miss out on seeing a Seth animal. And we visited a Pharaonic Village, too.

Want to read an exciting mystery set in Roman Egypt? The Scribes from Alexandria is out in a new paperback edition now. You can also get it in Kindle format and as an abridged audiobook! (Perfect for primary schools studying Egypt in Key Stage 2.)

The Seth Animal

by Caroline Lawrence

I am in Egypt researching book fifteen of my Roman Mysteries series, The Scribes from Alexandria. David from Edinburgh (a member of our tour group) is a keen Egyptologist and quite fluent at reading hieroglyphs. I've also been teaching myself the rudiments, with Angela McDonald's excellent book Write Your Own Egyptian Hieroglyphs. She talks about a curious hieroglyph called the Seth Animal:

'One of the most widely used [hieroglyphs]... is one of the most complex to explain. The identity of the so-called Seth animal has puzzled Egyptologists and zoologists for over 150 years. It has the body-shape of a dog, which gives it a muscular physique and clawed paws, and a curved snout. It usually has some sort of weapon for a tail, most commonly an arrow but sometimes a club or forked stick... The Seth animal sign was therefore the perfect determinative for words describing anything strange or disruptive to the natural order of the world, such as storms or malevolent weather.'

All week David and I had been looking for the Seth Animal and on our last day in Alexandria, we found it. It was on a stele of Rameses III which had been found underwater in the harbour. Of course, Pharaonic monuments like this were not made in Alexandria, but transported there in Ptolemaic times.

P.S. If you liked this you might enjoy my blogs about Upside Down Egypt and A Day in Old Cairo.

[Flavia and her friends encounter several different varieties of 'Seth Animal' in The Scribes from Alexandria. It is now available in paperback, Kindle and as an abridged audiobook, and is perfect for primary schools studying Egypt in Key Stage 2.]

A Day in Old Cairo

It is December 2007. I am researching the 15th book in my Roman Mysteries series, this one will be set in Roman Egypt.

entrance to the souk in Cairo Old Town

Our tour group is planning to visit Tanis, on the eastern Delta, in order to look at some more pyramids and hieroglyphs. They will be driving for nearly three hours there and it will take them longer to get back. They will be in a military convoy. Unable to face another day at a desolate site with nothing but rocks, I ask Richard if he minds a lazy day in Old Cairo. He welcomes the idea of breakfast at 9.00 instead of 6.00am.

I ring Omar, the wonderful taxi driver who took us to the Pharaonic Village and he says he is at our disposal. I find out later that he was suffering from flu but came to our rescue anyway.

We meet in the hotel lobby at 10.00am and Omar drives us to Old Cairo where we see the so-called hanging church, built in the late 3rd century above the Roman Walls. We also descend to a crypt where Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus stayed during their sojourn in Egypt. We wander through the sunny gardens of a Greek monastery and graveyard. It is green and peaceful, with little birds twittering. I have not heard much twittering on this trip. Just the cawing of crows and ravens at the ancient sites.

Cairo rooftops & minaret

We go down a covered street to the synagogue, then re-emerge and find Omar, who's been enjoying a mint tea in the sunshine. I say I would like to see the City of the Dead, the extensive graveyard of Cairo, with its population of poor and homeless, and he takes us to see some Islamic crypts. He helps us scramble on top of the crypt and from here we can see the rooftops of Cairo. It's a perfect day.

Omar teaches us the difference between Fatimid, Ottoman and Mamluk minarets. He takes us to a place where we can see mosques with all three minarets and expects me to take a photo. I wish he'd driven more slowly through some of the old, poor parts of Cairo where you still see boys carrying buckets of hot coals and women balancing trays laden with bread and men smoking their hookahs. What I really want to see is the bazaar.

Gayer-Anderson House, Cairo

Omar agrees to take us to the bazaar but drops us at the Gayer-Anderson House first. He says we'll like it. We do. A British major named Anderson refurbished two Cairo mansions in the 1930's and made them his home. Although he converted some rooms, he left most with their wonderful carved wooden screens. In the major's little private museum I see a replica of my favourite Egyptian cat, now in the British Museum. Now I know why it's called "The Anderson Cat"! There is a secret room behind a cupboard and a wonderful rooftop. Scenes from The Spy Who Loved Me were filmed here, too. (You can see a fun article about movies set in Egypt here.)

Omar in the antiques shop

Omar parks his car and leads us into the bazaar. He knows I like Roman things and takes us to an 800 year old hole-in-the-wall antiquities shop. The owner, a tall, ascetic-looking man -- takes us upstairs to his holy of holies and orders mint tea. We make polite conversation for a while. Then he brings out a small marble head. It looks vaguely Roman, but does not seem to represent anyone in particular. If authentic, the carving round the eyes would suggest a late date: 4th or 5th century AD. Then he makes the mistake of bringing out three more heads, all obviously by the same workshop. If he had produced just the one, I might have been convinced, but now I suspect a con. Anyway, the heads are ugly.

antique sharp-nosed fish?

Something in a glass case does catch my eye, however. It is a small bronze model of an 'oxyrhynchus', a sharp-nosed fish, about as long as my thumb. These were worshipped in the town of Oxyrhynchus, famous for its papyri. Perhaps it was a votive offering at a temple in the Fayum. The dealer says the asking price is £150. 'How old is it?' I ask. '1800 years,' says the dealer. 'How can you tell?' 'By the patina.' Deeply sceptical, I offer £5. But we are so far apart that negotiations cease then and there. Anyway, isn't it illegal to take real antiquities out of the country?

Perfumer in Cairo Souk, 2007

On the way out of the bazaar I buy ten little glass perfume jars for £5, about a dollar each. That's more like it!

Richard buys some spices in the spice market (after waiting for the staff to finish afternoon prayers) and I finish off my shopping with a bottle of lotus oil from an Aladdin's cave perfume shop.

We are back in Giza by 6.00pm, too late for Richard to do a watercolour, but early enough to have a delicious meal at Felfela, an excellent and inexpensive restaurant near the hotel. Three hours later the rest of our group arrives. They are tired and hungry, and even though David spotted a Seth animal, I'm secretly glad we spent the day in Old Cairo.

P.S. If you liked this you might enjoy my blogs about Upside Down Egypt & 12 Fun Facts I learned at the Pyramids. Also A Week on the S.S. Karim.

[I was researching Roman Mystery 15, The Scribes from Alexandria. It is now available in paperback, Kindle and as an abridged audiobook, and is perfect for primary schools studying Egypt in Key Stage 2.]

Pyramids and Sphinx

by Caroline Lawrence, author of The Roman Mysteries.

It is December 2007. We have flown to Egypt for the second time to research The Scribes from Alexandria, my antepenultimate Roman Mystery. My husband (and map-maker) Richard and I arrived late last night – 10.30pm London time and 12.30am Cairo time – and it was 4.00am before lights out.

Le Meridien Pyramids Hotel in Giza, Egypt

We are staying at the Le Meridien Pyramids Hotel in Giza, so this morning I pull back the drapes, not sure what I will see. Pyramids! Two of them. Medium sized, flat against the hazy, cloud-speckled dawn sky. A busy road and some pylons in the foreground, and the back of the hotel. This is the view they never show you!

Roman Mystery #15

The morning is mild and even a little cool sitting out by the pool to have breakfast. We have a nice select group of fellow travellers on this academic guided tour. There are only nine of us in all, plus not one but two expert guides. Rawya is our Egyptian guide and Joclyn our British guide. Both are women, both extremely knowledgable and articulate.

At a few minutes past 10.00 we set off along the manic road to a roundabout then back up past the Mena Auberoi Hotel, which is older and four starred, probably nicer than this rather soulless modern one. Not that I'm complaining.

A few minutes later we are at the pyramids. They say you have to be standing in front of them to get the full impact, but I didn't feel any particular sense of awe. They are big and familiar and as you might expect there are Egyptian men and children ready to beg you to buy postcards, gifts, burnooses, camel rides, etc.

Our guides advise us to ignore these entrepreneurs, especially the ones offering a short camel ride.

Twelve FUN FACTS I learned at Giza:

pyramid at Giza

I. A pyramid is essentially a big fat obelisk.

II. The pyramids would have been covered with smooth slabs of white limestone in ancient times, making them even more impressive. This is what Flavia and her friends would have seen when they visit in the first century AD. There would have been graffiti all over them, too. Greek and Latin, of course.

III. A massive cedar river boat belonging to Cheops was found buried on the south side of the Great Pyramid. It has a special display room near the spot where it was found. It is amazing.

IV. The lovely triangular felucca sail didn't come in until 300 AD! Until then, all boats were square-rigged.

V. There are smaller more conventional tombs by the pyramids. These are called mastabas and are usually for friends and family of Mr Pharaoh.

VI. The ka is the double of a person. The ba is the spirit. According to Egyptian tradition, both are created with the body but are immortal. When the body dies, these two live on and wait to be reunited to the body on the Day of Resurrection.

VII. In the depiction of figures on walls, etc. there are three symbols to show children: a lock of hair over one ear, no clothes, a finger at the mouth. Children are shown aged about twenty but small. Twenty to thirty is the ideal age for to come back on the Day of Resurrection. (Nobody knows the date of this momentous event.)

VIII. Egyptian granite comes from one place: Aswan. It is composed of crystals of pink, grey and black. You get pink, grey or black granite depending on the proportion of those three colours of crystal in a piece of granite.

IX. The Nile was closer to the Sphinx (and to the pyramids) in ancient times. A short canal brought water to the Sphinx for easy boat access and to provide water for the priests and temples.

X. The Sphinx was up to its neck in sand until the 19th century.
(Though it may have been cleared at times before that.)

Caroline on camel

XI. The Sphinx is slowly melting, worn away by constant sand in the wind. In a hundred years or less the head will probably fall off! Also pigeons are now nesting on its face. Recent bird-flu scares forced Egyptians to destroy the columbaria on their houses and so the pigeons must find new homes! Their guano does not help matters.

XII. The Ptolemaic Greeks were the first to do restoration work on the Sphinx, probably around 200 BC.

P.S. Contrary to what I had heard, camels are fun to ride!

P.S. If you liked this you might enjoy my blogs about Upside Down Egypt and A Day in Old Cairo.

[I was researching Roman Mystery 15, The Scribes from Alexandria. It is now available in paperback, Kindle and as an abridged audiobook, and is perfect for primary schools studying Egypt in Key Stage 2.]

December in the Delta

We are off to Egypt: to Lower Egypt. Confusingly, Lower Egypt is actually above Upper Egypt on modern maps. We'll be based in Giza at a hotel with a pyramid view. (Probably one of those terrible blots on the landscape but at least we will be in it looking out). Our last day includes an optional day trip to Alexandria. Sadly there are very few physical remains of what was arguably the most beautiful city in the Roman world. But my next book is set there and that's why we're going. Here's our itinerary:

Tuesday: The Giza Plateau - Pyramids and Sphinx

Wednesday: Sakkara/Dashur - lots more pyramids, including a newly opened complex at Abu Sir

Thursday: Heliopolis/Cairo Museum - morning in Heliopolis, afternoon in the Cairo Museum

Friday: Fayum - The Ptolomaic-Roman City of Karanis and the labyrinth at Heracleopolis (!) and the famous mastaba tombs. (This is where many of those stunning Romano-Egyptian encaustic coffin portraits come from.)

Saturday: The Delta - visit to the ancient cult city of Bubastis (lots of cat mummies!), then to some excavations at Tanis

Sunday: Alexandria - the new museum, Kom el Dikka and some catacombs are on the itinerary

Monday: home... inshallah!