Cleopatra Was Not The Only Female Pharaoh
by For thousands of years, Cleopatra has been known to use her great beauty to put Egypt on a more favorable side with Rome. However, many argue she was not a beauty. She may have been a beauty, ugly or anywhere in between, but she was intelligent, very powerful, a good queen and thanks to a new study, she was not the only female pharaoh of the Ptolemaic dynasty.
Queen Arsinoe II ruled Egypt long before Cleopatra according to Maria Nilsson from the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. She came with this conclusion after studying sculptures of the crown of Arsinoe.
Cleopatra has always been considered to be the only female pharaoh of the Ptolemaic dynasty– a dynasty of Macedonian kings founded by Ptolemy I and ended with Cleopatra; ruling Egypt from 305 B.C to 30 B.C. After several analyses were done on the crowns, it was suggested that Arsinoe II became a pharaoh some 250 years earlier than Cleopatra
Many scholars have suggested that Arsinoe had a strong political influence, and textual sources confirmed that she was hungry for power, designing and even responsible for the disappearance of Ptolemy II’s first wife.
The Ptolemaic period was a time for royalty, crowns were made and crowns were an indicator of the position of the wearer, showing the corresponded titles and bloodlines. While Egyptologist and archaeologists haven’t found any crowns from this era, many statues or paintings have been found in tombs pointing out to the crown and Nilsson’s theory.
If this new theory by Nilsson is correct, there is going to be new debate regarding the ancient queens. Of course, this doesn’t mean that Cleopatra is no longer a powerful pharaoh because she really was a powerful pharaoh. Depending on who is going to take part of this new debate, most people would say that Cleopatra is the best, while others will give Hatshepsut more credit because she wore a fake beard and men’s clothing.
According to Nilsson, pharaohs wearing the tallest crown stands at the top of the other pharaohs, but other people believe that the sizes of the crowns are based on the size of the individuals.
Full credits to
http://www.history.com/news/2010/11/29/a-new-female-pharaoh-for-ancient-egypt/
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Post Commentsanguine literist
On December 9, 2011 at 3:15 pm
Very informative, I love when history’spowerful women are revealed.
Rosettaartist1
On December 9, 2011 at 4:27 pm
That’s interesting. Many don’t even know Cleopatra was a pharoah.
erwinkennythomas
On December 9, 2011 at 4:39 pm
amazing work
Margaret Boseroy
On December 9, 2011 at 7:02 pm
Enlightening article.
lapasan
On December 9, 2011 at 8:27 pm
It thought that Cleopatra was the only female pharaoh of the Ptlemaic dynasty.
megamatt09
On December 10, 2011 at 12:03 pm
Rather interesting for sure.
Bruce Officer
On December 10, 2011 at 5:18 pm
Very interesting. As you know, I’ve visited Hatshepsut’s mortuary temple in Egypt so I knew about her, but not about any other female pharoahs other than the famous Cleopatra.