Cleopatra and kandake
Cleopatra and kandake

Author(s): Adam Łukaszewicz
Subject(s): Archaeology
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: Ptolemaic Egypt; Roman history; Cleopatra VII; Meroitic Kingdom; women rulers in antiquity
Summary/Abstract: The author discusses the circumstances of Cleopatra VII taking power as the sole ruler of Egypt in 49/48 BC. The queen was forced out of Alexandria by her brother and co-regent Ptolemy XIII. When she reappeared in Egypt, it was from Palestine. The author considers the possibility that she traveled from Alexandria through the Thebaid, the Meroitic Kingdom and Arabia to Palestine, where she expected to obtain financial support necessary for recruiting mercenaries. She need not have modeled her political activity on that of the Meroitic kandake, but personal contacts between the two queens are plausible. The author suggests that a woman’s head represented on the cover of a box containing a mirror, found at Faras in Nubia, may be a portrait of Cleopatra.

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