Cleopatra Found Depicted In Drag

Discovery News ^ | 9-21-2005 | Jennifer Viegas

[blam]

GGG Ping.

Click here to see more pictures of Cleo in drag.

[xJones]

The object is only one of three known to exist that represent Cleopatra as a male.

Did anybody tell Julius Caesar or Mark Anthony?

[sassbox]

Julius Caesar, aka the husband of every woman and the wife of every man, probably would've found it kinky!

Queen Hatshepsut, who lived during the 16th and 15th centuries B.C., often was represented without breasts, in male clothing and with a full beard.

For some reason, this sentence made me think of Hillary Clinton

[msnimje]

Did anybody tell Julius Caesar or Mark Anthony?

And poor Richard Burton.

[after dark]

This is strange.

Depicting Cleopatra as male was probably a sign of respect.

We are told by historians Cleopatra was an ugly woman. We are told by historians that Cleopatra was hyped by people who never knew her.

This was not long after her death. Maybe she really was a force to be reckoned with.

[so_real]

Experts think the depictions of Cleopatra as a man were most likely due to laziness. Her father had been ruler before her, and so the carvers probably just changed the name, but not the sex of the figure.

Interesting ...

[Solamente]

Is that an obelisk in your caftan, or are you just happy to see me?

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Blam. Time for the song...

"Queen Slut.... Queen Slut... Oh, when she was a small girl, she never thought she'd see... Queen Slut... people stand in line, to see the Boy Queen..."

To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. Thanks.

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[SunkenCiv]

Pravda version:
http://english.pravda.ru/main/18/90/363/16113_cleopatra.html

And here's a photo of an earlier female Pharaoh, Hatshepsut, showing the false beard:

http://oleg-petrov.net/hatshbeard.jpg

Additional images of Hatshepsut (et al) some with beards:

http://www.freemaninstitute.com/Gallery/RTGpix6.htm

[Psycho_Bunny]

In the ancient world this could easily symbolize a woman who "has the power of a man".

[SunkenCiv]

Okay, sorry, perhaps that was a bit on the inappropriate side of the Nile. It was meant to be flippant. King Herod (and he was a bloodthirsty killer) was among those offended by her compulsive sexuality. She bid him dismiss all their servants, then wanted to get it on. And that's just the, uh, tip of the iceberg.

Some photos of ancient artifacts showing Cleopatra the VIIth (I think Alexander the Great's dad married the first Cleopatra, after he dumped Al's mother, but won't swear to it without a web search).

http://www.ancientegyptmagazine.com/images/cleopatra%20statue%2006.jpg
http://www.vroma.org/images/mcmanus_images/cleo_caesarion_coin.jpg
http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~ekondrat/Augustus/Cleopatra_Antony.jpeg http://www.livius.org/ps-pz/ptolemies/cleo_bust_s.JPG
http://www.livius.org/a/1/romanempire/cleo_bust.JPG
http://www.bible-history.com/images/cleoptra/cleo2.jpg
http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/romans/history/pictures/cleopatra.jpg
http://www.pupress.princeton.edu/images/k7016.gif

[Translates]

Pretty interesting. Wonder where this stele was discovered.

[SunkenCiv]

use caution when searching for Google images of Cleo, they are not necessarily for children (and most are of modern stuff, in some cases, a little too modern):

http://web.it.kth.se/~dick56/Travel/London/Cleopatra.jpg
http://www.fieldmuseum.org/cleopatra/photos/ptolemaic_th.gif
http://www.vroma.org/images/mcmanus_images/cleo_egyptcoin2.jpg
http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~rauhn/cleopatra.jpg
http://wesclark.com/jw/cleopatra.jpg
http://gloriaderoma.com/CLEOPATRA.JPG
http://www.dl.ket.org/latin1/gallery/people/images/cleopatra_.jpg
http://www.sangha.net/messengers/Cleopatra3.gif

source of the preceding image:
http://sangha.net/messengers/cleopatra/all.htm

(not sure about which Cleopatra is in this next image)
http://www.fief.org/kathleen/Athens/large/Cleopatra.jpg

Browsing Roman Imperatorial Coins of Cleopatra
http://www.wildwinds.com/coins/imp/cleopatra/i.html

and, a related story, also originally from Discover, but now probably existing only on my hard drive...

Cleopatra's Signature Discovered
By Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery.com News
October 3, 2000
http://www.discovery.com/news/briefs/20000928/hi_cleopatra.html

Sept. 28, 2000 — The handwriting of the Egyptian queen Cleopatra has emerged from a Greek papyrus stored for more than a century in a mummy casing in the Egyptian Museum in Berlin, Germany, a Dutch scholar claimed yesterday.

"Cleopatra's signature can be found in just one word: 'genestho,' which means 'Make it so!' It is the formula for the royal authorization, and had to be added by the ruler's own hand," said Peter Van Minnen, a Dutch Academy research fellow in religious studies at the University of Groningen.

There are plenty of royal ordinances from Egypt during the rule of the Ptolemaic dynasty (323 - 30 B.C.) that include royal subscriptions, but they are copies embedded in official correspondence or engraved inscriptions.

Van Minnen insists the document he discovered is an original. The main text was the work of a secretary, while the subscription "genestho," written in a different hand, was signed by the queen herself.

[Larry Lucido]

My experts say it was actually King Rutentuten, not Cleopatra.

[Larry Lucido]

Course, it could have been Queen Hotsitotsie in drag.

[Lockbar]

[SunkenCiv]

http://www.fathom.com/course/21701722/cleopatra.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/CleopatraVIIEgypt.jpg
http://www.rowfant.demon.co.uk/cleopatra.jpg
http://www.juntadeandalucia.es/cultura/bibliotecavirtualandalucia/img/historia/cleopatra.jpg
http://www.lsg.musin.de/Geschichte/lex-gr/Glossar-G/cleopatra2.jpg
http://www.lsg.musin.de/Geschichte/lex-gr/Glossar-G/cleopatra-m%FCnze.jpg
http://www.malaspina.org/gif/cleopatra.jpg
http://www.minkema.nl/vakken_m/geschiedenis/images/cleopatra-vii.jpg
http://www.romancoins.info/cleopatra-manton-2003.jpg
http://www.romancoins.info/e2005%20(40).jpg
http://www.romancoins.info/cleopatra-m-antonius.jpg
http://www.martinlutherking.org/images/cleopatra.jpg
http://montgomery.cas.muohio.edu/delucej/images/cleopatra.jpg
http://www.hunterian.gla.ac.uk/collections/museum/coins/images/cleopatra.jpg
http://www.egiptoaldescubierto.com/personajes/cleopatra7/cleopatra.jpg
http://intranet.grundel.nl/thinkquest/cleopatra.jpg

Not a bad page:
http://www.tesorillo.com/preimperio/cleopatra/cleopatra.htm

just for laughs, with Baghdad Bob:
http://www.welovetheiraqiinformationminister.com/images/cleopatra.jpg

And from the imagination, Victorian paintings, by Alma-Tadema:
http://www.artsales.com/ARTistory/Ancient_Ships/images/Cleopatra_on_the_Way_to_Actium.jpg

...and by Waterhouse:
http://www.wyldeart.com/Galleries/Victorian-Classicism/Waterhouse/images/Cleopatra_1Up.jpg

and a painting by Gerome:
http://www.asaeditora.org/images/cleopatra_before_ceasar_gerome.jpg

[Republicanprofessor]

I don't know about Hillary Clinton....but I always thought that they portrayed Hatshepsut as a male because those were the conventions of the time. Not all of them had the beard. The seated image here is actually the better in terms of quality, subtlety, etc. But I especially like the kilt that popping out in the standing image. Talk about conventions instead of realism.

[thefactor]

"She's a MAN, baby!"