by Pat Brown
As I sat inside what would become my favorite burial chamber, deep inside the Great Pyramid in Giza, I envisioned what we’ve been told happened twenty centuries ago in a room supposedly just like this one. This square vault was so deep inside Cheops’s magnificent structure, I felt I had truly crawled back in time to the cusp of the millennium. There was nothing painted on these walls of the room, nothing of beauty to be seen (the unadorned oddity of this interior room in the Great Pyramid has yet to be satisfactorily explained by historians). I felt as if I were alone in the center of Cleopatra’s last days, a landscape barren of hope for the embattled queen. Although the stark room in which I sat was built many years before the birth of Cleopatra, the inside of this tomb would not be so different from one the last pharaoh would find herself ensconced, should she be laid to rest in proper Macedonian or Egyptian tradition. Wherever and whenever the queen’s body was put to rest, it would be in a similar simple, fully sealed room with just enough space to fit a platform topped with a big stone box in which to secrete the casket. Around the platform, riches would be piled to travel with her into the afterworld. The walls would be adorned with colorful paintings, as likely would the narrow entranceway leading from the outside into the burial vault. It is a small, simple cubicle, not roomy and elaborate living quarters.
It is here that I needed to start my return trek into pharaonic times to pick up where I left off from my last trip to Egypt with the Atlantic crew, to dig even deeper into the mystery of Cleopatra’s death.
I reviewed what I had learned from my visits to the various tombs and from the study of history leading up to the death of Cleopatra, purportedly taking place inside a tomb room like the one in which I was now sitting. In reality, Cleopatra’s tomb would have looked more like a Macedonian tomb than an Egyptian one (the small subterranean alabaster tomb in Alexandria that may or may not have been the burial chamber of Alexander the Great would be a good representation of such a tomb); however, the burial vault inside would be very much the same. But, whether the origin of Cleopatra’s mausoleum architecture was Macedonian or Egyptian, the one thing I noted for sure in all the tombs I visited was that none of them seemed a convenient place to store the entire Ptolemaic treasury or to burn up all the wealth of the pharaohs, as Cleopatra supposedly told Octavian she was planning to do. With the lack of much air in these places, I doubt a fire would burn terribly well or long, nor would hanging out for an extended period of time with the door shut be tolerable; it is terribly hot, dark, and airless in these underground or interior burial chambers. Burial tombs are nothing like the structures Plutarch describes.
Now that she had a tomb and monument built surpassingly lofty and beautiful, which she had erected near the temple of Isis, collected there the most valuable of the royal treasures, gold, silver, emeralds, pearls, ebony, ivory, and cinnamon; and besides all this she put there great quantities of torch-wood and tow, so that Caesar was anxious about the reason, and fearing lest the woman might become desperate and burn up and destroy this wealth.4
Furthermore, none of these tombs appeared to be on the ground floor of large, square, aboveground buildings, as Cleopatra’s mausoleum was described in the ancient texts. The other thing I learned after visiting tomb after tomb is that the construction was solid; no shoddy work or flimsy materials were used here. These tombs were intended to keep out all the elements.
The writings of Plutarch oddly describe the interior of the tomb as similar to that of a room in the royal palace or a large interior room of a grand temple. Indeed, in many paintings depicting Cleopatra in her mausoleum, we see a velvet bed upon which Cleopatra is draped and, around her, the decorations of a fine sitting room or a throne room. Yet, in each of the tombs I visited, no such comfortable ambience was present. The rooms weren’t even large enough to accommodate more than the coffin and the ruler’s selected possessions.
She begged Caesar that she might be permitted to pour libations for Antony; and when the request was granted, she had herself carried to the tomb, and embracing the urn which held his ashes, in company with the women usually about her.
After such lamentations, she wreathed and kissed the urn, and then ordered a bath to be prepared for herself. After her bath, she reclined at table and was making a sumptuous meal.5
Tombs have one thing in common: they are secure vaults. In the Valley of the Kings where one can actually see colorful artwork adorning the walls of the entranceways and the tombs themselves, there is still no question that this is a final destination. First, there is the long crippled-over or hands-and-knees crawl down, down, down, or up, up, up—inching along inside the tight tunnel walls, so encroaching that many visitors simply refuse to make the attempt. There is an odd feeling of air escaping from your chest as you make your way down the shaft, even though your brain is telling you that this is a tourist venue, that you will arrive shortly at your goal and be perfectly fine.
When you get there, finally, finally, you can stand up. You have entered the resting place of a god. And you feel alone, even with others. The weight of the earth above, or the massive stones above, below, and on all sides, causes an uncomfortable feeling of entrapment. This is a grave, albeit a slightly larger one than most of our bodies will ever reside within. In the middle of each room is a stone platform, with a stone outer casket placed on top of it. This, then, is it. A body encased in stone, upon stone, within stone. It is stifling and eternal and inescapable. This is no place to linger, to hide in, to bargain from within. It is no hotel room with furniture and bath and dining facilities. It is simply a storage unit for someone no longer needing to see the light or expend energy. It would not have been Cleopatra’s choice of a hiding place or a holdout. Yet this is where the ancient texts claim Cleopatra spent her last days and chose to end her life.
The final moments of the last Egyptian pharaoh are the most famous in all history, barring that of Jesus Christ’s crucifixion at Golgotha outside of Jerusalem. Those last minutes of the great queen Cleopatra’s life have been reenacted for centuries on stage in Shakespeare’s famed play, Antony and Cleopatra. We have watched, mesmerized, as the beautiful pharaoh clutches the hissing snake, mouth wide open, fangs visible, and then presses it to her breast. We shudder as we hear her gasp loudly for breath, her throat muscles contracting in a vicious spasm, moaning as excruciating pain surges through her being.
Then, tears came to our eyes as the actress playing Cleopatra collapsed to the floor, artistically posing herself in as attractive a heap as she could muster for a lifeless body on display. It is a scene not easily forgotten.
As reported by Plutarch:
After such lamentations, she wreathed and kissed the urn, and then ordered a bath to be prepared for herself. After her bath, she reclined at table and was making a sumptuous meal. And there came a man from the country carrying a basket; and when the guards asked him what he was bringing there, he opened the basket, took away the leaves, and showed them that the dish inside was full of figs. The guards were amazed at the great size and beauty of the figs, whereupon the man smiled and asked them to take some; so they felt no mistrust and bade him take them in. After her meal, however, Cleopatra took a tablet which was already written upon and sealed, and sent it to Caesar, and then, sending away all the rest of the company except her two faithful women, she closed the doors.
But Caesar opened the tablet, and when he found there lamentations and supplications of one who begged that he would bury her with Antony, he quickly knew what had happened. At first he was minded to go himself and give aid; then he ordered messengers to go with all speed and investigate. But the mischief had been swift. For though his messengers came on the run and found the guards as yet aware of nothing, when they opened the doors they found Cleopatra lying dead upon a golden couch, arrayed in royal state. And of her two women, the one called Iras was dying at her feet, while Charmion, already tottering and heavy-handed, was trying to arrange the diadem which encircled the queen’s brow. Then somebody said in anger: �
��A fine deed, this, Charmion!” “It is indeed most fine,” she said, “and befitting the descendant of so many kings.” Not a word more did she speak, but fell there by the side of the couch.
It is said that the asp was brought with those figs and leaves and lay hidden beneath them, for thus Cleopatra had given orders, that the reptile might fasten itself upon her body without her being aware of it. But when she took away some of the figs and saw it, she said: “There it is, you see,” and baring her arm she held it out for the bite. But others say that the asp was kept carefully shut up in a water jar, and that while Cleopatra was stirring it up and irritating it with a golden distaff it sprang and fastened itself upon her arm. But the truth of the matter no one knows; for it was also said that she carried about poison in a hollow comb and kept the comb hidden in her hair; and yet neither spot nor other sign of poison broke out upon her body. Moreover, not even was the reptile seen within the chamber, though people said they saw some traces of it near the sea, where the chamber looked out upon it with its windows. And some also say that Cleopatra’s arm was seen to have two slight and indistinct punctures; and this Caesar also seems to have believed. For in his triumph an image of Cleopatra herself with the asp clinging to her was carried in the procession. These, then, are the various accounts of what happened.6
And from Cassius Dio:
No one knows clearly in what way she perished, for the only marks on her body were slight pricks on the arm. Some say she applied to herself an asp which had been brought in to her in a water-jar, or perhaps hidden in some flowers. Others declare that she had smeared a pin, with which she was wont to fasten her hair, with some poison possessed of such a property that in ordinary circumstances it would not injure the body at all, but if it came into contact with even a drop of blood would destroy the body very quietly and painlessly; and that previous to this time she had worn it in her hair as usual, but now had made a slight scratch on her arm and had dipped the pin in the blood. In this or in some very similar way she perished, and her two handmaidens with her. As for the eunuch, he had of his own accord delivered himself up to the serpents at the very time of Cleopatra’s arrest, and after being bitten by them had leaped into a coffin already prepared for him. When Caesar heard of Cleopatra’s death, he was astounded, and not only viewed her body but also made use of drugs and Psylli in the hope that she might revive. These Psylli are males, for there is no woman born in their tribe, and they have the power to suck out any poison of any reptile, if use is made of them immediately, before the victim dies; and they are not harmed themselves when bitten by any such creature.7
And from Suetonius:
Cleopatra he greatly desired to lead as a captive in his triumphal procession and even had Psylli brought to her who were to suck out the venomous liquid—it was believed that her death was caused by the bite of an asp. He honoured them both with a joint burial, giving orders that the tomb which they themselves had started to build be completed.8
Through the writings of Plutarch, Cassius Dio, and Suetonius, the ancient historians who narrated the tales of ancient Egypt and Rome, I reconstruct the final episode of Cleopatra’s life and visualize the scene inside the tomb where the figures of Cleopatra and her handmaidens lay still and unmoving on the cool marble floor. Yet, unlike Shakespeare, who used his stories to create an entertaining show, I choose to examine their accounts as a forensic investigator, using logic and science to determine what is true and what is not, piecing together the past until I have as truthful a picture of the events as possible.
From the corner of Cheops’s burial chamber, I envision the scene.
The tomb is now empty save the bodies of the three women. The guards, the physician, and the snake charmers, purportedly sent to save the queen, have all left the mausoleum to report back to Octavian. From then until the moment the cleanup crew arrives to take care of the deceased, the crime scene will not change. It is this particular event I must examine before it is permanently erased, the evidence eliminated, and the tomb sealed for all time.
Cleopatra and Antony will disappear into the sands along with the building that encases them, leaving only fragments of evidence strewn about the region. The stories of their lives and deaths will undergo many modifications, and even this scene in the tomb is a questionable rendition. But by doing my best with it, examining the known evidence, both physical and behavioral, I can put together what really happened to Cleopatra and all those who had traveled the treacherous road through history with her.
At the very beginning of any death investigation, I know very little, usually only that a person, or more than one person, has met with some unfortunate turn of events that has led to their demise. I do not know if they met their fates through accident, suicide, homicide, natural causes, or, if there are multiple corpses, by any combination of these manners of death.
The same is true for Cleopatra and her handmaidens. All I know is that they are dead and here they lie in the mausoleum, unmoving in their final death positions as if someone had yelled out “Freeze!” and they had obeyed. That they are dead is my first verifiable fact, and as I begin collecting and analyzing the evidence, the picture begins to fill out.
First, I find there is the claim by Octavian that Cleopatra and her servants have committed suicide. The queen’s physician, who visited the scene of the crime and pronounced the ladies dead, did not state the deaths were natural, so we can determine that their deaths were at least suspicious. The investigation is worth pursuing because in any death where there is a possibility that the deceased did not die from disease or old age, one should conduct an examination to determine the actual cause and manner of the fatality. If there has been foul play, the victim deserves a full exploration of the circumstances to bring the truth to light and to have the perpetrator or perpetrators who took his or her life brought to justice.
If too much time has passed for the guilty to stand trial for their crimes, it is never too late for the pages of history to be corrected to reflect a more accurate accounting of the events.
During the last trip I made to Egypt, I met up with Professor David Warrell, a poison expert with the University of Oxford. After a hair-raising taxi ride through the streets of Cairo, Dr. Warrell and I arrived at a secluded cobra facility and examined the various snakes found in the region. Only one snake turned out to be a candidate for the job of Cleopatra’s killer, and that was the Egyptian Cobra, the Naja Haje. This was the only one with sufficient venom to do the job.
Standing within a couple of feet of that large hooded asp flicking its tongue at me, watching it rise in the air each time the old, grizzled snake handler ticked it off with the poke of a stick, I realized what the women in the tomb would have been dealing with (even if it had been a smaller asp, as some people think might have been smuggled in with the figs, the fact that it is so deadly makes even a tiny snake just as terrifying). I had moved quite near to the snake and, suddenly, it occurred to me that none of the production team was within twenty feet of the beast; just me, Dr. Warrell, and a man who was so up in years that he didn’t likely have that much time left in the world anyway. Clearly, fear of deadly snakes is a natural deterrent that keeps people at a safe distance. To be willing to reach out and touch one would require great courage and an acceptance of death that few humans have; Cleopatra, perhaps, but her handmaidens, doubtful.
Dr. Warrell filled me in on the scientific facts of the cobra and its venomous ability to kill, and I inserted this knowledge into the tomb crime-scene scenario.
The beautiful and beloved queen of Egypt and her handmaidens had reached the end of their lives. It has been believed for over two thousand years that a snake of this sort—a cobra or an asp—was responsible for the deaths of all three ladies. The physician in attendance said there were two marks on Cleopatra’s arm that resembled a snake bite, yet no tests were conducted to prove that venom was actually within any of these purported puncture marks.
Furthermore, there was never mention of similar m
arks on the bodies of the other two women. Nor is it mentioned that anyone actually examined the bodies of the handmaidens; perhaps they were of so little consequence that any information about their deaths did not rate worth mentioning.
But if indeed a snake was the weapon used to bring about the deaths of Cleopatra and her handmaidens, why was the reptile never reported to have been seen or found within the tomb? Why weren’t Octavian’s men afraid of being struck down by the deadly cobra? If they had passed the snake from victim to victim, wouldn’t the last woman to die have dropped the snake to the floor? Or if all three had stuck their hands into the container to access the deadly snake, wouldn’t it have been left in the basket of figs? Once it was “realized” that a poisonous snake caused the death of the three females, wouldn’t it be natural for any human being to be unnerved at the thought of the creature slithering within the walls of the tomb, a building that was practically hermetically sealed?
Though still in the process of being built, the work in progress was supposedly on an upper floor or the roof, not the ground level. The brand-new floors and walls would yield neither a crack nor a gap where the perpendicular surfaces meet (and even in those most ancient of tombs I visited, I never saw a sliver of space where the floors met the walls).
The asp had nowhere to go except to circle around futilely. Surely the men would be unwilling to share space with the deadly snake. One would expect them to shout out warnings, walk cautiously about, fearing the cobra would suddenly strike from behind or emerge from under an object concealing its location. They would search the tomb thoroughly, prepared to crush the poisonous viper as soon as it was discovered.
