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'Signed: Cleopatra'
26/10/2000 21:54 - (SA)
Berlin - "So be it," wrote Cleopatra two millennia ago as she paid off a Roman general - or at least that is how a Berlin museum explains what it says is a unique, newly discovered example of the fabled Egyptian queen's
writing.
The Egyptian Museum in the German capital put on display on Thursday a brief papyrus manuscript that came to light by chance from its archives and which, at the end of a decree written by a court official, bears the Greek word "genestho"
(so be it).
Written in black on the age-stained papyrus - and looking just a little like the signature "Jenny" to English readers - museum director Dietrich Wildung said it was the only known word written by Cleopatra VII of Egypt from 33 BC, two years before she and her Roman lover Mark Antony were defeated in battle.
Some Egyptologists have voiced doubts as to whether the queen herself put pen to papyrus.
But respected Dutch specialist Peter van Minnen told reporters he was certain the manuscript, first discovered in the wrappings of a mummy in 1904 but only identified by Van
Minnen last month, could only have been signed by the queen herself.
The order gave a series of tax breaks to commander Publius Canidius, who was close to Mark Antony, suggesting it may have been part of a scheme to get him to betray Rome in its
eventually victorious struggle with Egypt.
Canidius took part against his fellow Romans in the Battle of Actium in 31 BC on Mark Antony's losing side, after which both Mark Antony and his beautiful, ill-fated Egyptian queen took their own lives.
- Reuters
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