Where is Cleopatra buried?
Cleopatra portrayed by American movie star Elizabeth Taylor on the Hollywood screen
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Cleopatra portrayed by American movie star Elizabeth Taylor on the Hollywood screen
The love tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra has captured the world's imagination for hundreds of years. Lost to his old rival Octavian in the last battle of Port Alexandra. In agony, humiliation, and the (fake) news that his lover Cleopatra had died, Anthony turned the sword on himself.
However, Cleopatra was not dead. It is said that after Octavian's victory she hid in her tomb. Anthony was carried back and died of his injuries, in the arms of his lover.
In order not to fall under the rule of the Romans, on August 12, 30 BC, Cleopatra committed suicide - she died after being bitten by a poisonous snake. At the age of 39, she was surrounded by beloved pearls, gold, silver and countless treasures.
Cleopatra's body was mummified and buried with Antony.
Sixteen hundred years later, Shakespeare lamented in his works, "No mausoleum in the world is as famous as this one."
Where exactly Cleopatra is buried has always been fascinating. If her mausoleum is as grand as the Romans describe it, it certainly should have left a mark in the history of Port Alexandra.
However, no one has ever found the site of the mausoleum. Alexandra and the surrounding area have attracted less attention than some of the more ancient sites on the Nile, and the archaeological excavations within the city are difficult. Much of the ancient city is now submerged in about 20 feet of water.
A breakthrough appeared in 2006. At that time, Zahi Hawass, secretary general of the Iranian High Council of Antiquities, announced that Cleopatra's tomb had been found! The site is in the ruins of the Temple of Osiris, not far from Taporis Magna and about 30 kilometers west of Alexandra. But, puzzlingly, Hawass later denied making the announcement.
Archaeologist Kathleen Martinez was granted permission to excavate at the temple site. After 10 years of digging, hundreds of small objects were found, including pottery, bones, but no secret tomb was found. However, Martinez believes that Cleopatra was buried there.
If Cleopatra's tomb is found, earthquakes will occur in the archaeological circle all over the world. One small catch, though, is that if archaeologists are pinning their hopes on short written records, the results are sure to be disappointing. There is no doubt about that. Such as finding Cleopatra's tomb, can you rely on the descriptions of enemy Roman historians?
Recommended by: Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, Professor of Ancient History at Cardiff University.
Who built Stonehenge? Why?
Stonehenge
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Stonehenge, England: The deeper the investigation, the further the mystery
The Mystery of Britain's Stonehenge May Have Been Solved
The crowd dissipated, and the jackdaws flew high. Everything was silent, and I could fully appreciate the splendor of Stonehenge.
I did my first archaeological dig here 40 years ago. Time flies, and now we know far more about Stonehenge than I ever imagined. However, as for who built Stonehenge and why, can we now conclude? My opinion is: no. On the contrary, the more you know, the further the mystery will be.
Our understanding of ancient times is based on archaeological discoveries and imagination. One of the oldest legends about Stonehenge is that the wizard used magic to "fly" the boulder from Ireland.
No historical records could be found, and historians attribute this great achievement to the ancients of other countries: Greece, Rome, the Danes in the early Middle Ages. In 1901, such speculation began to lose its footing. After the first scientific excavation at the site, the tools and clothing unearthed belonged to prehistoric British.
Still, the extraordinary nature of Stonehenge's design and stone meant that, until the 1960s, it was still believed that it might have something to do with Mediterranean or even Greek architecture. By then, however, most archaeologists had accepted the modern view: Stonehenge was entirely the brainchild of Neolithic Aboriginal people.
Next, the focus of the study shifts from who built it to what society was like at the time. Is it the ultimate symbol of culture in a highly hierarchic society—a large monument to status, power, or a show of control? Perhaps the center of a more egalitarian society where people come together to trade, socialize, and perform ceremonies?
The short version that circulates also includes that Stonehenge is a sex symbol, an observatory, etc., and so on. All of this fails to really explain Stonehenge.
With technological innovation and the increase in unearthed artifacts, more archaeologists are asking more questions, and the amount and variety of data we now have far exceeds what I imagined when I started digging 40 years ago. But as a result, we still can't answer the question: why should Stonehenge be built.
On the contrary, the more you understand, the more deeply you realize how great and wonderful the technical achievements of Stonehenge are.
In 1810, Richard Colt Hoare, a British antiquarian and archaeologist, stood in front of Stonehenge and sighed, "How amazing! How profound!"
One of the greatest achievements in archaeology of the past 200 years has proved Howl right: Stonehenge is truly magical and unpredictable!
Recommended by: Mike Pitts, archaeologist, author, recent book Digging Britain: Ten Discoveries, Million Years of History, published in 2019.
Why did Lin Biao flee?
Lin Biao and Mao Zedong in 1971
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Lin Biao and Mao Zedong together in 1971
China Perspective: Why did the Lin Biao case become an "iron case"?
On September 13, 1971, a Trident 1E passenger plane crashed in the Gobi Desert of Undur Khan, Mongolia, and none of the nine people on board survived, including Lin Biao.
Lin Biao's death shocked not only China but also the world. Because Lin Biao was Mao Zedong's appointed successor and the deputy commander-in-chief of the Chinese People's Liberation Army. During the civil war from 1946 to 1949, Lin Biao made great achievements for the CCP to conquer the world. In the 1960s and 1970s, the Cultural Revolution swept China wildly, and Lin Biao's People's Liberation Army had a more prominent position in China.
However, in the early morning of September 13, Lin Biao, his wife Ye Qun, his son Lin Liguo and other nine people hurriedly fled the Lin house and boarded a waiting airliner...
Lin Biao was one of Mao Zedong's most trusted comrades in arms and comrades. Why did he flee? The official Chinese explanation is that Lin Biao plotted a coup, usurped the party and seized power, and tried to escape from China to the Soviet Union, which at the time had hostile relations with China, before being caught.
Shortly after Mao Zedong's death, a large number of historical archives were destroyed, so there is no information to challenge the official version of the Lin Biao incident. However, some aspects of the event are puzzling. Why did Lin Biao stage a coup? In the early 1970s, it was obvious that Mao was already in poor health, and Lin Biao and others must have known that they could take over without waiting too long.
A later argument was that Lin Biao, like Mao's wife Jiang Qing, opposed China's easing relations with the United States, but Zhou Enlai, the premier at the time, was very supportive. One theory is that factionalism over the issue led the Lin Biao family to decide to flee before getting caught up in court political scuffles. There is also evidence that in 1971 Lin Biao was tired of politics, and (if anything changed) his wife and son would lose their political positions.
In recent years, more evidence has emerged, including a report on a Russian investigation into the crash site released after the end of the Cold War. However, the truth seems more cloudy. For example, after Lin Biao's passenger plane left Beijing, it seemed that it flew south first, rather than north, indicating that the Soviet Union might not be Lin Biao's intended destination.
So far, the crash remains inconclusive. However, the Lin Biao incident at least shows that during the Cultural Revolution, the long-standing alliance between the Chinese leadership collapsed and became a snake pit of mutual distrust. Perhaps it is not difficult to understand that today’s Communist Party leaders still regard that period as a disaster.
Recommended by: Rana Mitter, new book, "The Cold War in China: How World War II Shaped a New Nationalism," to be published later this year.
Did the Roman legions really settle in China?
Lijin people perform fish scale formation
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Although the mystery of whether the Lijin people are descendants of ancient Roman legions has not been solved, it has attracted the attention of researchers and tourists
That sound must have been terrifying. A Roman legion of about 5,000 people, 5,000 people has 10,000 feet, each foot wears military slippers with nails, one shoe is clanging on the stone road, 10,000 must be deafening, and it is clear to the enemy of the empire: prepare Let's fight.
Two thousand years later, a mystery left by the Roman legions remains unsolved.
This starts with the Battle of Kalai. Crassus, one of the three giants of the Roman Empire, launched an attack on his old rival, the Parthian Empire (located near today's Turkey, known as the Parthian Empire in Western history books), and suffered a complete failure. Calle became Crassus' Waterloo. On that day in 53 BC, Crassus was beheaded by enemy soldiers...
The Battle of Carle was the worst military defeat in the history of the Roman Empire. Thousands of Roman soldiers who survived one death were captured and transported east. Although the Roman poet Horace once wrote that there were Roman legionaries who later married Parthian women, their true fate remains a mystery.
In the mid-20th century, Homer Dubs, an Oxford China studies expert, suggested that Roman legionaries traveled farther east than previously thought, possibly thousands of miles to the east.
A few years after the Battle of Kalai, war broke out in a Chinese city. On the battlefield, the combat behavior of some mercenaries was unprecedented in China: they chained their shields tightly to defend against the enemy. Such a defensive formation is called "fish scale formation" in Chinese. Although the saying of the fish scale array is only found in Chinese literature, the way of chaining shields is one of the typical movements and tricks of the Roman legion, called tortoise shell array.
Almost at the same time, a small town named Lijin (meaning Rome in ancient Chinese) was created in northwest China. Were Roman legionnaires who survived the Battle of Calle settled here?
Conjecture is still conjecture. Perhaps one day, we will find out the truth, where the deafening roar of the Roman army stopped.
Recommended by: Catherine Nixey, historian and author
Was the Trojan War fact or fiction?
Trojan horse slaughtering city
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Trojan Horse Massacre: Did the Trojan War Really Happen?
Trojan Horse Massacre: Did the Trojan War Really Happen?
The deepest and greatest unsolved mystery in ancient human history must be whether the Trojan War really happened.
According to Homer's epic "Iliad", the war between the Greeks led by King Agamemnon of Mycenae and the Trojans led by King Piam took place in the Late Bronze Age and lasted 10 years.
To many Greeks, including some reputable historians, the Trojan War was a myth, but an epoch-making event in ancient Greek history.
In the second half of the 5th century BC, the "father of history" Herodotus pointed out that the Trojan War occurred nearly 800 years before his time. The mathematician Eratosthenes said more specifically that the war took place in 1184 or 1183 BC.
Some of the details described in the Iliad do fit this historical period. The palace of King Piam, for example, is reminiscent of the opulent and imposing palaces built by the Mycenaeans on the Peloponnese in southern Greece.
But Homer's epics are not historical records. So in what sense could Homer's Trojan War be real?
To unearth the city of Troy in Homer's epic poem, the wealthy Prussian merchant Heinrich Schliemann traveled to what is now Turkey at the end of the 19th century. In Hisarlik on the west coast, Schliemann dug up the right spot. Today, most historians agree that the ancient city of Troy was located in Shisharik.
Archaeological digs have also uncovered arrowheads and human bones dating back to the war years described by Homer; remnants of the fire have also been found. Although the evidence is small, it is helpful to anyone who believes that the Trojan War really existed. In addition, there are preserved inscriptions from the Hittites, an ancient people in central Turkey, describing a dispute over Troy, which they called Wilusa.
This evidence, combined with the assertions of ancient historians, will no doubt make us take seriously the possibility that war did occur at Troy in the Late Bronze Age.
But even with war, the truth must be very different from Homer's description. For example, in such a small area, it's hard to imagine a war going on for 10 years; God certainly wouldn't go to the battlefield to intervene. But isn't Homer's epic the result of commemorating the historical events of Troy and sublimating its art?
We still can't draw conclusions. At least for now, the truth of the Trojan War is still far away from us.