Word: romanizing
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Egyptian god Osiris. Nearly two dozen coins unearthed there bear Cleopatra's profile and inscription, and carvings in the temple enclosure show two lovers in an embrace. A ceramic fragment supposedly mirrors the cleft chin of the rebel general Mark Antony - leading Hawass to speculate that it is the Roman's own death mask. Archaeologists already dug up the mummies of ten nobles around the site, a sign, perhaps, that a more regal prize dwells within. Using ground-penetrating radar, they have spied out three further subterranean passageways which they believe could lead to the grave. "If this tomb...
...people," says Joyce Tyldesley, an archaeologist at the University of Liverpool and author of Cleopatra: Last Queen of Egypt, published last year. It's a symbol that has not always been flattering. Centuries of Western literature evoked Cleopatra as a lustful seductress, corrupting the stoic Roman men who strayed into her orbit. European empires seized upon this metaphor of temptation and decadence: after Napoleon's ill-fated invasion of Egypt, the French government issued a commemorative coin nevertheless, depicting France as a virile Roman conqueror standing over a bare-breasted, feminine figure of the East...
...from Cleopatra's identity - cranial scans of her half-sister's skull this year suggested she may be African, though her known lineage was Greek - to her looks. Close scrutiny of coin portraits have led some to believe that she was rather plain, a conclusion borne out by the Roman historian Plutarch who wrote "her beauty was in itself not altogether incomparable, nor such as to strike those...
...Even more questions linger surrounding her death, which signaled the dawn of the Roman Empire under Julius Caesar's nephew Octavian, who was waging a bitter civil war with Mark Antony. "She definitely died at a very convenient time for Octavian," says Tyldesley. "There is no absolute proof that she committed suicide, and so it is possible that she was either forced to do so, or that she was killed. Of course," she adds, "there is no proof that she died by snakebite, either...
...What happened? Maritime security analysts say a combination of factors - both on sea and land - contributed to the pirates' near total defeat. Most significantly, the success in the strait shows how concerted and well-coordinated action by regional governments can prevent pirate attacks on commercial shipping. "From Roman times to the Barbary pirates, throughout history, the reasons [for resolving piracy] are always the same," says Pottengal Mukundan, director of the International Marine Bureau in London. "For pirates, it becomes a much riskier activity. That is really the deterrent...