Science books delve into Egyptian history

Cleopatra - Last Queen of Egypt Click here for more information.

Fans of the ancient Egyptians will be interested to know that University of Manchester Egyptologists have published two new books.

'Cleopatra – Last Queen of Egypt' is a revealing biography of one of Egypt’s greatest rulers told, not through the histories of the Romans or the lens of Hollywood myth-making, but through the expert knowledge of Joyce Tyldesley.

Joyce, an Egyptian queens specialist in the KNH Centre for Biomedical Egyptology and Manchester Museum, has stripped away preconceptions and used her skills as an Egyptologist to give a rich picture of a country and its queen.

“Cleopatra was the last monarch of the Macedonian dynasty of Ptolemies who had ruled Egypt for three centuries,” said Joyce.

“Highly educated – she was the only one of the Ptolemies to read and speak ancient Egyptian as well as the court Greek – and clever – her famous trysts with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony were as much to do with politics as the heart – Cleopatra steered her kingdom through impossibly taxing internal crises and defended it against Roman imperialism.”