Anubis

This jackal-headed god would hold the scales on which the hearts of dead Egyptians were weighed; if the heart was light enough, Anubis would lead the dead to Osiris (the god of the afterlife) but if it was too heavy, the soul would be destroyed. Anubis was more highly revered than Osiris up until the Middle Kingdom era.

Represented as a man in the form of a mummy, Ptah was the god of craftsmen, architects and the demiurge that existed before all things.

It was his thought that actually made the world manifest itself and as such he was an extremely important god - a prototypical god of creation and imagination.

Composed of various different animals, Seth was the semivillainous god of storms and chaos. Out of jealously he murdered his brother Osiris and hacked his body into pieces so he could not be resurrected. However, in some of the outlying parts of the Egyptian empire, he was regarded as a heroic chief deity.

Tefnut was strongly associated with both the Moon and the Sun but was known as the goddess of moisture and the mother of the sky and the Earth. She was generally depicted as either a lioness or a woman with a lion's head, with a temper to match, and was frequently drawn holding a sceptre, a sign of power.

Cleopatra

Cleopatra

In 30 BCE, a love affair between a powerful queen and a respected military leader caused scandal in Rome and ultimately brought about the end of a royal dynasty

CLEOPATRA VII

Egypt, circa 69-30 BCE

Cleopatra was the daughter of Ptolemy XII Auletes and Cleopatra V.

Born in Alexandria in 69 BCE her bloodline propagated a series of brother-sister marriages that were frequently corroded by family violence and murder. After a tumultuous reign, Octavian of Rome invaded Egypt and ended her rule. Rather than face the humiliation of defeat, Cleopatra committed suicide.

Cleopatra VII remains an icon of both the ancient and modern world. Today, she continues to captivate and puzzle historians, remaining one of history's most enchanting and enigmatic figures.

The alliance of Mark Antony and Cleopatra changed the face of the world. A coalition which began as a political statement soon evolved into a tumultuous, and later tragic, love affair.

Despite her florid reputation, Cleopatra took only two lovers - both were rulers of Rome. Cleopatra recognised Rome as the leading power of the ancient world. Egypt, rich in gold and grain, provided the material resources to fuel that power. Both affairs had begun with a political agenda.

They had enabled the queen to establish a secure and profitable union between Rome and Egypt. Despite this, however, events took an unexpected turn when she met the younger general. Cleopatra and Mark Antony fell in love, embarking on a passionate and unpredictable relationship that brought both riches and remorse. Their partnership, as lovers and politicians, both immortalised and destroyed a dynasty - it brought to a close 3,000 years of pharaonic rule.

Long before her meeting with Mark Antony, the queen had borne a child to her first Roman lover, Gaius Julius Caesar and she had named the child Caesarion - 'little Caesar'. In doing so, Cleopatra had secured for herself an enormous power base, for Caesar had no heir. Despite its material wealth, Egypt had suffered years of famine that had

MARKANTONY

Rome/Egypt. 83-30 BCE

Marcus Antonius was born in 83 BC and, as a young man, was known as something ' of a playboy in Rome. But after fighting alongside Julius Caesar on the battlefield, he quickly established his military prowess. After Caesar's assassination, he formed a power trio with Marcus Lepidus and Octavian, but his growing love of the Egyptian queen Cleopatra would prove to be his downfall.

"Octavian arranged a marriage between Mark Antony and his sister, Octavla - infuriating the Egyptian queen”

Weakened the reserves of her granaries and her people. The country was in eclipse. Her allied states had also felt the grip of Rome tightening around their throats. Alexandria had long been important to Rome. As a gateway to the East, it was a major port with a large cosmopolitan community. It was renowned for its libraries, culture and trade. Egypt also had an abundant source of grain with which it fed its imperial army. On the other hand, the Romans regarded the Egyptian people and their religion with suspicion - its cults, along with its strange animal-headed gods, were an abomination to the refined Roman senses.

While her alliance with Rome continued, Cleopatra - and her throne - remained secure.

For this reason, Cleopatra courted Rome and its leading figures. From the beginning, Cleopatra was an enigma to a man like Mark Antony. Having grown up in Rome, he was familiar with upper-class women who were cloistered in the home and whose only role in life was to be that of good wives and mothers. The women of Rome were largely regarded as vessels of chastity; Cleopatra was the antithesis of a Roman woman.

Growing up in a political, dangerous household where life was precarious, she was descended from a long line of rulers - all named Ptolemy - who could trace their line to the time of Alexander the Great. In order to keep their bloodline pure, female rulers often married their brothers. This practice brought outward strength but inner conflicts; during her early life Cleopatra witnessed brutal power struggles within her own family. Indeed, as her power grew, she had no choice but to execute her rival siblings.

Cleopatra had to live by her wits. She was a highly educated woman with a sharp mind and a keen instinct. She spoke several languages, including Egyptian - making her unique among her peers. She was a cultivated woman, a patron of the arts and devoted to books. Despite her later reputation as a femme fatale, she was not considered beautiful. It was said she had a charismatic presence, was a fine conversationalist and had a sweet, seductive voice - a trait she may have cultivated as a child. Most importantly, Cleopatra was a survivor; she knew that in order to sustain her throne, she needed to control the might of Rome, and Mark Antony could offer this. Mark Antony and Cleopatra were as fire and water.

Born in January 83 BCE, Antony was a true son of Rome. Like Cleopatra, he sought decadence and danger - he had quickly gained a reputation for drinking and gambling, and seems to have been attracted to exotic religious cults. Later, he earned fame and fortune among the militia; as the commander of a cavalry regiment he received great honours fighting with Caesar's armies in Gaul. Antony and Caesar formed a mutual friendship and a distant kinship had strengthened their alliance. As Caesar's star ascended, so too had Mark Antony's, and when the elder man became dictator, Antony was appointed Magister Equitum (Master of the Horse) and governed Rome in Caesar's absence. Better suited to the battlefield, Mark Antony made an impetuous politician - highly volatile, his excesses in wine and women became the topic of

A 19th-Century depiction of Cleopatra on the River Nile

Much public gossip, for these often included affairs with other men's wives.

After the assassination of Caesar, Cleopatra and Mark Antony fled Rome and Cleopatra returned to Egypt. With Caesar dead, her position had become tenuous. The Romans regarded a female ruler with abhorrence and she desperately needed an ally in the Senate. When revolt failed to materialise, Mark Antony returned to the Forum to find a city outraged at the atrocities that had befallen Caesar.

The assassins were executed or fell into obscurity, and it was left to Octavian (Caesar's appointed heir), Lepidus (his trusted commander) and Mark Antony to calm the storm. The three men formed the Second Triumvirate granting themselves equal powers of government.

Antony was now in a strong position. As the three men began to carve out Roman territory each assigned themselves important provinces. Mark

Myth vs reality

Just how realistic is our modern conception of the Egyptian queen?

A modern reader's perspective of Cleopatra has no doubt been heavily influenced by the numerous works of fiction that have been released charting her life in the many centuries following her death. Foremost among these must arguably be William Shakespeare's 1623 tragedy Antony And Cleopatra, a play that follows events from the Sicilian revolt of 44 BCE through to the Final War of the Roman Republic in which Cleopatra commits suicide in 30 BCE by asp bite.

In this performance, Cleopatra is frequently portrayed as beautiful, power-hungry and manipulative. So how accurate is Shakespeare's representation of the Egyptian ruler? Well, it is loosely based on a translation of Plutarch's Parallel Lives - a series of biographies on famous Greek and Roman men that were printed in a first edition in Florence in the early-16th Century (no doubt where Shakespeare picked it up). The one in question from which the Great Bard draws is the Life Of Mark Antony, which is interesting, as it does not deal directly with the pharaoh but rather with the Roman general and his relationship to her.

Further, Shakespeare does not lay out events of the time as stated by Plutarch, with dates and events shifted in time and contrasting accounts of Cleopatra simplified. A good

Example of this is how varying accounts of her death, including death by poisoning, willing death by snake bike to the arm and unwilling accidental snakebite to the arm, is rewritten as willing death by snakebite to the breast.

Of course, Shakespeare's account of Cleopatra has been further embellished in subsequent centuries with other works of fiction such as the well-known 1963 Hollywood film adaptation of her life with Elizabeth Taylor playing the lead. Aside from Taylor's questionable portrayal, this movie introduced many smaller yet pervasive inaccuracies such as Cleopatra wearing her hair in bangs. In reality, the Egyptian queen would have worn a wig of tight curls on top of her head, which would have been shaven.