QUEENS, COUNTESSES & CLEOPATRA’S INFINITE VARIETY
This month as we celebrated International Women’s Day, our focus here at Immortal Egypt has definitely been the women from Egypt’s epic history, not only its queens and female pharaohs but its housewives, farmers, traders, weavers, priestesses, overseers and even a few of its prime ministerial viziers.
And with all these women highlighted in both our sold-out study days ‘Queens of Ancient Egypt’ incorporating talks, films and hands-on sessions (above), we’re continually inspired by rather more recent women too, from Egypt’s C.13th ruler Shajar al-Durr (‘Tree of Pearls’) to the peerless Umm Kulthum aka the ‘Voice of Egypt’ (recently ranked number 61 on Rolling Stone’s 200 Greatest Singers of All Time). And of course, by Egyptology’s ‘Founding Mother’ Amelia Edwards.
With Amelia’s extraordinary efforts not only creating the UK’s first university chair in Egyptian Archaeology but the Egypt Exploration Fund (now Society) to help preserve Egypt’s heritage at a time very few others were doing so (https://www.immortalegypt.co.uk/post/celebrating-the-founding-mother-of-egyptology-amelia-edwards), her network of Local Secretaries helped generate the all-important funds needed for such vital work in return for a share of finds, as was then the rule.
The most effective of these locally-based secretaries (now the EES’ Local Ambassadors) was Bolton-based Annie Barlow, thanks to whom Bolton not only established its special relationship with the EES but acquired its world-class Egyptian collection, now in the care of curator Ian Trumble, himself an EES Local Ambassador whose PhD research focuses on the Barlow family and Annie in particular. For women have always played a central role within Egyptology and in keeping Egypt’s precious heritage alive, something we’ve also discovered during our 20 years’ research into the fascinating life of Yorkshirewoman Alice Lieder, whose own contribution to Egyptology we're studying with our Egyptian colleagues, alongside other pioneering women with the support of the EES.
So it was an enormous honour to be able to discuss all this when invited by the Mayor and Mayoress of Bolton to a very special event in the company of the Countess of Carnarvon (below), prior to her fascinating talk about her predecessor Lady Almina Carnarvon and her husband, the 5th Earl, who of course discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun with Howard Carter in 1922.
All part of a programme accompanying the opening of Bolton Museum’s new exhibition ‘In the Temple of the Female Pharaoh: Hatshepsut & Howard Carter’ (a title we came up with around the Immortal Egypt kitchen table with Bolton curator Ian), the exhibition is based around an enormous watercolour kindly loaned by Amelia’s Egypt Exploration Society (below).
Painted in 1894 by 19 year old Carter when he was part of an EES team documenting wall scenes in Hatshepsut Deir el-Bahari temple, the exhibition also includes smaller Carter watercolours from the collections of the EES, Griffith Institute and V&A, plus atmospheric photos of Deir el-Bahri including one taken by keen photographer Lord Carnarvon when he and Carter were later excavating the site in their pre-Tutankhamun years. The images are also accompanied by artefacts we’d help select from Bolton’s collection, some discovered by the EES at Deir el-Bahari and others produced during Hatshepsut’s reign c.1479-1458 BC. And while the exhibition space may be small, it packs a huge punch thanks to Ian’s brilliant designs telling such a fantastic story (below).
So too the contents of a display case at the very entrance to the museum’s Egyptian galleries, in which Queen-themed Egyptomania again incorporates objects from Bolton’s collection alongside loans from the Egyptomania Museum http://egyptomaniamuseum.co.uk/collection/ondisplay/2025/boltonmuseum/ (below): Hatshepsut cigarette cards and ceramic figurines in nemes headcloths, Nefertiti’s iconic image adorning 1930s rouge pots, perfumes and French travel adverts(!), and of course, the great Cleopatra’s 1963 incarnation as Elizabeth Taylor inspiring Liz-lookalike paper dolls and adverts for 60s-style nail varnish and lipsticks.
As the most famous of our Queens of Egypt, Cleopatra’s eternal appeal is also reflected in many of the accompanying pre-Taylor objects too, from vintage song lyrics to a tin of henna hair dye and Victorian ceramic tiles. For the great woman has been inspiring artists and writers for centuries, albeit in most cases with little similarity to the pharaoh herself. With one of the best sources for the limited amount we do know written by AD C.1st biographer Plutarch and translated into English in 1579, this was used by William Shakespeare to create his own version of Cleopatra who has very much gained a life of her own since first appearing on stage around 1607. Constantly reinterpreted to suit each particular director and their target audience, the infinite varieties of Shakespeare’s Cleopatra have also inspired countless decorative artworks, including the aforementioned ceramic tiles (below).
Produced in 1875 by Mintons as part of a series portraying Shakespeare plays, they were designed by Scottish artist John Moyr Smith (1839-1912), the ‘most prominent pupil’ and collaborator of legendary designer Dr. Christopher Dresser (Antony and Cleopatra Tiles by Minton – The Egyptomania Museum). Moyr Smith himself was particularly drawn to Egypt’s ancient clothing and furniture which he also reproduced, exemplifying the Victorians’ love of antiquarian research combined with an increasing desire for authentic theatrical costumes.
And he was clearly very taken with his Cleopatra theme, around which he created not one but two designs in various colourways. With his first capturing the intimate moments in Act IV, scene 4, Cleopatra briefly steps out of her role as monarch to help prepare Antony for battle. As she kneels on a stool to buckle on Antony’s armour, her vulture crown with uraeus tops her long tresses made more visible as she bends forward, in contrast to Antony’s upright masculine stance embellished by his elaborate Roman cuirass.
Then in the second design from Act V scene II following Antony’s death, Cleopatra, once again the monarch, is seated on a couch, wearing the same vulture crown and patterned robe but this time reaching for the snake being offered by a servant. And even if her legendary ‘death by snakebite’ scenario was likely very different (as explained in our ‘Cleopatra the Great’ book below and at https://www.immortalegypt.co.uk/post/hidden-histories-of-the-hair-pin-starring-cleopatra-the-wearers-of-black), her suicide in 30 BC certainly terminated more than 3,000 years of pharaonic rule.
As a key event in Egypt’s epic history which formed a hugely powerful moment in English literature too, its depiction on the tiles brought Cleopatra’s story into so many British homes during the late C.19th when framed as wall art or inlaid into furniture and fireplaces (below).
By placing Egypt’s most famous female pharaoh at the very heart of Victoria’s Britain, the tiles reveal much about our own more recent history too, with one of the designs housed in the V&A https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1243771/antony-and-cleopatra-iviv-tile-smith-john-moyr/, the other in the British Museum https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/H_2000-1102-1, and the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust appropriately owning both https://collections.shakespeare.org.uk/search/museum/strst-sbt-2023-3-3/view_as/list/page/388.
So too the Egyptomania Museum, which has so many examples it can generously loan them out, not only to our ‘Resurrecting Ancient Egypt’ exhibition in Beverley but also to the new display at Bolton. And with their Cleopatra tiles the perfect object for their combined themes of queens, architecture and Egyptomania, we’re already thinking of replicating them here at Immortal Egypt, given their infinite possibilities as wall art, home decor and even wine coasters when raising a glass to celebrate some of history’s greatest women…
'In the Temple of the Female Pharaoh: Howard Carter and Hatshepsut' will be at Bolton Museum until the end of 2025; ‘Resurrecting Ancient Egypt’ is at Beverley’s Treasure House Museum until 10th May, with Jo’s talk 'The Story of Egypt's Royal Women' on 6th June as part of this year’s Books By the Beach literary festival in Scarborough, details at: Books_By_The_Beach_2025_DL_Brochure_FINAL.pdf
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