Archive for February, 2008

In my research yesterday, I found a really spiffy map of ancient Alexandria — spiffy, that is, except for being wildly inaccurate about the all-important Great Harbor. This isn’t the mapmaker’s fault. Alexandria’s coastline is radically different now as a result of seismic activity, erosion, and human manipulation. Antirrhodos, for example, the private royal island where Cleopatra’s palace was built, is now underwater. So until recently we could only guess at the ancient topography.

Fortunately, the past decade has seen a wealth of new data about the harbor area in particular, largely due to the underwater archaeological work of Franck Goddio. We now have a much better idea about what things looked like in Cleopatra’s time.

So I did some doctorin’ of the old map I found: transposing the Posidium/Timonium Peninsula with Antirrhodos, greatly altering the Lochian Peninsula, moving the current and former coastlines, changing the location of the Great Lighthouse of Pharos, and a host of other little things here and there. It’s a big file, but those interested in this revised map can find it here:

The Map of Cleopatra’s Alexandria (2.7 Mb)

Even this map still isn’t perfect for my purposes — if I were making it from scratch I’d open up a bigger area for the Paneum in the center of town, erase the post-Ptolemaic references, and better represent the structures in the city — but it’ll do until I finish the book.

I’m still not feeling great, so I wasn’t able to manage the kind of sustained concentration needed to do much writing today. Instead, I spent the greater part of the day trying doing research. In particular, I’m trying to build as complete a picture as I can of Cleopatra’s Alexandria. Not only is this good background data (a good chunk of Four Shards of Heaven takes place there), but it will be instrumental in the composition of a particular upcoming chase scene.

Many great things found: a Discovery Channel special on the city, with a few tantalizing renderings; a discussion of Alexandrian-Nabatean trade links; a copy of Strabo’s account of Alexandria; and — best of all — an interesting notice from Archaeology about a possible snippet of writing from the hand of the queen herself:

A single Greek word, ginesthoi, or “make it so,” written at the bottom of a Ptolemaic papyrus may have been written by the Egyptian queen Cleopatra VII herself, says Dutch papyrologist Peter van Minnen of the University of Groningen. Received in Alexandria on Mecheir 26 (February 23, 33 B.C.), the papyrus text, recycled for use in the construction of a cartonnage mummy case found by a German expedition at Abusir in 1904, appears to be a royal ordinance granting tax exemption to one Publius Canidius, an associate of Mark Antony’s who would command his land army during the Battle of Actium in 31 B.C.

I simply must try to work Publius Canidius into the story now.

Make it so!