"Every city in Egypt has several or even dozens of temples that are thousands of years old, and many of the pharaohs have built hundreds of them, and there are a few dozen or twenty temples, but Cleopatra has built only two in her lifetime, and both are dedicated to the god of vengeance."
On the way to the Temple of Aswan Kang Ompo, the guide showed me the life of Cleopatra in the scriptures: "This legendary woman' real name is Cleopatra, and the reason why she is called Queen is because she captured many monarchs in the ancient Roman court battle, first gave birth to a son for Julius Caesar, and then gave birth to three children for Caesar's heavy minister Anthony, and at the same time used her beauty and strategy to provoke the contradiction between Julius Caesar's adopted son Octavian and Antony, and traveled to the peak of power as a delicate woman for decades. ”
The story of the Queen of Egypt needs to start from the Ptolemaic Dynasty of Ancient Egypt: in 323 BC, Alexander the Great, who founded the great empire, died, and his three major forces fought for power, and Ptolemy Sottel, who was appointed by Alexander as the governor of Egypt, took the opportunity to establish his own kingdom of Egypt, thus beginning the 300-year history of the Ptolemaic Dynasty, and the Queen was the last queen of the Ptolemaic Dynasty.
In fact, Egypt before the ascension to the throne was already decaying, the treasury was empty, and the people were running rampant, so they put their hopes on the most powerful men of the time, and ascended to the throne of the queen by pretending to be the subordinates of the merchants to offer themselves to Caesar, and Caesar also ordered Egypt not to be included in the Roman territory for his fall, and even built the Temple of Venus for the Queen in Rome.
As Julius Caesar became more and more gracious, Empress Dowager gradually intervened in the Center of Rome to interfere in the imperial situation, and seduced Caesar's generals with wealth to openly help her become the First Lady of Rome (Octavian and Antony fell in love with Queen Yan during this period), but unexpectedly encountered the change of Julius Caesar's assassination, and could only leave Rome and return to Egypt.
Subsequently, Antony and Octavian join forces to avenge Caesar and divide Rome, and during his tour of the provinces, Antony summons Yanhou to be held accountable, only to be fascinated by the elaborately dressed Yanhou, who not only abandons Octavian's agreement to execute Yanhou, but helps him eliminate the Egyptian throne threats, and even divorces him directly to marry Yanhou (Octavian's sister).
Under the multiple stimuli of the goddess being taken away, the humiliation of her sister, and the contender for the Throne of Rome, Octavian made the will of Antony hidden in the temple public, among which "the distribution of a large area of territory for his children" and "burial in Alexander's mausoleum after death" caused anger in Rome, the Senate dismissed Antony on the grounds of encroaching on territory, and the people regarded "Antony as a disgrace to Alexander the Great", so the referendum led to the declaration of war between Antony and the Queen.
In 30 BC, Antony was defeated in Egypt, and the captured Empress Yan repeated the trick to lure Octavian unsuccessfully, and committed suicide with a poisonous snake bite. Octavian, who had a crush on him, rejected the minister's offer to expose the body to the public and buried Hermitage with Antony, but still executed her son with Caesar and Antony. At this point, the last generation of ancient Egypt's dynasties disappeared into the long river of history.
In her lifetime, Cleopatra can be described as the peak of women's lives at that time, although the Romans were disdainful for their "seduction", "debauchery", "seizure of power", "killing relatives" and other behaviors, but these could not change the strong influence of Cleopatra in Rome and Egypt, so that posterity also had a completely different evaluation of The Empress.
The Irish writer George Bernard Shaw (masterpiece "Joan of Arc") described Yanhou as a "wayward and abusive woman" in the play, Dante and Shakespeare called Yanhou a "sexy woman", and some great poets said that Yanhou was "a Nile demon woman" and "Nile flower snake", while the Romans resented The Yanhou "toyed with the Roman emperor between the palms of his hands, and regarded Rome as a province of Egypt", and even French medieval philosophers maliciously compiled "The yanhou is not beautiful, but ugly to the extreme".
But in the eyes of the Egyptians, Yanhou is not only beautiful, her wisdom and wit are the best in the world, and her seduction of the Roman emperor and other means are nothing more than seeking the well-being of Egyptian beings, not to mention that during the reign of Yanhou, the people were rich and strong, and even the temples that the pharaohs of the past generations were keen to build only two temples. Therefore, Egyptian historians generally regard Yanhou as the "king of kings" and still worship Yanhou to this day.
However, even though Egyptian descendants have studied TheRava for two thousand years, there are still many unanswered questions about the life of the Queen, mainly the Temple of Kang Ongpo and the Temple of Edef.
Located 50 kilometers from the Egyptian city of Aswan, the Temple of Kang Ongpo was once a garrison town in the Roman Egyptian province, known as the "City of Gold" for controlling the main trade route of the Nile, and reached its peak during the Ptolemaic Dynasty, with a maximum garrison of more than 3,000 troops and more than 80 warships.
The first puzzle of the Temple of Kang Ongpo is: why did it take 220 years to build such a large garrison town, covering successive Ptolemaic monarchs, until the Yan queen personally supervised the work before it was officially completed?
Egyptian guides believe that the construction difficulty of the Temple of Kang Ongpo can be called the most difficult in ancient Egypt, first of all, the double design is unique, the temple is actually composed of two temples of zimu, the large temple is dedicated to the "eagle god" Horus, that is, the "god of revenge" in ancient Egyptian mythology, the small temple is dedicated to the "crocodile god" Bessok, that is, the "god of fertility" in ancient Egyptian mythology, the zimu temple is perfectly symmetrically arranged along the main axis, and its architecture fully shows the beauty of the carved beam paintings at the peak of ancient Egypt.
In the model restored by archaeologists, the two temples have 15 rows of huge granite columns in each of the antechambers, the main temple has 12 secret passages and 30 secret chambers underground, and it is rumored that the interior contains tons of gold and jewelry, while the small temple is given more of the meaning of "shrine", and all the wall columns are engraved with various runes.
Archaeologists studying the hieroglyphs of the small temple pillar deciphered the "Covenant of Destiny" used by the ancient Egyptians, which added 5 days to the original 300 days a year, and also noted that the 365-day calendar was still flawed, and about every four years it was necessary to add a day (leap year) and so on.
What is even more incredible is that this "covenant of destiny" for the first time divides the 365 days into three seasons of "flood, sowing, and harvesting", which not only accurately indicates the timing and level of the rise of the Nile's water level, but even reminds the world to use the flood to grow food after the peak of the flood.
Larger and more archaeologically valuable than the Temple of Kang Ongpo, the Temple of Edef is a temple in the center of Egypt's oldest settlement, Edefov, once revered as the cultural center of Upper Egypt (the capital of the Kingdom of Nubia) for nearly 4,000 years, until it was converted into a "temple" or "sanctuary" during the Ptolemaic dynasty.
In 1937, the French archaeological team and the Polish expedition entered Egypt to search for the ruins of the Ptolemaic Dynasty, and after 2 years of scientific research, it was confirmed that the predecessor of the Temple of Edef was actually the tomb of the Nubian king, and one of the seven provincial pyramids of the Nile found 5 kilometers away. Unfortunately, thousands of artifacts taken away by the French archaeology have not been returned to Egypt, including 2 pharaonic mummies in the Louvre, more than 30 stone sculptures of animal heads, more than 100 pieces of papyrus, and two tower doors weighing more than 500 kilograms.
The Temple of Edef was built in 237 BC and completed in 190 years by her husband Ptolemy XIII (also the brother of Empress Yan), but queen Yan believed that the temple was too small and that sitting west to east was contrary to the status of the "eagle god" Horus, so after ascending the throne, he personally supervised its expansion and reconstruction into sitting north and facing south.
According to the narrator, Yanhou expanded the internal area of the Edef temple to 780 square meters, and at the same time ordered the craftsmen to raise the gate to 15 meters, the sides rose to 33 meters, the lowest beams and columns inside were 16 meters, and the outer wall was 6.1 meters thick, which was the highest, thickest and strongest temple in the history of Ancient Architecture in Egypt.
Why, then, did Cleopatra alone build these two temples dedicated to the "God of Vengeance"? There is still no definitive answer to this question, and even museum staff are unaware of it.
Interestingly, the local coachman gave me a saying that has been circulated for many years: Edef folklore, Yanhou built two temples to make two preparations, the construction period of the Temple of Kang Ongpo coincided with the intimate period between Yanhou and Julius Caesar, the "God of Vengeance" was her help to successfully regain the throne of Egypt, the "God of Fertility" made her give birth to Caesar's son to stand in the Roman court, and many treasures underground were prepared for her son to seize the Throne of Rome. The Temple of Edeffer is the "Imperial Tomb" she prepared for herself and Antony, and the "God of Vengeance" will protect their corpses from enemies, so it is built to castle standards.
However, archaeologists have not yet found the tomb and mummy of Yanhou, or even excavated the artifacts and other artifacts used in Yanhou's life, and the information related to Yanhou only exists on sheepskin papyrus scrolls, or in myths or legends. The legend's life is unknown, which makes people sigh.
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