"Nice country. I think I'll take it."

Comments

• huppakee@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Shout out to Farao der Nederlanden Arjen Hendrik I

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• PugJesus@piefed.social ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Explanation: When Alexander the Great’s Empire fell apart after his death, his generals all immediately scrambled to divide up (and war over) the pieces. General Ptolemy took Egypt, and established himself as Pharoah over the Egyptians… despite being a Macedonian who didn’t even speak Egyptian. For that matter, he set up a caste-based system wherein ethnic Greeks were at the top of the hierarchy, and Egyptians at the very bottom. But what are you going to do? He’s the Pharoah! (and also has all the people with pointy weapons on his side)

  The first member of the Ptolemaic dynasty to definitely even speak Egyptian fluently was… Cleopatra VII, the most famous Cleopatra, and the last ruler of Ptolemaic Egypt, who ruled ~50 BCE.

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  • Nautalax@lemmy.world ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Also changed the capital from historic Memphis to a coastal Greek city his former boss had founded and named after himself only 26 years prior, Alexandria.

    Their descendants were elites even into Roman times and we have highly detailed panel art depicting how they looked (or at least, how they wanted to be portrayed) stashed with some of their mummies found at Faiyum. Really marvelously detailed and interesting mix of influences in the art; check out this body-case for the mummy of a guy named Artemidorus.

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    • PugJesus@piefed.social ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      A lot of the Fayum Mummy portraits are of native Egyptians, as many Greeks continued to practice cremation instead! Really fantastic stuff, though, I agree!

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