ISAW Library Events: Cleopatra’s inheritance: Ptolemaic Egypt revisited

This lecture is part of the ISAW Library events series and will take place in person at ISAW. It has been made possible with the generous support of the New York Chapter of the American Research Center in Egypt.

Registration is required at THIS LINK.

The fabled reign and tragic death of Cleopatra loom large in the Western imagination, but they can only be properly understood in the context of the queen’s inheritance: the preceding three centuries of Ptolemaic rule over the Nile Valley. In advance of the publication of a major new history of the period, Toby Wilkinson revisits Ptolemaic Egypt, with its dazzling mix of Greek and Egyptian cultures. He explores how Egypt under the Ptolemies became the greatest of the Hellenistic kingdoms, but also the crucible for a final flowering of pharaonic civilization; how the geopolitics of the Ptolemaic world still resonate today; and why the metropolis of Alexandria provided the perfect conditions for the birth of modern science.

Toby Wilkinson, FSA, FRHistS, is the author of numerous, critically-acclaimed books on nearly the entire span of Egyptian history, including Early Dynastic Egypt (1999), Genesis of the Pharaohs (2003), The Thames & Hudson Dictionary of Ancient Egypt (2005), Lives of the Ancient Egyptians (2007), The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt: the History of a Civilisation from 3000 BC to Cleopatra (2010, New York Times bestseller and winner of the Hessell-Tiltman Prize), The Nile (2014), Writings from Ancient Egypt (2016), (with Julian Platt) Aristocrats and Archaeologists (2017), A World Beneath the Sands (2020), Tutankhamun’s Trumpet (2022), and most recently Ramesses the Great (2023). His presentation this evening is based on some of the research he conducted for his forthcoming book, The Last Dynasty: Ancient Egypt from Alexander the Great to Cleopatra (Bloomsbury, Oct. 2024). He is a fellow of Clare College, Cambridge University.

The lecture will be followed by a reception.

Please check isaw.nyu.edu for event updates.

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Contact

David M. Ratzan, david.ratzan@nyu.edu.