12

Sep

ARCE NY x ISAW: Cleopatra’s Inheritance: Ptolemaic Egypt Revisited by Dr. Toby Wilkinson

Presented by: Dr. Toby Wilkinson

Registration is Required

  • 5:30 PM (EST)ARCE NY
  • In-PersonISAW Lecture Hall - The Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (ISAW), 18 E. 84 street
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Lecture Information

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.

The event will be held at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (ISAW).

Speaker Bio

Dr. 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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

About ARCE-NY:

The American Research Center in Egypt / New York Chapter is a private, nonprofit organization serving all persons who share a professional or layperson’s interest in Egypt’s art, archaeology, history, language and culture. 

ARCE / NY is headquartered in New York City and serves members throughout the state as well as the New York Metropolitan area.