When the Roman Empire took control of Egypt in 44 BC, Cleopatra decided to take her own life rather than surrender to the new Roman Emperor, Octavian....
BITS ‘N’ PIECES
Cleopatra was the last female pharaoh of Egypt. When the Roman Empire took control of Egypt in 44 BC, Cleopatra decided to take her own life rather than surrender to the new Roman Emperor, Octavian.
As tradition has it, the queen smuggled a snake into her pre-built burial chamber, where she used its venom to kill herself and her two most faithful servants, Charmion and Eiras. But new research has cast doubt on this story. Snake experts and Egyptologists at the University of Manchester have said that the suspected culprit – a cobra – couldn’t possibly have been small enough to be concealed in a small basket, as the story claims.
A cobra is typically 1.5m long, and experts say that it would have been difficult to sneak a snake of that size into Cleopatra’s tomb without raising a few eyebrows! They believe that even if the snake had been smuggled in, it would have been impossible to use a snake bite to kill two or three people.
Andrew Gray, an expert on amphibians at Manchester Museum said, ‘Not only are cobras too big, but there’s just a 10 percent chance you would die from a snake bite: most bites are dry bites that don’t inject venom.’
Snakes save their venom for when they most need it – during hunting and for protection – so the scientists don’t believe that one snake would have delivered three fatal bites one after the other.
So how did Cleopatra die? Well, scientists are still deciding! Many believe she may instead have taken a cocktail of poison – but who knows if we’ll ever discover the last queen of Egypt’s dying secret?
As for what really happened in that mausoleum, Plutarch may have said it best: ‘The truth of the matter no one knows.’
Uniting the worlds of jewellery and perfumery, Shumukh, which in Arabic translates to ‘deserving the highest’, represents the work of artisans and craftsmen from Italy, France and Switzerland. However, the idea was conceived by Asghar Adam Ali, Founding President and Master Perfumer of Nabeel Group.
Designed to capture Dubai’s essence, Shumukh was revealed to the public at the Armani Ballroom of the Burj Khalifa and features an incredible mixture of ingredients, including sandalwood musk, agarwood, Turkish rose, musk, and others. It took more than three years and close to 500 perfume trials to perfect it.
It goes for a whopping 1.29 million USD (1.11 Euros), which makes it the world’s most expensive perfume. The packaging of the fragrances is also a work of art. Once opened, the two meters display case made from leather reveals a perfume bottle decorated with United Arab Emirates (UAE’s) heritage symbols.
This perfume can last over twelve hours on human skins and about thirty days on fabrics.
The two times Guinness World Records holding perfume is contained within a remote-controlled Italian Murano crystal spray bottle that is adorned with the most diamonds (3,571 in total) set on any perfume bottle. IGI and GIA certified topaz, pearls, 18-carat gold and pure silver are also revealed within the cushioned leather case. The stand itself is two metres tall.
The great Emirate is expressed through seven design elements that represent pearl diving, falconry, Arabian horses, roses, luxury and Arabian hospitality.
Shumukh is not only extremely pricey but also rare, with only one bottle of this ultra-luxury fragrance existing today.There’s no doubt the value of Shumukh will increase over time. This means it will hold the helm of the most expensive fragrance in the world for a long time.
