Photograph by Kenneth Garrett, National Geographic Stock

Cleopatra’s Eye Makeup Warded Off Infections?

Kate Ravilious

for National Geographic News

January 14, 2010

Cleopatra and her kin knew a thing or two about crafting an alluring smoky eye.

Now French researchers suggest that the ancient Egyptians’ heavily painted eyelids did more than attract admirers—they also protected against eye infections.

(Related: “Scorpion King’s Wines—Egypt’s Oldest—Spiked With Meds.”)

Artifacts and documents from ancient Egypt show that everyone, man or woman from servant to queen, wore black and green powders coated thickly around the eyes.

“People wore it on a daily basis,” said study co-author Christian Amatore, from the Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris, France.

According to ancient Egyptian manuscripts, the eye makeup was believed to have a magical role, in which the gods Horus and Ra would protect wearers against several illnesses.

Bacterial eye infections such as conjunctivitus, for example, would have been a common problem along the Nile’s tropical marshes.

But previous chemical analyses of powder residue, taken from ancient makeup containers, had isolated four lead-based compounds.

That would seem to suggest that the makeup was harmful, since lead can be highly toxic to humans.

Makeup’s “Magic” Required Hard Work

Instead, the new study found that the low doses of lead salts in the makeup may have actually had beneficial properties: When the salts come into contact with skin, they boost the body’s production of nitric oxide.

This chemical is known to stimulate the immune system and help fight off disease-causing bacteria.

Based on the amount of the lead compounds in the ancient makeup, a wearer’s nitric oxide levels would have increased by 240 percent, the study found.

“Two of these chemicals do not occur naturally, and would have taken 30 days of hard work to make,” Amatore said.

“In my opinion, [the ancient Egyptians] were aware that these compounds brought good health, and they were making them on purpose.”

The research is detailed in the January 15, 2010, issue of the journalAnalytical Chemistry.

To watch, click here.

“Swooning with fear, Lady Rochford was dragged to the blood-soaked scaffold.  In her final words, she maintained her innocence as being Kathryn’s procuress, but admitted that she had  “falsely accused” her late husband “of loving in an incestuous manner, his sister, Queen Anne Boleyn. For this I deserve to die”.”

I do have to say,  I do feel she deserved her punishment.  She lies not only directly cost two people their lives, but she also left the future Queen Elizabeth motherless.  I can not help but think, what if Anne was spared her life and simply divorced.  Would Elizabeth been able to know her mother?  Would she have become the Queen she was? Would she have outlived Henry?   Would be interesting indeed.

“Mary Boleyn remained at the French court, where she became a lady in waiting to the new queen, Claude, the wife of Louis’s son François”

Claude was indeed the wife of François, but François was not the son of Louis XII, in fact Claude was Louis’s daughter.  While French law prohibited the crown be handed down to a woman, and poor king Louis with no surviving sons, Claude was married to her cousin and her fathers heir-presumptive, François, Duke of Angoulême.  But this wasn’t Claude’s first marriage arrangement.   Her mother, Anne of Brittany, wanted her daughter to be married to Charles V the future Holy Roman Emperor.   This marriage would mean Claude would take the duchy of Brittany and Burgundy from the French Crown.

The French nobles wanted no part of this deal and argued against Claude’s marriage to Charles, the loss of Brittany and Burgundy would have greatly reduced the size of France.  So the marriage promise was called off and Claude was arranged to marry François, whom she was married to at the age of 15 on May 18th, 1514.

While this little snippet of text is an error, do not let it discourage you from reading Leslie Carroll’s book, it is fantastic!

For more reading:

Katherine Swynford: how a Duke’s Mistress became the ancestor of royalty
http://katherineswynford.blogspot.com/
http://royalaffairs.blogspot.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Swynford

Wiki Links:
Anna Leszczyńska
Catherine Opalińska
Princess Anna Jabłonowska (her paternal grandmother)

Maria Anna’s musical education began at age seven when her father started to teach the young Anna Maria how to play the harpsichord.   Under their fathers tutelage the siblings became skilled in improvisation and composition, while Maria Anna was exceptional with at the keyboard she was forced to take the backseat to her younger brother Wolfgang.  This is said to be due to a few reasons.: Wolfgang was younger and Anna Maria was to old to be seen as a child prodigy. Or another possibility was there were social rules to follow during her time and Maria Anna was almost of marriageable age.    Either way, Maria Anna glimpse at the spotlight became just that, she was to stay at home in Salzburg while Wolfgang traveled the European landscape with either their father or mother.

While Wolfgang while was granted freedom, his relationship with her did not suffer.  As children Maria Anna and Wolfgang were very close.  Wolfgang idolized Maria Anna, they even had a secret language between the two of them.  It is also said that Wolfgang would write entries in her private journal.  Wolfgang thought highly of his sisters musical skills and accomplishments, encouraging her to travel to places such as Vienna to play private concerts and giving lessons and praising her compositions.   During this time, Maria Anna found herself highly controlled by her father and his wishes for her life.   While Wolfgang was rebelled and quarreled with their father, Maria Anna was denied her choice of suitors, all who were turned down by Leopold.  One such suitor, a Armand d’Ippold, Maria Anna fell madly in love with but was forced to turn down his proposal of marriage because of her father.  Her heartbreak was so evident that even her bother encouraged her to stand up to their father for the right to choose who she wanted to marry.   This was in vain, for on August 23, 1783 at the age of 33 Maria Anna married a wealthy magistrate, Johann Baptist Franz von Berchtold zu Sonnenburg.

After her marriage, Maria Anna and her husband moved the village of St. Gilgen just east of the Mozart home.   Unfortunately her husband came with a load of baggage.   Johann was not only twice widowed, but he also had five children from these two marriages, all which Maria Anna helped raise.  Addition to these adopted children, in 1785 Maria Anna gave birth to her first child, a son by the name of Leopold Alois Pantale, who was her only child to survive adulthood.   For the birth of her first child, she traveled back to her family home in Salzburg, where after the birth of young Leopold she left the baby to be raised by her father for the first few months of the child’s life.  While she saw her son occasionally, her father was the one involved in her sons care until Leopold died on May 28, 1787.

Why was this odd arrangement made?  According to the wiki article on Maria Anna there are a few arguments to this.   One argument was that young Leopold was a ill infant and needed special care, so he was left with his grandfather.  But this argument doesn’t explain why the child was kept there after he was considered recovered.  Another argument is that Maria Anna herself was in ill health and with the care of her stepchildren needed, caring for a infant just wasn’t something she could do at the time.   The last argument stated was that her father wanted to create another musical genius as he had done with Wolfgang, and Maria Anna letting her father raise her son was another demonstration of his controlling hold on his daughter.

Maria Anna would give birth to two more children after Leopold, Jeanette born in 1789 and Maria Babette born in 1790 (who only lived about a year).   It is said in these years Maria Anna and her brother Wolfgang drifted apart, especially after Wolfgang married Constanze Weber.  While some say they remained close it is the popular belief that after a brief meeting in Salzburg after their fathers death in 1787 it is said the siblings never visited each other again and their correspondences decreased and finally ended all together in 1788.

Maria Anna became a widow in 1801, with her husbands death she moved back to Salzburg with her two living children and four of her step children where she worked at a music teach and eventually had a run in with her brothers widow Constanze Weber, now Constanze Nissen.   The meeting was diplomatic, so much so Maria Anna eventually gave the Nissen’s corrisondences of Wolfgang’s for a biography that they were working on.  But Mr. Nissen died before its completion.  During her last nine years Maria Anne was in poor health, though one bright light was her brother son Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart while he was visiting Sulzburg to conduct a performance for the late Mr. Nissen.

In 1825 Maria Anna went blind and her health declined further, she was said to be fatigued and almost speechless, along with lonely.  On October 29 1829, Maria Anna took her last breath and was laid to rest in the St. Peter abby churchyard.

It was hard to write this and not think, what could have Maria Anna become if she wasn’t held back in life.  Could she have reached Wolfgang’s success? Or perhaps ever surpass him? For such a talented young woman, she really did seem to live a very ordinary life.  Between her gender and her fathers strict overbearing ways, Maria Anna was stuck in the life she was born into, even though she was truly a musical genius in her own right.

With that said I bring you to the source of my post, a movie I found on NatGeo about the life of King Henry VIII. His court, his politics and yes his women. Enjoy

P.S. If the video player below doesnt work for you click here to visit the page

Despite the public’s dislike for the Queen from Austria, Marie Antoinette had participated in many charitable deeds in her short lifespan.  Along with her husband, Marie Antoinette was a lifelong patron of Maison Philanthrophique, which was established by Louis XVI to help the old, blind and widowed.  Marie Antoinette also started a home for unwed mothers and adopted 3 children and raised them as her very own.  She oversaw the upbringing and education of several other children and provided for their families.

While times were tough, Marie Antoinette cut her spending spending habits to provide more for the people of France.  The family sold items such as flatware to buy grain for the starving public, it is also said the family ate barley bread which was cheaper in order to conserve funds.

Now where did the saying “Let them eat cake!” come from if Marie Antoinette didn’t utter them?  Well there is a great wiki article on this very subject.   The statement first appears in the autobiographical  The Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau where Rousseau says:

« Enfin je me rappelai le pis-aller d’une grande princesse à qui l’on disait que les paysans n’avaient pas de pain, et qui répondit : Qu’ils mangent de la brioche. J’achetai de la brioche. »

“Finally I recalled the worst-recourse of a great princess to whom one said that the peasants had no bread, and who responded: “Let them eat brioche…”

Now, who this great princess is, Rousseau never divulges to his reader. Moreover, Rousseau was also known to tell half truths to embellish his life tales.

Now while Let them Eat Cake! was one of the factors that lead to Marie Antoinette death, we can now safely say these words were never uttered from her lips.   She was simply at the wrong place at the wrong time, a Queen from Austria that the French public didn’t seem to truly appreciate.   While writing and learning were not her strong points, she was a gentle soul with a kind heart who was sent as a young Archduchess of Austria to marry a Prince of France in order to smooth relations between the two countries.   But one thing is for certain, she will remain a prominent fixture in history and inspiration for many for a long time to come.

While noted for her beauty, Vashti was loved by the Persians. But her actions towards the Jews, found her less than favorable in their eyes. She was accused of forcing Jewish maids to disrobe and work in the nude on the Shabbat. She was also known for her cruelty and arrogant behavior towards the Jewish people and vowed to deny their return to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple her grandfather destroyed. This gives you a tidbit into Vashti’s character and the impression she was neither a modest woman nor did she hold the virtue in high regard.

King Xerxes held a 7 day feast with the Shushan subjects. The Queen, in her chambers, held a replica feast for the royal ladies at court (some say as a protest to the King). On the 7^th day of the festivities the King called for Vashti to appear before is court wearing the Royal Crown. While some text state that Vashti was summons wearing ONLY the Royal Crown and nothing else, other state that she was simply asked to appear wearing the crown (while clothed) and to dance. Either way, Xerxes wanted to show his now drunken subjects her world renowned beauty.

Vashti was appalled by the King’s request. Having to much pride and royal dignity to parade before her husbands guest, Vashti flatly refused the King. Furious, King Xerxes sought the advise of his lawyers and royal advisor’s. It was quickly decided that if the Queen would not obey her husband the King, then the wives of Persia will follow her lead and start to revolt against their husbands. Not accepting his wife’s humiliation, King Xerxes stated that Vashti was to never again come before the King.

Now what happens to Vashti after this point is not exactly clear. It is generally believed that she was now divorced from the King and banished from the palace. While some say she was beheaded for her defiance, it is thought that would have been too extreme of a punishment for the time and banishment is more widely accepted among historians.

I must comment, this entry has been delayed in its posting due to the fact I have spent hours upon hours searching for what happened to Vashti after the King ordered her to leave. It is nice to think she married again and began a new life, maybe in a different country. But it is very ironic that someone who believed in the displacement of a people was displaced herself. A little bit of ancient Karma.

Of course you will find the short story of Queen Vashti in the Book of Ester in the Bible, but please note this post is not a religious post.  This is a post about Vashti herself as a person and who she was.