At first glance this papyrus document may seem a nondescript artefact, albeit one from the Ptolemaic period of ancient Egypt. On closer inspection it may be one of the most significant artefacts relating to Cleopatra, the enigmatic last queen of Egypt.
The papyrus is essentially a tax exemption, granting freedom from payment on the import of Roman wine to Egypt. The beneficiary is a prominent businessman named Publius Canidius, who happens to be a close friend of Mark Antony, one of Rome’s triumvirs and lover of Cleopatra. The manuscript, meant for someone in the Egyptian bureaucacy, is signed by none other than Cleopatra herself, who ends the letter abruptly: “Ginesthoi,” she says – “make it happen.”
