![]() Death by poison would make sense given the way in which Cleopatra wanted to die, and the fact that she died at the same time as her two handmaidens, he said. ![]() would have been so high that a snake probably wouldn't have stayed still enough to bite, he said.Īncient papyri show that Cleopatra knew about poisons, and one papyrus says she actually tested them, Schaefer said. ![]() Also, temperatures in August - when Cleopatra committed suicide in 30 B.C. When a person does die from a cobra bite, he said, "it doesn't go quickly - it is a horrible death," in which it takes hours to die and the victim suffers paralysis to parts of their body, including the eyes.Ĭleopatra died a "quiet and pain-free death," according to the Roman historian Cassius Dio, writing about 200 years after she died, Schaefer said.Īncient texts also say Cleopatra's two assistants died with her, but that would be unlikely if she had died of a snake bite, the historian said. He also deduced that Cleopatra wouldn't have chosen to die by a snake bite because she was intent on suicide - and a cobra, he said, is not always fatal. Schaefer said he studied historic writings and consulted a toxicologist to develop the theory, which is due to be featured Wednesday on the German channel ZDF as part of a program on the Egyptian queen. An asp is a small venomous snake also called the Egyptian cobra. "It is certain that there was no cobra," Schaefer told CNN by phone Wednesday. The theory by Christoph Schaefer, a professor of ancient history at Trier University, challenges the common, centuries-old belief that Cleopatra committed suicide with the bite of an asp. (CNN) - Cleopatra, the queen of Egypt, died from drinking a mixture of poisons and not from a snake bite, a German historian said Wednesday.
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