The painting of the Palace of Governors in the oasis of Dakhla was proceeding briskly; Medu Nefer, just appointed head of the community by the powerful Pharaoh Pepi II, had given precise instructions: under his administration, the palace’s halls were to be resplendent with brightly colored frescoes, and the nuptial room especially, where he lay with his sweet bride, a lovely girl with amber-colored skin not yet 20 years old, was to shine in its polychromy.

And now paid workers, guided by an expert in chemicals, worked diligently to paint the walls of unbaked brick: the colors – from intense blue to bottle green, from canary yellow to cobalt red – seemed to sparkle, and they were laid on the walls to form geometric patterns with arcane meanings.
In the newlyweds’ room, there was a freshly painted palm grove, with date-laden trees and a pool of natural hot water, like the one the governor often bathed in with his young bride in the moonlight, enjoying the evening breeze.
Today, the archeologists of the Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale, headquartered in Cairo, are conducting a scientific excavation right at Balat, where the worthies of the Dakhla oasis (200 km west of Luxor) resided. Here, these Gallic Indiana Joneses have entered the Palace of Medu Nefer and his colleagues and have brought to light the most varied rooms, all with colored walls; in every case, the frescoes on the walls had almost entirely collapsed, leaving traces nonetheless of the colors and their geometric arrangement on the pavement, as in a mold.
Strips were found of varied hues arranged according to some unknown scheme, which will be studied and compared with other examples of chromatic decorations present in contemporary and later pyramids and tombs (the Balat palaces date to 2200 B.C., VI Dynasty).
The chemical analysis proved interesting: the colors are natural pigments and have been preserved for millennia despite lacking fixatives, “Probably because the substance they are composed of has bonded very well with the clay of the bricks in the walls, and also because the dry climate of the oasis, and of Egypt in general, has impeded their deterioration,” explains Michel Wuttman, chemical engineer and expert in conservation and restoration for the French institute. Similar chemical explanations are at the basis of the splendid, world-renowned paintings that decorate the tombs of the greats in the Valley of the Kings, and that is why the analysis work of the French team at Balat – a team directed by the renowned archeologist Georges Soukiassian and which the writer was part of for six seasons, working in the frescoed rooms, has proved very useful.
Now let us change scene and historic period. We move in a space-time leap to Al-Fayum (a lush oasis 80 km southwest of Cairo) at the time of Cleopatra (second half of the 1st century B.C.). Here we are witnesses to a widespread use – almost an abuse – of chemically treated natural substances: perfumed oils, perfumes, rouge, creams for the skin and hair, fingernail polish, and many other products regularly marketed and purchased by girls of all types and ages, in order to make themselves more attractive. Papyruses written in ancient Greek, the language used at the time, describe blossoming girls with long legs and jet-black hair and eyes preparing themselves for fashion parades and beauty pageants by applying makeup, sometimes heavily, with the most fashionable chemical-based products of the time.
The ancient Egyptians and the Greeks of the Classical and Hellenistic periods used them widely, but at the time of Cleopatra and the first Roman empire there was a genuine boom in them, and the artisans who produced these substances became dizzyingly rich. The papyruses from this period found at Karanis (Al-Fayum oasis), which were entrusted to me for publication by the Cairo Antiquities Department, are rich in details on another tantalizing topic as well: dieting and gymnastics to keep in shape the body that the makeup made lovelier.
And there is a wealth of details here: fresh vegetables, seasonal fruits, low-fat cheeses, unfermented beverages, and raw oil formed the basis for – let’s call it this – “Cleopatra’s diet.”
And, when correctly analyzed, they are also the basis for today’s Mediterranean Diet. Indeed, the study of this and other ancient recipes allows us to understand that Greco-Roman Egypt is the original home of the eating habits that are so common in the Mediterranean countries and which have nothing to do with the culinary habits of modern Egypt, which are due mainly to the Arab tradition.
As for gymnastics, we need to imagine a personal trainer ante litteram, who counseled stretching exercises for women and toning and strengthening exercises for men. The latter could lift weights or walk at a brisk pace on the sand to get thighs and calves of steel. In short, we are dealing with a world that always held beauty – both physical and artistic – in high regard, and which thought up some sophisticated chemicals to achieve it: It is indeed true that progress is linked to the primary needs of the soul.