Did Cleopatra live closer to the Moon landing than to the building of the Great Pyramid?

Say ‘ancient Egypt’ and most of us picture one big, sandy moment in time: pharaohs, pyramids, camels and Cleopatra all sharing the same postcard. The Apple has heard this one at a party and confidently says yes. The Sole is delighted, because he gets to explain just how ridiculously long ancient Egypt lasted.

The short answer

Yes, and it is not even close. Cleopatra died in 30 BCE. The Apollo 11 Moon landing was in July 1969, about 2,000 years later. The Great Pyramid of Giza, built for the pharaoh Khufu, was finished around the 26th to early 25th century BCE, roughly 2,500 years before she was born.

The real story

Ancient Egyptian civilisation is so long that it is hard to hold in your head. The Great Pyramid belongs to the Old Kingdom. Encyclopaedia Britannica describes it as completed in the early 25th century BCE, and many popular references round that to about 2560 BCE. Either way, it is staggeringly old.

Cleopatra, born around 70 or 69 BCE, ruled at the very end of Egypt’s long line of pharaohs. By her lifetime, the Great Pyramid was already an ancient monument, older to her than the Roman Colosseum is to us. If she ever stood in front of it, she would have been looking at ruins from a distant, half-legendary past, not a construction site.

Do the sums. From the pyramid’s completion to Cleopatra’s death is something like 2,450 to 2,540 years, depending on which date you use for the pyramid. From her death to Neil Armstrong’s first step is about 1,999 years. Even with the earliest and latest estimates, the gap back to the pyramid is bigger by several centuries. Measure from her birth instead of her death and the numbers shift by a few decades, but the answer stays exactly the same.

To put it another way: when Cleopatra looked at the Great Pyramid, she was looking further back in time than we are when we look at her.

Why people get it wrong

School history tends to squash ancient Egypt into a single chapter, with the same few famous names. Cleopatra is the best-known Egyptian ruler in popular culture, and the pyramids are the best-known Egyptian buildings, so our brains file them in the same drawer.

Films do not help either. Movie versions of Cleopatra love a dramatic shot of a pyramid in the background, which quietly suggests they were brand new. In reality, they were already antiques.

This is a case where the Apple’s party-trivia instinct is spot on. The Wiper confirms the answer is correct, then wipes the timeline clean and asks whether the Moon landing came before or after the pyramids. Nobody answers him.

“I always thought I was old because I’ve been under desks since chalk was cutting-edge. Turns out I’m a newborn next to that pyramid. Bit humbling, really.”