To close, we go back to something we touched on earlier in the week, the wriggly wigglers that are used in vermi-culture.
But did you know that an early fan of this interesting form of composting was none other than Queen Cleopatra ?
Even more, she passed a law which made them sacred creatures - and made it illegal to damage a worm, to remove one from soil, or even to move a single one outside of the boundaries of Egypt. We do not know of the penalties for the first two, but taking a worm across the border was a capital offence, and the sentence for the offender, if discovered, was death.
She was not the first to appreciate the wonders of compost though, for we know that almost as soon as humans grew crops they also saved crops, and ploughed them back into the fields, the ploughing doing much as we do today, cutting up the surface area so it would rot down quicker. Sometimes, and this is what I find most amazing, they also grew crops for such purposes, rather than food they could eat.
We still have no idea how they learned to do this.
The small size version of this set, and a comprehensive listing of the features of all the versions, can be found as the Card of the Day for the 16th of March, 2023. The only difference is that the maker of the figure on that card is known, whilst the maker of the figure we show here is not.
In addition, whilst this figure is of Cleopatra, and pairs with Mark Anthony, it comes as part of the theatrical figures, and is from the play, by William Shakespeare, rather than being a set of actual Egyptians. Research proves that this is not her only costume, and that she can also be found in a rather fetching leopard skin dress, which seems unlikely, as she was not just kind to worms, she is thought to have had at least one cat, and, reputedly, a leopard.
If you would like to see this figure as an actual pottery item, nip over to the Victoria and Albert Museum/Cleopatra - and we do mean that, for theirs is the actual figure from which our card was drawn.
By the way, in the small sized version of this set, card 9 is "Peace", described as "a female figure with an inverted torch, resting upon the symbols of war - a helmet, quiver of arrows, shield, sword, and axe."