Ooids from Turkey and Egypt in the Eastern Mediterranean and a love-story of Antony and Cleopatra

摘要

Cleopatra’s beach is one of the most famous in Turkey for its distinctive white sand, composed largely of ooids. Legend has it that the Roman leader, Mark Antony, had this sand shipped from Alexandria in Egypt to create a beach for his lower Cleopatra, on Sedir Island in Gökova Bay, SE Aegean Sea. This study examines the reality of this leagend from a comparison of the oolitic sand from Cleopatra’s beach in Turkey with oolitic sand from the coast west of Alexandria in Egypt, the home city of Cleopatra, and only place in the Mediterranea where Holocene ooids occur in abundance.