A café owner in the southern province of Mersin’s Tarsus district has applied to get a patent for the youth elixir of Egypt’s queen Cleopatra who became the main theme of a festival held in the district.
The first International Tarsus Festival organized by Mersin Metropolitan Municipality for the promotion of the district was held with the theme of “Year of Cleopatra” as the Egyptian queen and the Roman emperor candidate Marcus Antonius met in the district.
In three-day festival attended by 27 countries, the visitors tasted the youth elixir believed to be drunk by Cleopatra for immortality prepared with medicinal plants growing in the highlands of the Taurus Mountains.
Serpil Demir, the owner of a café in the region, prepared the elixir as a drink option on the menu while she applied to obtain a patent for this special elixir, which is unique only to Tarsus, with the support of the authorities in the region.
Mersin Municipality Vahap Seçer said “This is a very mysterious region. I learnt this elixir from a book.”
“The book said, ‘If we find it, there is no more death for us,’” Seçer explained.
“Come and find the elixir of immortality,” he joked, noting the motto for visits to Tarsus.
The excavation works in Tarsus carried out under high security measures in 2016 attracted the attention of the whole world and became the subject of intense speculation at that time.
Hurriyet Daily News