The Beauty of Cleopatra...

[sechan19]

...has apparently been called into question by the discovery of an ancient Roman denarion that features her image on its face. This coin languished in obscurity in a bank for years before being displayed by the University of York in Britain.

The coin shows a supposedly ugly Cleopatra and has caused many in the field to re-evaluate the traditional image of Cleopatra as one of the world's great beauties. Some are championing the notion that the great queen was loved for her mind rather than her face, a nice concept. Of course, I'm not certain that a two-thousand-year-old coin is a solid enough piece of evidence to base such a judgment on, but it's intriguing nonetheless.

Egyptian Queen Cleopatra Was No Stunner, Coin Shows (Yahoo! News)

Comments

beauty shmooty

[alonewolverine.livejournal.com]

If I were an artist, um, and a queen who had alot of power asked me to paint a picture of her, Id make it pretty. She would probably kill me if I painted an ugly picture of her. Its possible that the other accounts of her beauty were created out of an artists sense of self preservation. If this is the first and only coin found with this image- maybe she had all the others destroyed out of vainness, maybe she destoyed the coin maker as well. Or maybe she was pretty and the coin maker had no skill, or maybe the coin maker hated her for some reason....oye.

Re: beauty shmooty

[reteva.livejournal.com]

Well, I seem to recall that often coin-makers never saw the people they were making portraits of. Still, you would expect an artisan to err on the side of beauty - that's very true. I merely meant that the item's age and possible damage could prevent it from being a reliable example of what she looked like.

Re: beauty shmooty

[lordameth.livejournal.com]

It definitely does look quite weathered. Of course, who says an ancient Egyptian princess has to match modern Western notions of beauty?

(Maybe Marc Antony just liked his women butch.)

suddenly...

[alonewolverine.livejournal.com]

Ohhh, I only said beauty shmooty cause it rhymed. It's true, that coin is a mess, and probably not a very accurate representation of the Ms'. Who knows how many bankers hands its taken a turn with after so many years.