Post by Urban Warrior on Feb 17, 2007 12:02:26 GMT
Submitted by Tower of Babel:
So maybe Mark Antony loved Cleopatra for her mind. That's the conclusion being drawn by academics at Britain's University of Newcastle from a Roman denarius coin that depicts the celebrated queen of Egypt as a sharp-nosed, thin-lipped woman with a protruding chin. In short, a fair match for the hook-nosed, thick-necked Mark Antony on the other side of the coin, which went on public display Wednesday at the university's Shefton Museum. "The image on the coin is far from being that of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton," said Lindsay Allason-Jones, director of archaeological museums at the university, recalling the 1963 film "Cleopatra," which ignited the tempestuous romance between the two stars. The notion that Cleopatra was not in Taylor's league was hailed as a revelation in British newspapers on Valentine's Day, though the image is hardly a discovery. Replicas of the denarius can be found on eBay, and images on other ancient coins are no more flattering.
Cleopatra's legend has grown over the centuries. Plutarch, in the "Life of Antony" written a century after the great romance, said of Cleopatra: "her actual beauty, it is said, was not in itself so remarkable that none could be compared with her."
For more information see news.aol.com/topnews/articles/_a/ancient-coin-shows-cleopatra-was-no/20070214153609990001?ncid=NWS00010000000001
So maybe Mark Antony loved Cleopatra for her mind. That's the conclusion being drawn by academics at Britain's University of Newcastle from a Roman denarius coin that depicts the celebrated queen of Egypt as a sharp-nosed, thin-lipped woman with a protruding chin. In short, a fair match for the hook-nosed, thick-necked Mark Antony on the other side of the coin, which went on public display Wednesday at the university's Shefton Museum. "The image on the coin is far from being that of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton," said Lindsay Allason-Jones, director of archaeological museums at the university, recalling the 1963 film "Cleopatra," which ignited the tempestuous romance between the two stars. The notion that Cleopatra was not in Taylor's league was hailed as a revelation in British newspapers on Valentine's Day, though the image is hardly a discovery. Replicas of the denarius can be found on eBay, and images on other ancient coins are no more flattering.
Cleopatra's legend has grown over the centuries. Plutarch, in the "Life of Antony" written a century after the great romance, said of Cleopatra: "her actual beauty, it is said, was not in itself so remarkable that none could be compared with her."
For more information see news.aol.com/topnews/articles/_a/ancient-coin-shows-cleopatra-was-no/20070214153609990001?ncid=NWS00010000000001