Acient coin shows Cleopatra was no beauty
London- So maybe Mark Antony loved Cleopatra for her mind. That is the conclusion being drawn by academics at Britain's University of Newcastle from a Roman denarius coin which 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.[/p] "The image on the coin is far from being that of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton," said Lindsay Allason-Jones, director of archeological museums at the university, recalling the 1963 film "Cleopatra", which ignited the tempestuous romance between the two stars.[/p] 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.[/p] Replicas of the denarius can be found on eBay, and images on other ancient coins are no more flattering.[/p] Cleopatra's legend has grown over the centuries.[/p] 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."[/p] "But the contact of her presence, if you lived with her, was irresistible; the attraction of her person, joining with the charm of her conversation, and the character that attended all she said or did, was something bewitching. It was a pleasure merely to hear the sound of her voice ..."[/p] Chaucer, writing in the 14th century, described her as "fair as is the rose in May."[/p] Shakespeare outdid them all: "Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety; other women cloy the appetites they feed, but she makes hungry where most she satisfies."[/p]
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An image by the University of Newcastle shows a silver coin with an image of the Egyptian Queen Cleopatra.[/p]
[/p]An image issued by the University of Newcastle that shows a coin with an image of Emperor Mark Antony.
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