Cleopatra and Antony`s children rediscovered
Baku, April 26 (AZERTAC). Cleopatra`s twin babies now have a face. An Italian Egyptologist has rediscovered a sculpture of Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene, the offspring of Mark Antony and Cleopatra VII, at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
Discovered in 1918 near the temple of Dendera on the west bank of the Nile, the sandstone statue was acquired by the Egyptian Museum but has remained largely overlooked.
"It shows two naked children, one male and one female, of identical size standing within the coils of two snakes. Each figure has an arm over the other`s shoulder, while the other hand grasps a serpent," Giuseppina Capriotti, an Egyptologist at Italy`s National Research Council.
Capriotti noticed that the boy has a sun-disc on his head, while the girl boasts a crescent and a lunar disc. The serpents, perhaps two cobras, would also be different forms of sun and moon, she said.
The babies weren`t the firsts for Cleopatra. The Queen of Egypt had already given birth in 47 B.C., when she bore Julius Caesar a child, Caesarion. In 36 B.C. she presented Antony with another son, Ptolemy Philadelphus.
At the time of their birth in 40 B.C., the twins were simply named Cleopatra and Alexander. When they were officially recognized by their father three years later, as Antony returned to Antioch, in present Turkey, and Cleopatra joined him, they were named Alexander Helios (Sun) and Cleopatra Selene.
“Antony`s recognition of the children was marked by an eclipsys. Probably for this reason, and to mythologize their twin birth, the children were added those celestial names. Although in Egypt the moon was a male deity, in the sculpture the genders were reversed according to the Greek tradition,” Capriotti said.
Cleopatra Selene and Alexander Helios, then aged 10, and Ptolemy Philadelphus, then aged 4, were moved to Rome and put under the care of Octavian`s sister, Octavia, whom Antony was married to.
Only Cleopatra Selene survived. Married to King Juba II of Mauretania, she had at least one child, Ptolemy Philadelphus, likely named in honor of her little brother.
Her image was minted on coins along with Juba`s, suggesting that she ruled as an equal partner.
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