This just in as I’m putting together Explorator … Reuters has entered the ‘Cleopatra’s Tomb’ hype with an article that includes an interesting slide show, among which is:
Reuters Photo
… presumably the alabaster Cleopatra, the coins, and — most importantly — the mask I’ve been curious about for over a year. Here’s another photo with the mask in the hands of an omnipresent Egyptologist:
Reuters Photo
The cleft in the chin is what is being used to tie this to Marcus Antonius, apparently. So let’s compare … here’s a damaged bust which is possibly MA:
From UTexas
The cleft is definitely there … what I find interesting though, is that a granite statue identified as Marcus Antonius in the Greco Roman Museum in Alexandria (which I can’t find a ‘free’ photo of) doesn’t have this cleft. Some revisionism will be necessary either way, I suspect.
Interesting. One small note: The Egyptians seem to have used the Roman depictions only superficially and rather have kept with their own style. See e.g. the young Caesar as Pharaoh:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/59/Octavian_Karnak.jpg
There is some resemblance to his Roman portraits, but it’s not very distinct.
Possibilities here. Although the fragment is small, the nose and chin
seem as if they would correspond to the coin profiles of Antony.