Ancient Coin Shows Cleopatra As No Beauty

It was asummed when Shakespeare said the face of Cleopatra, the ancient queen of Egypt, "beggar'd all description", he meant that words could not sum up her beauty.

But a coin dating from 32BC shows the phrase may have had an unintended double meaning -- it depicts the queen as no great looker with a pointed chin, thin lips and sharp nose.

Her lover, Mark Antony, fares little better on the coin's flipside -- shown with a hook nose, bulging eyes and a thick neck.

The portraits are a long way from the famously sultry depiction her in the 1963 film "Cleopatra".

Lindsay Allason-Jones, a director of archaeological museums, said that the image of her as a great beauty is comparatively modern.

"Roman writers tell us that Cleopatra was intelligent and charismatic and that she had a seductive voice, but, tellingly, they do not mention her beauty. It's one of those perpetual myths that has been perpetuated by having people like Elizabeth Taylor playing her and it's very difficult to get that out of peoples' psyches".

"She does look as if she's forgotten to put her teeth in", she says.

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