(ANSA) - Rome, April 20 - An Italian expert said on Friday
that she had identified a sculpture in Cairo's Egyptian Museum
as depicting the twin children of Cleopatra and Mark Antony.
Egyptologist Giuseppina Capriotti of the Italian National
Research Council (CNR) said that an approximately one-metre-high
sculpture of a boy and girl embracing is of is the ancient
lovers' offspring, Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene II.
The famous relationship between Cleopatra and Antony also
produced a third child after the twins, Ptolemy Philadelphus.
Capriotti said that the only other works depicting either of the twins is a coin and a sculpture of Selene. The three children were taken to Rome after Cleopatra and Antony committed suicide following defeat by Octavius and put into the care of the future Emperor Augustus sister, Octavia, who was also Mark Antony's widow. Octavius arranged for Selene to be married to Juba II of Mauretania, but it is now known what happened to Alexander Helios and Ptolemy Philadelphus.
Capriotti said that the only other works depicting either of the twins is a coin and a sculpture of Selene. The three children were taken to Rome after Cleopatra and Antony committed suicide following defeat by Octavius and put into the care of the future Emperor Augustus sister, Octavia, who was also Mark Antony's widow. Octavius arranged for Selene to be married to Juba II of Mauretania, but it is now known what happened to Alexander Helios and Ptolemy Philadelphus.
