Hollywood brightens up Cleopatra's looks to conceal her true ugliness

Even researchers who were well informed of Cleopatra's imperfection could not imagine how ugly the first lady of Egypt was

Less and less questions remain unsolved in the history of the Ancient Egypt. Now that the researchers realized that there are no great archeological discoveries ahead after every spot of pharaohs' country had been dug, they decided to go for anthropology. First, scientists managed to restore the image of the most beautiful queen Nefertiti, then they turned to the innocently killed young king Tutankhamun's face. The next turned out to be the seducer Cleopatra, who was breaking hearts of Roman emperors.

Until now the image of Egyptian queen was associated mainly with such beauty ideals of the 20th century as Vivien Lee, Sophia Loren and Elizabeth Taylor. However, scientists knew long time ago that the queen did not looked impressive. Either the taste of Roman emperors was different from ours or the beauty was not the main merit of the queen. Still, sculptures of that period provide us with the image of petite big-nosed lady with bandy legs and a need for dentist's service. Nevertheless, even researchers who were well informed of Cleopatra's imperfection could not imagine how ugly the first lady of Egypt had been.

A discovery made by a group of scientists with Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities of Egypt as a leader made it possible to see how the queen really looked. They found numerous objects of Ptolemaic anв Roman periods (300 BC – 300 AD) about 250 km south of Cairo. Many bronze coins of the year 35 BC with the profile of an ugly woman were among them. The woman turned out to be the legendary beauty queen.

“This coins prove that Cleopatra had irregular profile: aquiline nose, sharp upthrust chin and deep-set eyes,” Oreste Malnati, specialist from the Catholic University of Milan, said. She cannot be even called good-looking nothing to say about beautiful. British Museum's Susan Walker thinks that Cleopatra had the look of a learned woman whom and in fact she was learned as apart from Greek she spoke Latin, Hebrew, Aramaic and Egyptian.

The most powerful men of that time were bewitched by Cleopatra's intelligence and charm rather than by her appearance. According to scientists her charm was based on her intelligence, culture, manner of speaking, dressing, moving and introducing herself as well as on masterful skills of seduction. As a result she managed to seduce the Great Emperor Caesar and to drive brave warrior Marcus Antonius crazy.