51-30 BC. An iron bezel with inset gold cameo depicting queen Cleopatra, as the goddess Isis, wearing tripartite wig, vulture headdress with uraeus and sun disc between cow horns; broad collar around neck. 1.25 grams, 21mm (1/4") From the Dolman collection; acquired in the early 1920s. Cleopatra VII Philopator was the last member of the Ptolemaic dynasty to rule over Egypt and was famously associated with both Julius Caesar and Marc Antony before she committed suicide after her defeat by Octavian Caesar, later the Emperor Augustus, at the battle of Actium. Cleopatra was the only member of the dynasty to speak the native Egyptian language and strongly identified herself with the Egyptian religion, patronising important temples such as that dedicated to the goddess Hathor at Denderah. She closely identified herself with the goddess Isis, and her coinage hailed her as the ‘New Isis,’ and she was actively worshipped as such in Egypt. After the ‘Donations of Alexandria’ she was never in public without her Isis robes. Caesar had even recognised Cleopatra as Isis in a triumph held in Rome and dedicated a gold statue of her as Isis in the temple of Venus Genetrix in the Forum. Religion was an integral part of Cleopatra’s political propaganda, for the sect of Isis had spread throughout the ancient Mediterranean world, and to be ‘internationally’ recognised as the goddess gave Cleopatra greater political prestige in the East. When Antony became a crucial part of her plans, Cleopatra’s propaganda ensured that he was revered by Greek Egyptians as Dionysus and by native Egyptians as Osiris, the ‘king of kings’. [No Reserve]

Fine condition.