Feb. 14, 2007 — When Shakespeare wrote that 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 32 B.C. and put on display in the U.K. Tuesday shows the phrase 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 — the Roman general is shown with a hook nose, bulging eyes and a thick neck.
The portraits are a long way from the famously sultry depiction of the couple by Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor in the 1963 film "Cleopatra."
The coin itself represents one three-hundredth of a Roman soldier's salary and was probably minted to pay the wages of those stationed in Egypt.
The coin has gone on display at Newcastle University, northeast England, on Valentine's Day after years of lying in a bank.
