Who were Arsinoë II and III? Why do we think this sculpture depicts one of them? Why don't we know for sure which one it is?

Arsinoë II and III were queens in Egypt during Hellenistic (Greek) times. Both were powerful rulers who married their brothers, the pharaohs Ptolemy II and IV.  Both helped their husbands lead their country, not just in peace, but in war as well. At different times, in fact, both Arsinoë II and III led troops into battle, not from a throne, but atop horses at the head of their armies.

The seat of Hellenistic Egyptian power was Alexandria, the city where we believe this head was found in the early twentieth century.  Portraits of the Ptolemies (the ruling dynasty of the period) were produced in a wide variety of scales and media during their reign, but one of the most popular sizes for sculpture in the third century BC was just over half life-size.  Other examples of portraits known to be Arsinoë II and III have also been excavated in Alexandria.

Writers of the third century BC remarked on the looks of both Arsinoë II and III. Arsinoë II's beauty was renowned while Arsinoë III's was refined.  Portraits of these queens reflect both their grace and power. They are shown alongside their husbands or on their own on the faces of coins, in the guise of Egyptian goddesses in granite or as Greek beauties in marble and bronze. Many of the portraits can be considered realistic, although they were made after the subjects' deaths. Upon her death, Arsinoë II was deified, while a priesthood was established in honor of Arsinoë III when she died.

Distinctive characteristics materialize from the study of these portraits. Arsinoë II had a prominent, strong chin, most evident from her profile on coins. Her wavy hair was parted and pulled back from her face with a diadem. It was often covered with a veil or mantle (added to many sculptures with stucco applied to the unfinished rear surface of the head) to indicate the portrait was posthumous. Her nose is always shown with a "Roman" slope.  Arsinoë III, on the other hand, is shown having a nearly straight nose with a distinctive tip.  Her hair is also shown parted and pulled back, although it has more exaggerated waves, with a curl in front of the ear and a knot at the nape of the neck. Her chin, unlike Arsinoë II's, is small and rounded.

Features of both women can be seen in this head. From the front, the chin appears to have the same roundness as Arsinoë II's, while in profile it seems smaller and recessive, similar to Arsinoë III's. The parted-with-diadem hairstyle has the clearly defined waves we associate with Arsinoë II, but it appears to end in Arsinoë III's knot at the back of the neck. We cannot determine, however, whether the stucco that would have completed the rear of the head was formed into a veil or mantle or molded into more waves. The missing end of the nose also leaves us with a mystery: although the slant of the remaining portion is that of Arsinoë II, the missing portion may well have been the distinctive tip we associate with Arsinoë III.

The hairstyle and facial features clearly indicate that this is not the pleasantly blank, idealized face of a goddess. This is the face of a living woman, a queen of the Ptolemies, although which one cannot be firmly determined.

Through much of Greek art history, from the abstract grave or cult carvings of the Cyclades to the portraits of Hellenistic Egyptian queens, the Greeks usually depicted women as ideals of beauty and grace—external beauty symbolizing internal beauty. More than any other artist, the Greek Hellenistic sculptor Praxiteles influenced this course. His nude Aphrodite was interpreted and copied thousands of times.

Women in art could also signify power, even when they were shown as the grotesque antithesis of beauty, the Gorgon. While mythology casts the monstrous Gorgon Medusa and her sisters as wicked—again, the external manifestation of internal character—the Gorgon was regularly incorporated into art that celebrated military victory. The goddess Athena was used by leaders as a physical symbol of power as well, and queens were depicted as both themselves and in the guise of goddesses to convey their strength and power.