The Nahman Alexander

Robert Steven Bianchi

Abstract

The marble Nahman (private Swiss Collection) and red granite Alexandria (inv. no.
3242) portraits of Alexander the Great, both created in Egypt during the first half of the
Ptolemaic Period, have been virtually ignored in the literature. Nevertheless their shared
characteristics, including the presence of inlaid eyes, invite discussion about the interac-
tion of Hellenistic Greek and pharaonic Egyptian ateliers and, in so doing, call into ques-
tion concepts of both a mixed as well as regional artistic styles. Their stylistic dependence
on a putative common prototype underscores the liminal nature of Ptolemaic culture
whereby Hellenistic and Egyptian elites could seamlessly navigate between both spheres
and commission works of art which retained the integrity of the artistic tenets germane to
the particular sphere in which the work of art was both created and received. Both portraits
serve to define the nature of ephebic representations of Alexander the Great which then may
have served as models for other Ptolemaic royal images.

The subject of this essay is a marble portrait of Alexander the Great which is currently in an Ameri-
can private collection (figs. 1 and 2). The portrait was formerly part of the inventory of Maurice Nah-
man (18681948), the Cairene Antiquities dealer, 1 and was said to have come from Hermopolis, 2
modern Ashmunein in Middle Egypt. 3 This site has been excavated of late by a team from Londons
British Museum Expedition to Middle Egypt 4 and was dedicated to Thoth often equated with Greek
Hermes. At least two other accomplished portraits of Ptolemaic rulers in Hellenistic style are known
to have come from that site, 5 to which can be added a marble image of Hermes, perhaps of second
century b.c. date, with remains of its original inlaid eyes still preserved, in a private collection, 6 and
a portrait head of an anonymous male figure with closely-cropped hair and thin beard, suggested to

1
I wish to thank the present owner for permission to publish this portrait; Dr. Giraud Foster for facilitating my visit to
Washington, D.C., for research purposes; and Dr. Zahi Hawaas for granting me permission to discuss and to illustrate the
portrait of Alexander in the Graeco-Roman Museum, Alexandria.
Warren R. Dawson and Eric P. Uphill, Who was Who in Egyptology [Third revised edition by Morris L. Bierbrier] (London,
1995), 305.
2
Robert Steven Bianchi, in Christies, Antiquities (South Kensington, 28 April 2004), 50, lot 281.
3
This head may very well be associated with a second which I recently identified as a portrait of Cleopatra VII, also origi-
nally part of the inventory of Maurice Nahman: Robert Steven Bianchi, Images of Cleopatra VII Reconsidered, in Susan
Walker and Sally-Ann Ashton, eds., Cleopatra Reassessed. The British Museum Occasional Paper Number 103 (London, 2001),
1323, esp. 19 and fig. 5; Bianchi, in Christies, Antiquities (South Kensington, 28 April 2004), 5051, lot 281; and Guy Weill
Goudchaux, Kleopatra Nahman, in Bernard Andreae, ed., Kleopatra und die Caesaren (Munich, 2006), 12729, esp. 126. It is
possible that both were originally erected at Ashmunein in a Hellenistic context commemorating the Macedonian Greek rulers
of Egypt.
4 A. J. Spencer, British Museum Expedition to Middle Egypt. Excavations at El-Ashmunein II. The Temple Area (London, 1989), 74.
5
Mariemont B264, identified as Berenike II, and Paris, Muse du Louvre Ma 3261, identified as Ptolemy II Philadelphus,
see, Helmut Kyrieleis, Bildnisse der Ptolemer (Berlin, 1975), nos. K5 and B10, respectively.
6
Not published; I thank the present owner for granting me permission to study this portrait and mention its existence here.

29
30 JARCE 43 (2007)

Fig. 1. The Nahman Alexander, frontal view. Photograph Fig. 2. The Nahman Alexander, side view. Photograph by
by the author. the author.

date to the Late Roman Republican or Early Roman Imperial Period. 7 This small corpus of marble
sculptures and the relatively barren appearance of the site today belie its ancient opulence and impor-
tance. 8 Remains of worked blocks once forming part of an impressive architrave of a Hellenistic-styled
building, inscribed in Greek, . . . the cavalry militia serving in the Hermopolite nome [dedicated]
the statues, the temple, and the other buildings within the sanctuary, and the stoa to the deified
Kings Ptolemy II and III with their wives for their benevolence towards them, 9 do much to place
these portraits into context and, in so doing, evoke the grandeur of that city during the time of the
Ptolemies. In addition to these buildings in Hellenistic idiom, the site boasted a magnificent and
equally significant temple in Egyptian style dedicated to Thoth and commissioned in the names of
Alexander the Great and his half-brother, Philip Arrhidaeus, which was visible until 1820. 10 A worked

7 Hildesheim, The Roemer-Pelizaeus Museum 1075: Hans Kayser, Die gyptischen Altertmer im Roemer-Pelizaeus-Museum in

Hildesheim (Hildesheim, 1966), 131, no. 1075 with fig. 103.

8 See Judith McKenzie, The Architecture of Alexandria and Egypt, 300 bcad 700 (New Haven/London, 2007), 34, 5658,

15860, passim, for a discussion of the site within the context of Ptolemaic and Roman Egyptian architecture.
9
William J. Murnane, The Penguin Guide to Ancient Egypt (New York, 1983), 200.
10
John Baines and Jaromr Mlek, Atlas of Ancient Egypt (New York, 1980), 12627.
 BIANCHI 31

block inscribed with the complete Egyptian hieroglyphic titulary of Alexander the Great from an
inner door jamb of that temple has recently been identified. 11 Within this context, it is not surprising
to encounter portraits of Ptolemaic royals and elite members of society, images of Hermes equated
with Thoth, and portraits of Alexander the Great at the site.
The Nahman portrait of Alexander the Great 12 was sculpted from a very fine-grained marble which
is suggested to have been imported from abroad because Egypt is traditionally regarded as marble-
poor. 13 The attitude of the head is in keeping with other images of Alexander. The vertical axis of the
head is slightly tilted to the proper right-hand side and sharply turned in that direction as well. That
turn is conveyed not only by the position of the head on the neck but also by the articulation of the
neck itself which emphasizes the contracted sterno-mastoid muscle on the left and a corresponding
horizontal roll of flesh on the right. The contour of the face is somewhat cordiform and relies upon
the classicizing formula by which the brow coalesces into the bridge of the nose, thereby creating the
sockets into which the eyes, originally inlaid, had been set. The damage to the wings of the nose mit-
igate against obtaining a clear picture of the profile view, but the lips appear to be thin, arranged into
a slight frown with drilled corners, and set above a slightly protruding chin.
The head is framed with massive locks, the individual strands of which are not articulated, in keep-
ing with the treatment of the coiffure encountered on other images of Alexander the Great. The hair
over the forehead has been styled into the anastole so characteristic of portraits of Alexander, and
the hair falling to the shoulders appears, at first glance, to have been coiffed into a bun. This initial
impression proves false upon closer examination because the deep cutting into the marble at the
bottom of the head just above the neck forms part of a channel into which a diadem was originally
set. The widening of this channel at the bottom was doubtless intended to accommodate the diadems
streamers. As a result, the surfaces of the crown of the head have been cut back and were completed
with plaster, in keeping with artistic, Hellenistic tenets practiced in Ptolemaic Egypt. This cutting-
back of the marble and the concomitant loss of plaster now give the erroneous impression that the
locks of hair framing the face have been coiffed into a raised, wreath-like element framing the face.
That impression is caused by the arrangement of the hair in a series of somewhat horizontal, curvilin-
ear forms which completely envelop the left ear but expose part of the right, including its lobe. This
design is intentional and in keeping with chiastic concerns dominating Greek sculpture in general
because the exposed right ear corresponds to the contracted sterno-mastoid muscle and the hair-
covered left ear to the horizontal roll of flesh on the corresponding opposite side of the neck. The
treatment of the musculature of the neck and of the coiffure relative to both ears reinforces the inten-
tionally strong turn of the head to one side. The exact appearance of this coiffure is difficult to access
with certainty because it was completed in the now missing plaster which was integrated into the design

11
Private, Swiss collection inventory number 228: Eric Winter, Alexander der Grosse als Pharao in gyptischen Tempeln,
in Herbert Beck, Peter C. Bol, and Maraike Bckling, eds, gyptenGriechenlandRom: Abwehr und Berhrung (Frankfurt,
2005), 20415, esp. 212 and fig. 4.
12
The head is approximately 11 inches (28 cm) in height.
13
Kyrieleis, Bildnisse der Ptolemer, 13034, for the prevailing assessment of the use of marble for sculpture in Hellenistic
Egypt, to which should be added the comments of Roland Tefnin, Un portrait de la reine Berenice II trouv en Egypte,
LAntiquit Classique 36 (1967), 89100; for some of the issues involved, see the attempts to identify the stone employed for
New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 89.2.660, as summarized by Bianchi, Images of Cleopatra VII Reconsidered, 22,
note 58; to which one can add New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art 07.230.3 + Cairo, The Egyptian Museum JE 90237,
the re-united face and bust of Tuthmosis III from Deir el Bahari: Arne Eggebrecht, ed., gyptens Aufstieg zur Weltmacht (Mainz,
1987), 18487, nos. 102 and 103, respectively.
 32 JARCE 43 (2007)

and placement of the original diadem, but it doubtless reflects a hair style associated with Alexander
the Great during his life time as comparison with the hair depicted on the bronze equestrian statue
of Alexander in Naples reveals. 14
The musculature of the face is ever so slightly suggested by subtly merging, plastically rendered
planes with the result that the portrait is imbued with a pathos evocative of Athenian sculpture in the
tradition of the early Classical Period, as comparison with the Blonde Boy, 15 suggests. Indeed, the
Nahman Alexander is a depiction of an expressive ephebe, and that period of a young mans life is
reinforced by the treatment of the skin of the face which, despite its somewhat damaged state, is rep-
resented as both taut and wrinkle-free. The impression conveyed by this sfumato approach to the skin
is congruent with Hellenistic sculptural norms from Egypt and appears to relate directly to technique
rather than to aesthetic predilection because that sfumato effect would have been effectively con-
cealed by the paint, or perhaps even gilding, arguably applied to the surfaces of this portrait. 16
The inlaid eyes are a noteworthy feature inasmuch as the statistically overwhelming number of
Hellenistic royal portraits from Egypt are characterized by sculptured, rather than by inlaid eyes. 17
This is in contrast to pharaonic Egyptian images of Ptolemaic royals which exhibit inlaid eyes on a far
greater number of examples. As a result, scholars have suggested that native Egyptian sculptural
ateliers may have re-introduced inlaid eyes into the sculptural repertoire which then influenced the
adoption of this technique by contemporary Hellenistic, sculptural ateliers in Egypt. 18 The sugges-
tion that Egyptian ateliers of this period were emulating the use of inlaid eyes which they encoun-
tered on bronze, Hellenistic sculpture 19 does not obtain inasmuch Hellenistic marble cult statues
continued to exhibit inlaid eyes at a time contemporary with the suggested emulation of this tech-
nique by Egyptian ateliers. 20 It seems more likely that these native Egyptian ateliers were emulating
Hellenistic, marble cult statues inasmuch as their own images were intended for display in cultic,
temple settings. What is extraordinary, however, is the fact that the Nahman Alexander appears to
be the only posthumous, marble image of that ruler exhibiting inlaid eyes. 21 It also has an Egyptian
provenance.
The issue of the impetus for the use of inlaid eyes in portraits of Ptolemaic royals may be revisited
by considering a second portrait of Alexander the Great presently in the collections of the Graeco-

14
Naples, National Archaeological Museum 4996: Andrew Stewart, Faces of Power. Alexanders Image and Hellenistic Politics
(Berkeley, 1993), 45, 12324, 12728, 426, and fig. 21; and Fondazione Memmo, Alessandro Magna. Storia e Mito (Rome, 1995),
23435, no. 27.
15
Athens, The Akropolis Museum 689: Humfry Payne and Gerard Mackworth-Young, Archaic Marble Sculpture from the
Acropolis [New and revised edition], (London, 1950), 45 with plates 11315.
16
On this issue, see both Kyrieleis, Bildnisse der Ptolemer, 109; and Bianchi, De Rogato Artium Elegantiorum Alexandri-
narum, Socit Archologique dAlexanderie Bulletin [Alexandrian Studies in Memoriam Daoud Abdu Daoud] 45 (1993), 3543, esp. 41.
17
Sally-Ann Ashton, Ptolemaic Royal Sculpture from Egypt. The Interaction between Greek and Egyptian Traditions. BAR Series 923
(Oxford, 2001), 27.
18
Ashton, Ptolemaic Royal Sculpture from Egypt, 27.
19
Paul Stanwick, Regional Styles in Ptolemaic Royal Portraits, in P. C. Bol, G. Kaminski, and C. Maderna, eds., Fremdheit
Eigenheit. gypten, Griechenland und Rom, 399420.
20
R. R. R. Smith, Hellenistic Sculpture (London, 1991), 24041, for such Hellenistic cult statues which, incidentally, are dated
ed: to the second century b.c., the very period in which inlaid eyes begin to appear with increasing frequency on depictions of roy-
also? als in pharaonic style. See, too, on this point the comments by Tefnin, La tte du Muse de Mariemont, 8798.
21 There were no ancient, marble images of Alexander the Great with inlaid eyes in the exhibition mounted by the Fondazi-

one Memmo, Alessandro Magna. Storia e Mito, and none discussed or illustrated by either Stewart, Faces of Power or Carola
Reinsberg, Alexander-Portrts, in H. Beck, P. C. Bol, and M. Bckling, eds., FremdheitEigenheit. gyptenGriechenlandRom,
21634.
 BIANCHI 33

Fig. 3. Alexandria, Graeco-Roman Museum 3242, fron- Fig. 4. Alexandria, Graeco-Roman Museum 3242, side
tal view. Photograph by the author. view. Photograph by the author.

Roman Museum in Alexandria (figs. 34). 22 This head appears to be an adaptation in a native
Egyptian stone of the prototype to which the Nahman Alexander is also indebted, and its decidedly
Hellenistic idiom is visually without question. It shares many features in common with the Nahman
Alexander from the shape of the face including its oval contour, the coalescence of the brow into the
bridge of the nose in order to create the sockets into which the now-missing inlaid eyes were set, the
relatively thin, slightly down-turned lips with their drilled corners, and a projecting chin. The face has
likewise been created by a series of subtly merging, plastically rendered planes which reveal taut,
wrinkle-free skin. These features depict the Alexandria Alexander as an identical, classically-inspired
representation of an ephebe whose countenance is imbued with the same expression of pathos. Fur-
thermore, the coiffure of both portraits is similar with the anastole rising above the middle of the
forehead and with the hair, framing the face, styled in massive, horizontally-aligned curls, the individ-
ual strands of which are not indicated. A profile view again gives the false impression that the hair
on this portrait was arranged in a bun because a similar cutting into the stone of a channel running

22 Alexandria, Graeco-Roman Museum 3242: Gnther Grimm, Alexandria: Die erste Knigsstadt der hellenistischen Welt (Mainz

1998), 31, fig. 26ab; and for a somewhat larger image on which the detail is clearer, Gareth L. Steen, ed., with photographs
by Araldo De Luca, Alexandriathe Site & the History (New York, 1993), 33; and Marie-Dominique Nenna, in Editions des
muses de la Ville de Paris, Muse du Petit Palais, La Glorie dAlexandrie (Paris, 1998), 61, no. 27, who provides its material and
height (34 cm), and suggests Alexandria as its provenance because it was a gift to that museum by J. Antoniadis.
34 JARCE 43 (2007)

behind this prominently elevated wreath-like mass of hair originally served to secure a now missing
diadem in place, which was designed to accompany an apparent divine attributed affixed to the crown
of the head, which is suggested to have been, but is not unequivocally identifiable, as a uraeus. 23 The
Alexandria Alexander is less accomplished because the turn of the head to one side is manifest neither
in the treatment of the musculature of the neck, which is articulated simply with incision to indicate
horizontal rings of Venus, nor in the revelation and concealment of the ears by the hair.
There can be not doubt, however, that the Nahman and Alexandria portraits of Alexander the
Great form a group to which we will now turn our attention.
The use of red granite and the appearance of inlaid eyes seduced earlier commentators 24 into facile
comparisons between the Alexandria Alexander and the images of Ptolemaic rulers found at Abukir, 25
ancient Canopus, and off the island of Aegina 26 in Greece. Although there is admittedly a degree of
corpulence inherent in the modeling of these two images, their design is in keeping with Egyptian
rather than with Hellenistic artistic tenets. 27 One of the advances pioneered by Classical sculptors by
the fourth century b.c. was the integration of the frontal and profile views of the head in such a way
that the placement and treatment of the eye, for example, was more clearly visible in the profile view
and there occupied a relatively larger area extending closer to the position of the ear. Furthermore,
a comparison of the profile views of the heads from Abukir and Aegina reveal that the inner corner
of the eye in these two images rests on a relatively flat, virtually un-modeled vertical plane forming
the check and side of the face whereas the eye of the Alexandria Alexander rests in a socket incorpo-
rated into the merging plane of the plastically modeled check. In other words, the Abukir and Aegina
portraits are conceived frontally with their physiognomic features relegated to the frontal plane. That
relegation and apparent disregard for the profile view is also manifest in the un-modulated oblique
angle formed by the line leading from the chin to the neck which, in both of these images, completely
disregards the fleshy character of the throat. The curvilinear aspect of the corresponding area in the
Alexandria Alexander is in keeping with Hellenistic artistic norms in which the profile view is inte-
grated into the frontal view. This integration is consummately achieved in the chiastic design of the
musculature of the neck and the hair relative to each ear in the Nahman Alexander on which proto-
type on the Alexandria Alexander is also ultimately based. This distinction is more clearly evident in
the design of the hair which appears as a raised fascia ornamented with linear adjuncts in the Abukir
and Aegina images. In a front view, which I contend was the primary view in both the Aegina and
Anukir images, one cannot predict the appearance of the side burns as one can do in the frontal view
of the Alexandria Alexander. 28 This portrait could, therefore, only have been created in a Hellenistic,
not an Egyptian, sculptural atelier.

23
Nenna, La Glorie dAlexandrie, 61, who is more cautious in accepting the presence of a uraeus than G. Grimm, Alexandria.
Die erste Knigsstadt der hellenistischen Welt, 31, caption to fig. 26ab.
24
K. Gebauer, Alexanderbildnis und Alexandertypus, AthMitt 63/64 (19381939), 1106, esp. 91.
25
Alexandria, The Graeco-Roman Museum 3357: Kyrieleis, Bildnisse der Ptolemer, F2.
26
Athens, Athens National Museum 108: Kyrieleis, Bildnisse der Ptolemer, F1.
27
Ashton, Royal Sculpture from Egypt, 67, approaches this issue from a slightly different perspective, but her argument in
favor of the essential Egyptian nature of such portraits is both reinforced and furthered by this discussion of the Alexandria
Alexander.
28 Ashton, Ptolemaic Royal Sculpture from Egypt, 36, clearly demonstrates that such images cannot be classified as creations of

a mixed style, because the borrowings are very specific and controlled. The same conclusion was already reached by Jean
Bingen, Graeco-Roman Egypt and the Question of Cultural Interactions in LEgypte grco-romaine et la problmatique des inter-
actions culturelles. Proceedings of the XVI International Congress of Papyrology (Chico, 1981), 318 (= Jean Bingen, Hellenistic Egypt:
Monarchy, Society, Economy, [Berkeley, 2007], chap. 18, 24055).
 BIANCHI 35

One must, therefore, seriously question received wisdom which holds that native materials were
traditionally worked primarily by native craftsmen. Hellenistic sculptural ateliers working in Egypt
could readily have worked traditional pharaonic stones such as granite, as this discussion of the Alex-
andria Alexander suggests. The evidence emerging from the underwater excavations in the vicinity of
the Pharos in the harbor of Alexandria presents an interesting admixture of both granite and marble
fragments 29 and my autopsy of the site beginning in 1972 revealed the presence of red granite blocks
forming part of what Forster calls Qait Beys Castle; these must have been original to the Pharos. 30
Given the inherent megalomaniacal characteristic of certain Hellenistic Greek architectural and
sculptural programs in the East, not only in Alexandria, but also on Rhodes, at Halicarnassus, and on
Mt. Athos, with its planned transformation into a colossal, environmental sculptural monument, it is
inconceivable that Greek ateliers were neither conversant with nor expert in the manipulation of
these so-called native Egyptian stones and materials. 31 It is even possible that Ptolemaic commissions
of dedicatory works of art at both Greek sanctuaries and among their Greek dependencies 32 likewise
employed typically Egyptian stones, which were not limited to bases such as those examined by me
in situ in 1979 at Olympia 33 in the vicinity of the Echo Stoa not far from the pedestal for the Nike of
Painonios.
The Greek appropriation of the technical means of working native Egyptian hardstones must be
regarded against the background of Graeco-Egyptian cultural interaction in general in which the Greeks
can be shown to have incorporated several native Egyptian cultural practices into their own cultural
fabric. Indeed, Hellenistic art in the Ptolemaic Period of Egypt was at once too dynamic to resist inter-
action with tenacious Egyptian taste and too sympathetic to remain unchanged by it. 34 The Hellenistic
Greek receptiveness to things Egyptian is demonstrated by the finds from the harbor associated with the
Pharos. In the Greek city of Alexandria, such receptiveness must have been commonplace, but there is
no such evidence of a reciprocal receptiveness by the Egyptians of things Hellenistic in a purely Egyptian
ambiance as the complete absence of Hellenistic statuary from the Karnak 35 and Luxor cachettes 36 and

29
Anonymous, Undersea Battle, Egyptian Archaeology 7 (1995), 33; J.-Y. Empereur, Travaux rcents dans la capitale des
Ptolmes, KERYLOS 9 (= Cahiers de La Villa Krylos, no. 9 [Beaulieu-sur-mer (Alpes-Maritimes), Colloque: Alexandrie: Une
Mgapole cosmopolite. Actes] (Paris, 1999), 2539. The appearance of marble together with granite at this site was already noticed
by E. M. Forster, AlexandriaA History and a Guide (New York, 1961), 151.
30
Forster, AlexandriaA History and a Guide, 152, The entrance [of the Mosque in the Castle] with its five monoliths of
Assouan granite, taken from the Pharos, is almost druidical in effect. . . .
31
McKenzie, The Architecture of Alexandria and Egypt, 55, and 8990.
32
Architectural commissions appear to have been minimal because Barbara Schmidt-Dounas, Zur Reprsentation der
Ptolemaier in Griechenland, in P. C. Bol, G. Kaminski, and C. Maderna, FremdheitEigenheit. gypten, Griechenland und
Rom,105, inventories only 6.
33
For the Greek dedication at Olympia honoring Ptolemy II Philadelphus and Arsinoe II, see, Gabriella Longega, Arsinoe II
(Rome, 1968), 8890; for the granite blocks at the site, see, Wilfram Hoepfner, Von Alexandria ber Pergamon nach Ni-
kopolis, in Akten des 13. Internationalen Kongresses fr klassische Archologie, Berlin 1988 (Mainz, 1990), 27585; Wilfram
Hoepfner, Philadelphia. Ein Beitrag zur frhen hellenistischen Architektur, AthMitt 99 (1984), 35364; and Jrgen Bor-
chardt, Ein Ptolemaion in Limyra, RA 199192, 30922.
34
Marti Lu Allen, The Terracotta Figurines from Karanis: A Study of Technique, Style, and Chonology in Faiyoumic Coroplastics
(Ph.D. diss., Ann Arbor, University of Michigan), 95.
35 Jean-Claude Goyon and Christine Cardin with the collaboration of Michel Azim and Gilhane Zaki, eds., Trsors dEgypte.

La cachette de Karnak, 19042004 (Grenoble, 2004), 1722. Ramadam El-Sayed, Au sujet de la statue CG. 680 du Muse du
Caire de lpoque ptolmaque et provenant de Thbes Ouest, BIFAO 80 (1980), 23348, esp. 234, citing Herman De Meule-
naere, Proposographia Ptolemaica, CdE 34 (1959), 24449, esp. 247, argues for Medinet Habu as the workshop for at least
one sculptural atelier serving Karnak during the Ptolemaic Period.
36
Mohammed El-Saghir, Das Statuenversteck im Luxortempel (Mainz, 1991).
36 JARCE 43 (2007)

the complete absence of Hellenistic architectural elements in the Temple of Horus at Edfu 37 so amply
demonstrate. 38
It is for this reason that one frequently encounters Greek glosses in the visual arts as a means of
explaining Egyptian concepts to a Hellenic audience. 39 This process was already well established 40 by
the fifth century as seen in the attempts by Herodotus to make Egyptian deities familiar to Greek
audiences. This practice continued into the early Ptolemaic Period with the image of the god Serapis
and the history of Egypt, based on pharaonic sources but written in Greek, by Manetho, who was
among an estimated 15 native Egyptian intellectuals documented at the Ptolemaic court. 41 The pro-
cess continued into the Roman Imperial Period, as studies dealing with the iconography of the griffin
Nemesis demonstrate. 42 Although there are virtually no corresponding glosses, yet identified, to assist
a native audience with the understanding of Hellenic concepts visually expressed, 43 there is a growing
body of evidence to suggest that Egyptian learned temple scribes were aware of and often incorpo-
rated Greek literary motifs into their Egyptian compositions. 44 Such a continual exchange of nuanced
cultural information suggests closer interaction between Greek administrators and members of the
native Egyptian elite than heretofore accepted.
The mechanisms for this exchange would appear to have been on a very personal level among the
highest members of both the Hellenistic administration and the native Egyptian elite. The role of the
native Egyptian elite in the transference of this information cannot be underestimated because Egyp-
tian art, even into the Ptolemaic Period, remained an institutionally-affiliated craft, practiced by arti-
sans under the direction of overseers in a millennia-old system whereby artistic license was denied to
the individuals actually manipulating the medium. That these overseers could, chameleon-like, dictate
the design and style, Hellenistic or pharaonic, of works of art under their charge is amply demon-

37
Ragnhild Bjerre Finnestad, Image of the World and Symbol of the Creator (Wiesbaden, 1985), 6; and Pierre Zignani and Nico-
las Nilsson, Etude architecturale et modlisation des structures au temple dHathor Dendera, BIFAO 97 (1997), 292311.
38
As Bruno Hugo Stricker, Graeco-Egyptische private sculptuur, OMRO 40 (1959), 116, esp. 2, so incisively observed,
the culture of the Late Period is one of a collision between Egypt and Greece. Throughout the millennia Egypt was the giver
and not the taker . . . it is difficult to see the reverse take place in the Hellenistic period.
39
Bianchi, The Cultural Transformation of Egypt as Suggested by a Group of Enthroned Male Figures from the Faiyum,
in Janet H. Johnson, ed., Life in a Multi-Cultural Society (Chicago, 1992), 1540; to which may now be added additional examples,
such as a relief in a private collection: Sabine Albersmeier and Martina Minas, Ein Weihrelief fr die vergttlichte Arsinoe II,
in Willy Clarysse, Antoon Schoors, and Harco Willems, eds., Egyptian Religion. The Last Thousand Years. I. Studies Dedicated to
the Memory of Jan Quaegebeur (= OLA 84) (Leuven, 1998), 329; a relief in Trier, The University of Trier 1900.112: Hans Heinen,
Thoeris und heilige Fische, in Jacob Seibert, ed., Hellenistische Studien. Gedenkschrift fr Hermann Bengston (= Mnchener Ar-
beiten zur Alten Gechichte 5) (Munich,1991), 4145; a statuette of a cat, Cairo/Dokki, Agricultural Museum 601: Guy Wagner,
Une nouvelle dedicace Boubastis, ASAE 69 (1983), 24752; and Cairo: The Egyptian Museum JE 44048: Jean Bingen,
Grecs et Egyptiens daprs PSI 502, in Deborah. H. Samuel, ed., Proceedings of the 12th International Congress of Papyrology,
Albion, 13th17th August 1970 (Toronto, 1970), 3540.
40
Susan A. Stephens, Seeing Double. Intercultural Poetics in Ptolemaic Alexandria (Berkeley, 2003), 2073.
41
Ursula Verhoeven, Die interkulturelle Rolle von Priestern im ptolemischen gypten, in Herbert Beck, Peter C. Bol,
and Maraike Bckling, eds, FremdheitEigenheit. gyptenGriechenlandRom, 27984, for a suggested etymology of the name,
Manetho, and an overview of such native Egyptian intellectuals at the court.
42
Jan Quaegebeur, De lorigine gyptienne griffon Nmsis, in Visages du destin dans les mythologies. Mlanges Jacqueline
Duchemin. Travaux et Mmoires. Actes du colloque de Chantilly 1er2 mai 1980 (Paris, 1983) (= Centre de recherch mythologiques de
lUniversit de Paris 10), 4154.
43
Cairo, The Egyptian Museum CG 2743: Michel Malaise, Questions diconographie harpocratique souleves par des
terres cuites dEgypte grco-romaine, in Catherine Berger, Gisle Clerc, and Nicholas Grimal, eds., Hommages Jean Leclant 3:
Etudes isiaques (Cairo 1994) (= Bibliothque dEtude 106/3), 37383, for a rare instance of a hieroglyphic inscription on a object
in Hellenistic style.
44
Jean Yoyotte, Bakhthis: religion gyptienne et culture grecque Edfou, in Bibliothque des Cenrres dEtudes suprieures spe-
cializes. Travaux du centre dtudes dhistoire des religions de Strasbourg. Religions en Egypte hellnistique et romaine. Colloque de Stras-
bourg 1618 mai 1967 (Paris, 1969), 12741; and Philippe Derchain, Miettes, RdE 26 (1974), 720.
 BIANCHI 37

strated by any number of case studies, 45 such as that of Senucheri and of Ahmes, son of Smendes. 46
Philippe Derchains evocative portrait of such a savant prtre, although highly speculative, is, never-
theless, rooted in the emerging picture of this liminal cultural landscape through the porous bound-
aries of which such individuals indeed did move back and forth at will. 47 These individuals are known
to have exercised their authority simultaneously over great distances, often in regions as far removed
from one another as the Thebaid and the Delta. 48 The stylistic similarities between works of art
known to have been created under the direction of such officials with documented provenances of
Thebes and the Delta effectively explodes all attempts to categorize the pharaonic production of
Ptolemaic Egypt into regional schools and forces one to question Paul Stanwicks insistence upon
regional styles. 49
The existence of two portraits of Alexander the Great, both based upon a common prototype, the
one in traditional Greek marble and the other in traditional pharaonic red granite, respectively, can
only be understood within the context of this liminal cultural landscape in which members of one
and the same elite family at Edfu could have themselves honored and commemorated with separately
made tomb stones in Hellenistic and pharaonic style, each inscribed with a different personal name
most closely identified with the style in which the tomb stone was couched. 50 The excavations of what
has been identified as an artistic atelier at Athribis demonstrate that pharaonic and Hellenistic cre-
ations, each with their own stylistic features, could and did in fact remain intact and uncompromised
in one and the same atelier. 51 The archaeological context of the Athribis material in concert with the
corpus of those stelae from Edfu clearly demonstrates that the overseers and artists understood,
respected, and maintained the compartmentalization of artistic styles, a point clearly expressed as
well in several of the bi-lingual royal stelae of Ptolemaic date. 52 Such a cultural context suggests an
environment in which techniques traditionally associated with one cultures artistic production could
be adopted and mastered by another.
And so it was that a Hellenistic atelier, operating in Ptolemaic Egypt, could create a posthumous
portrait of Alexander the Great in red granite in a completely Hellenistic artistic idiom.
More progressive art historians now recognize that the ateliers of Ptolemaic Egypt did understand
the significance of style as an index of social decorum and purposefully chose style defined in the
narrowest of terms. Particular details appearing on pharaonic sculpture which had formerly been
misunderstood and erroneously attributed to a putative mixed school 53 are now recognized as the
45
For Mantho and his confederates, see Verhoeven, Die interkulturelle Rolle von Priestern im ptolemischen gypten,
27984.
46
Philippe Derchain, Les imponderables de lhellnisation (Brussels, 2000), describes the process of moving back and forth
between the two spheres as seamless.
47
Derchain, Lauteur du Papyrus Jumilhac, RdE 41 (1990), 930.
48
Laurent Coulon, Un serviteur de sanctuaire de Chentayt Karnak, BIFAO 101 (2001), 13752.
49
Stanwick, Regional Styles in Ptolemaic Royal Portraits; and Paul Stanwick, Portraits of the Ptolemies (Austin, 2002), 2728.
50
Willy Clarysse, Greeks and Egyptians in the Ptolemaic Army and Administration, Aegyptus 65 (1985), 5766, reaffirming
the position on this issue by Marie-Theresia Derchain-Urtel, Priester im Temple (Wiesbaden, 1989).
51
Karol Myliwiec, Hellenistic Sculptures found at Tell Atrib (Egypt), in Deutsches Archologisches Institut, Akten des XIII.
Internationalen Kongresses fr klassische Archologie Berlin 1988 (Mainz, 1990), 45758.
52
Bianchi, Possible models of a dialogue for artistic exchange and understanding between the Ptolemaic Court and the
native Egyptian priesthood, in P. C. Bol, G. Kaminski, and C. Maderna, eds., FremdheitEigenheit. gypten, Griechenland und
Rom, 39398.
53 Jean Bingen, Voies et limites des interactions culturelles: le cas de lgypte grco-romaine, in: UNESCO, Douze cas dinter-

action culturelle dans lEurope ancienne et lOrient proche ou lointain. tudes interculturelles II (Paris, 1984), 2544, esp. 2627,
already questioned what he termed le mythe dune culture mixte greco-egyptienne which had been uncritically accepted and indeed
supported by a train of scholars in the wake of the original thesis put forth by Drosyen in the 19th century. Even such an
ardent supporter of the mixed school as Bernard V. Bothmer in one of his last appearances at an international colloquium
repudiated many of his earlier positions with regard to this mixed style and singled out eight features within the repertoire of
38 JARCE 43 (2007)

application of the mimetic principle 54 in order to appreciate these works of art for what they are,
namely, fusions, perhaps a more felicitous term for this phenomenon, 55 or new images which remain
internally consistent in theme and style with the artistic pedigree of the atelier in which they were
designed and executed. 56
The interpretation and dating of the Alexandria Alexander are perplexing issues. Klaus Parlasca
is, undoubtedly, correct, in his assessments that the material, red granite, imbues this portrait with
overtones of pharaonic kingship and must be related in some manner to a posthumous cult of Alex-
ander, 57 a suggestion embraced by several others including both by Gnther Grimm 58 and Marie-
Dominique Nenna. 59 Although the Alexandria Alexander is apparently passed over in silence by both
Andrew Stewart 60 and Carola Reinsberg, 61 Marie-Dominique Nenna associates it with the cult statue
of Alexander Ktistes which represented him as a bronze equestrian, although Andrew Stewart fails to
adduce monumental replicas of that cult statue in his discussion of the type. 62 Nennas attribution
appears to rest on relating the Alexandria Alexander directly to the description of the Alexander
Ktistes, as preserved in a passage from the Ps-Libanios, quoted in full in Greek with an accompanying
English translation by Andrew Stewart. 63 That text describes the head and face of this cult statue:

Next, he has no helmet on his head. For he who intends to subdue and survey the whole earth has
no need of helmets. To me, all he has seized in his onward rush seems to lie in his eyes. His posture

pharaonic sculpture of the Ptolemaic Period which he now regarded as independent of Greek influence (Hellenistic Elements
in Egyptian Sculpture of the Hellenistic Period, in The J. Paul Getty Museum, Alexandria and Alexandrianism. Papers Delivered
at a Symposium Organized by The J. Paul Getty Museum and The Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities and Held at the
Museum April 2225, 1993 [Malibu, 1996], 21526, esp. 225. Five of these (nos. 1, 2, 3, 7, and 8) had previously been so identi-
fied by Robert Steven Bianchi, Cleopatas Egypt. Age of the Ptolemies (Brooklyn, 1986), 6770 and 9799; and idem., Not the Isis
Knot, BES 2 (1980), 931, to which now add idem, Images of Isis and her Cultic Shrines Reconsidered. Towards an Egyptian
Understanding of the interpretation graeca, in Laurent Bricault, Miguel John Versluys, and Paul G. P. Meyboom, eds., Nile into
Tiber. Egypt in the Roman World. Proceedings of the IIIrd International Conference of Isis Studies, Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden Univer-
sity, May 1114, 2005 (Leiden/Boston, 2007), 470505, esp. 494.
54
Sally-Ann Ashton, The Ptolemaic Influence on Egyptian Royal Sculpture, in Angela McDonald and Christina Riggs,
eds., Current Research in Egyptology 2000 (London, 2000), 110, esp. 4, which is in accord with the observations by Bianchi, Cleo-
patras Egypt, 6370.
55
Alexandra von Lieven, Form und Inhalt: Kreativer Umgaang mit griechisch-rmischen Einflssen, in Herbert Beck, Peter
C. Bol, and Maraike Bckling, eds, FremdheitEigenheit. gyptenGriechenlandRom, 38789, esp. 387, where the term was sug-
gested earlier by Garth Fowden, The Egyptian Hermes. A Historical Approach to the Late Pagan Mind (Cambridge, 1986), 18.
56
von Lieven Form und Inhalt, 387; Ashton, The Ptolemaic Influence on Egyptian Royal Sculpture, 4; Ashton, Ptolemaic
Royal Sculpture from Egypt, 67; Bingen, Graeco-Roman Egypt and the Question of Cultural Interactions, 40; Lucilla Burn,
Hellenistic Art from Alexander the Great to Augustus (London, 2004), 6970; Marc Etienne, 187. Greywacke statue of Panemerit,
governor of Tanis, in Susan Walker and Peter Higgs, eds., Cleopatra of Egypt from History to Myth (London, 2001), 17879; Marc
Etienne, in Alain Charron, ed., La mort nest pas une fin (Arles, 2002), 11315, no. 50 [Paris, Muse du Louvre D 40]; Franoise
Dunand, Grece et Egyptiens en Egypte lagide, in Modes de contacts et processus de transformation dans les societs anciennes. Actes
du Colloque de Cortonne (2430 mai 1981) organize par la Scuola Normale Superiore et lEcole franaise de Rome avec la collaboration du
Centre de Recherches dhistoire ancienne de lUniversit de Besanon (Rome 1983), 4587; Ivan Guermeur and Christophe Thiers,
Un loge xote de Ptolme Philadelphie, BIFAO 101 (2001), 197219, esp. 216 (Cairo, The Egyptian Museum JE 36576);
Katja Lembke, Aus der Oase des Sonnengottes, in P. C. Bol, G. Kaminski, and C. Maderna, eds., FremdheitEigenheit.
gypten, Griechenland und Rom, 36673; Pierre Montet, Un chef doeuvre de lart grco-romain, MonPiot 50 (1959), 110
(Paris, Muse du Louvre e15683 + Cairo, The Egyptian Museum CG 27493).
57
Klaus Parlasca, Alexander Aigiochos, in P. C. Bol, G. Kaminski, and C. Maderna, eds., FremdheitEigenheit. gypten,
Griechenland und Rom, 34162.
58 Gnther Grimm, in Dietrich Wildung and Gnther Grimm, Gtter und Pharaonen (Hildesheim, 1979), catalogue number 78.
59 Nenna, La Glorie dAlexandrie, 61.
60 Stewart, Faces of Power.
61
Reinsberg, Alexander-Portrts.
62
Stewart, Faces of Power, 24352.
63
Ps-Libanios (Nikolaos Rhetor), Progymnasmata 27: Stewart, Faces of Power, 397400, S18T 126.
 BIANCHI 39

takes in the whole earth, and everything seems as if it were summed up in his face. His hair, uncon-
fined, streams in the wind and the onward rush of his horse. Its locks seem to me like the rays of the
sun. And as his face moves, so too moves his neck.

The head was helmet-less, and hence bare-headed, with windblown hair projecting from the head
ray-like, and turned in such a way that the inclination of the face corresponded in some way to the
turn of the head on the neck.
The overwhelming number of monumental images of Alexander in marble depicted him without a
helmet or any other type of cover with his head turned to one side. Several of these pay particular
attention to the necks musculature, 64 as does the Nahman Alexander, but that turn of the head is not
pronounced in the equestrian image of Alexander from Begram, suggested to be a reflection of the
Alexander Ktistes. 65Whether the treatment of the hair in its present, non-original state, because its
lacks its plaster adjuncts, can be described as windblown is subjective, but the Greek text clearly states
that the hair of the Alexander Ktistes is aneimene, unconfined, loose, not restrained, and that would
seem to imply the absence as well of either a fillet or diadem, clearly present in the Alexandria and
Nahman Alexanders. Consequently, these images might not be reflections of that cult statue.
Nevertheless, Marie-Doninique Nennas suggestion does have merit because it recognizes the ephe-
bic quality of these two portraits which must also have been present in the cult statue of the Alexan-
der Ktistes, who was represented as the founder of the city of Alexandria. That youthfulness,
expressed in a classicizing manner, is clearly manifest in the physiognomy of the Alexandria and Nah-
man Alexanders, and is present as well in a select number of marble portraits of Alexander the Great
known or highly likely to have come from Egypt. 66 I count among these three in particular
(1) Stuttgart, Wrttembergisches Landesmuseum 19, 67
(2) Frankfurt, Liebieghaus Museum alter Plastik 435, 68 and
(3) Alexandria, Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Archaeology Museum 223, 69
because they form a constellation in which their style, eschewing the more baroque details associated,
perhaps, with Lysippean characteristics, superimpose signature features associated with Alexanders
appearance on to an Athenian/Praxitelean design. The stylistic indices of this group include the treat-
ment of the eyes which are never deeply sunk into their sockets, the complete absence of wrinkles or
facial furrows in favor of taut, wrinkle-free skin, the avoidance of sensuous, fleshy lips characterized
with a cupids-bow design of the upper, and hair which is more neatly coiffed and less leonine than
that encountered on the more baroque examples. The overall impression is one of a soft, Praxitelean
sfumato. More broadly considered, this group would also include the following, all of which are or

64
Inter alia, Stewart, Faces of Power, figs. 10 and 12 (Munich, The Rondanini Alexander); fig. 40 (Vienna, the Schwartzen-
berg Alexander); fig. 84 (Copenhagen, Ny Carlsberg Glyptothek 441); and fig. 132 (Brooklyn, The Brooklyn Museum of Art
54.162).
65
Kabul, National Museum 04.1.28: Stewart, Faces of Power, 423 and fig. 52. It is interesting to note that this traditional iden-
tification of that bronze, male equestrian figure is simply labeled a Young horse-rider and its accompanying entry in the
current exhibition catalogue (Fredrik Hiebert and Pierre Cambon, eds., Afghanistan. Hidden Treasures from the National
Museum, Kabul [Washington, D.C., 2008], 208, no. 227) passes over in silence all references to Alexander the Great and cites no
bibliography.
66
Reinsberg, Alexander-Portrts, 333, has already called attention to this group; see, also, Stewart, Faces of Power, 42, 77,
140, 16771, passim, and figs. 4546, who, like Carola Reinsberg, places greater emphasis on the Azara herm in Paris, Muse
du Louvre Ma 426, for deriving the style of this particular group, which I prefer to omit from this discussion because of the ex-
tent of the restorations to its face.
67
Fondazione Memmo, Alessandro Magna. Storia e Mito, 270, number 60.
68
Reinsberg, , Alexander-Portrts, 333.
69
Zahi Hawaas, ed., The Supreme Council of Antiquities. Bibliotheca Alexandrina. The Archaeology Museum (Cairo, 2002), 6465.
40 JARCE 43 (2007)

have been attributed to Egypt as well, because these, too, exhibit stylistic features more closely ap-
proximating the three images in the core constellation than examples in other classifications into
which the images of Alexander the Great have been divided:
(4) Leipzig, Antikenmuseum der Universitt 99.037, 70
(5) Boston, Museum of Fine Arts 95.68 (from Ptolemais), 71
(6) Copenhagen, Ny Carlsberg Glyptothek 441, 72 and
(7) Geneva, Muse dArt et dHistoire 9161. 73
This extended group conforms in its homogeneity to the definition of a landscape style, as defined
by Helmut Kyrieleis, 74 and exhibits two diagnostic characteristics which may suggest their chrono-
logical position. The first is the reliance on drilling the outer corner of the mouth, a technical devise
which is progressively abandoned during the second half of the Ptolemaic Dynasty. 75 The second is
the absence of that pronounced frown, already manifest in the second half of the second century b.c.
and particularly evident during the course of the first century bc, which characterizes the physiog-
nomy of pharaonic royal images from Egypt. 76 The treatment of the lips forming the mouths on ex-
amples belonging to the Alexandria-Nahman group are indebted, not to this late Ptolemaic tradition,
but rather to the tradition of pathos associated with early Athenian sculpture. For these reasons, one
can comfortably assign the examples in the Alexandria-Nahman constellation to the first half of the
Ptolemaic Period.
The career of Alexander in relation to the city of Alexandria may have anciently been regarded as
a metaphorical biography. His arrival into Egypt and his subsequent founding of the city of Alexan-
dria may be regarded as having occurred in his youth, since these events did occur fairly early in his
reign. His campaigns then serve, as indeed they do, as milestones in his career, which ended in death
and the eventual return of his body to the city he founded. Within such a chronological framework,
one would naturally expect to encounter more youthful images of Alexander in Alexandria as indeed
they are encountered in his native Macedonia. 77 The prevailing Athenian/Praxitelean style which earlier
commentators maintain, correctly it would appear, characterizes a significant number of early Ptole-
maic sculptural monuments in the city would have been an imminently suitable for the design of such
an ephebic image of Alexander. And might the pathos inherent in the expression of the examples
in the Alexandria-Nahman constellation be better understood in terms of the ethos of Athenian
ephebes who avoided hubris and self-promotion? The Athenian/Praxitelian style exhibited by the
Alexandria-Nahman group resonates with the style exhibited on some images identified as Ptolemy III
Euergetes I 78 and perhaps as well on one of his immediate successors. 79 All of these images are not only
classicizing in their style but treat the coiffure as plastic masses without the articulation of the individ-
ual stands of hair. More particularly, the treatment of the coiffure on the Alexandria-Nahman constel-

70
Reinsberg, Alexander-Portrts, 55455, no. 121.
71
Stewart, Faces of Power, 424 and fig. 131.
72
Stewart, Faces of Power, 424 and fig. 84.
73
Jacques Chamay and Jean-Louis Maier, Art grec. Sculptures en pierre du Muse du GenveI (Mainz, 1990), 9, number 4, where
the dealers provenance for the piece is stated to be Kafer-Dauer, near Alexandria; and Stewart, Faces of Power, 426.
74
Kyrieleis, Bildnisse der Ptolemer, 12636.
75
Ashton, Ptolemaic Royal Sculpture from Egypt, 22.
76 Ashton, Ptolemaic Royal Sculpture from Egypt, 29 and 31.
77 Pella, the Pella Museum 15: Reinsberg, Alexander-Portrts, 55556, no. 122.
78 Alexandria, Graeco-Roman Museum 3270, from Alexandria: Kyrieleis, Bildnisse der Ptolemer,, C1 and Paris, Muse du

Louvre MNB 3030, from Egypt: Kyrieleis, Bildnisse der Ptolemer, C4.
79
Paris, Muse du Louvre Ma 3168, provenance not known: Kyrieleis, Bildnisse der Ptolemer, D3, traditionally identified as
Ptolemy III Euergetes I, as well, but perhaps to be regarded instead as an image of Ptolemy IV Philopator.
 BIANCHI 41

lation is remarkably close to that on the bronze equestrian group 80 of Alexander the Great, which
most would agree reflects a Hellenistic original of late fourth century bc date created in the first cen-
tury b.c. For all of these reasons, the Alexandria-Nahman group can be conveniently assigned to the
first half of the Ptolemaic Period and must be considered part of the Athenian/Praxitelean landscape
style of that period.
Evidence contained in the literary testimonia has no doubt driven the engine which propels scholars
to identify extant images of Alexander the Great with cult statues described therein. The attempt
which in my estimation failed to identify the Alexandria Alexander with the cult image of Alexander
Ktistes is one consequence of that drive. And because the overwhelming number of images identified
as representations of Alexander the Great are in the form of heads currently detached from their
accompanying bodies, it is exceedingly difficult to reconstruct the type of bodies on which those heads
were found. Nevertheless, I think it fair to state that the Athenian/Praxitelean idiom in which the
heads of the Alexandria-Nahman group are cast suggests that their body may have been designed in the
classicizing countrapposto attitude, which, I suggest, is inherent in the chiastic treatment of the mus-
culature of the neck of Nahman Alexander. The body was, therefore, in all likelihood, standing, rather
than seated or engaged in some other activity, and depicted Alexander as a heroic nude, although the
possibility does exist that the image may have had a chlamys draped over his shoulders. One further
imagines that such a figure bore a lance as an attribute, either held out to the front and side of the
body in the hand of an outstretched arm or resting against a shoulder. A lance would be an eminently
suitable attribute for a young ephebe, and appropriate in the context of Alexanders conquests as
spear-won. The classicizing physiognomy precludes, in my opinion, the restoration of any other
attribute such as a thunderbolt, because of that emblems association with the mature Zeus.
It is, of course, true that the head of the Alexandria Alexander is turned to the proper left whereas
that of the Nahman is turned to the proper left. The fact that two, otherwise stylistically congruent
monuments should be mirror images of one another is not surprising in terms of the development of
Hellenistic Greek sculpture in general. Unlike the production of contemporary pharaonic Egyptian
ateliers, in which artistic license was denied to the craftsmen, and in which virtual replicas, almost
verging on so-called carbon copies of one another, were in fact created, 81 by the second century b.c.,
Hellenistic ateliers had pioneered the creation of variations on what the Romans termed nobilia
opera, 82 in a process generally suggested to have been initially driven by market forces generated by
Roman Republican collectors and connoisseurs in which mirror images are fairly common, as com-
parison between a depiction of an athlete in Berlin and the male figure from the so-called group of
Orestes and Electra in Naples so clearly demonstrate. 83

80
Naples, National Archaeological Museum 4996: Stewart, Faces of Power, 45, 12324, 12728, 426, and fig. 21; and Fondazi-
one Memmo, Alessandro Magna. Storia e Mito, 23435, no. 27.
81
Alexandria, The Graeco-Roman Museum 17533 and 17534: whose congruence was already recognized by Evaristo Brec-
cia, Les fouilles dans le Serapeum dAlexandrie en 19051906, ASAE8 (1907), 6376; and more recently by, E. A. E. Rey-
mond, From the Records of a Priestly Family from Memphis I (Wiesbaden, 1981), 10512. In addition to this pair, pharaonic ateliers
seemed to have copied the same inscription from one statue to another, as seen in Cairo, The Egyptian Museum JE 3697 and
JE 36998: Goyon and Cardin, Trsors dEgypte. La cachette de Karnak, 19042004, 6165, for which one seeks to determine the
technical means by which the extremely small signs were cut without apparent recourse to magnification. For a second case of
a repeated inscription on a second statue, see Berlin 8171 and Durham 509: Herman De Meulenaere, Un notable mendsien
de la 26e dynastie, in Paule Posener-Kriger, ed., Mlanges Gamal Eddin Mokhtar I (Cairo, 1985), 18798, the only example
known to De Meulenaere at the time of publication. He asked, rhetorically, whether the inscription on the statue in Berlin
might be a modern copy, but demurred from answering inasmuch as that statue was a casualty of the Second World War.
82
R. R. R. Smith, Hellenistic Sculpture, 258.
83
Berlin, the Pasitelean athlete and Naples, National Archaeological Museum 60006, Smith, Hellenistic Sculpture, figs. 329
and 330, respectively.
42 JARCE 43 (2007)

Such differences, as here in the form of mirror imaging, are to be attributed to the choice elected
by each atelier as it approached its model. Hellenistic ateliers under the early Ptolemies were already
creating such variations, as the mention of numerous statues forming part of the pompe of Ptolemy
II Philadelphos would seem to suggest. 84 Such replication was doubtless facilitated by the use of
moulds, 85 which were not exclusively used by toreutic workshops, as the Baii finds clearly reveal. The
known Hellenistic variations on the themes of both the nude Aphrodite 86 and Serapis 87 clearly dem-
onstrate that the practice of creating variations of nobilia opera was a hallmark of Hellenistic ateliers,
to which those in Egypt clearly belonged. There is no reason, therefore, to assume that any given im-
age of Alexander the Great, in terms of this practice, would be so sacrosanct as to preclude its serving
as a model for similar artistic license. Indeed, there is good reason to suppose that such an approach
to any image of Alexander the Great was already in place early on among the sculptural ateliers of
Hellenistic Egypt, particularly because of the popularity of the cult of Alexander as the attested exis-
tence of numerous private shrines in his honor reveals. It is possible, as I have argued for images of
the goddess Isis, 88that Alexander may have been posthumously represented in any way imaginable,
according to the idiosyncratic whims of the private commissioner.
But there is still one further observation which remains to be emphasized because the Nahman
Alexander belongs to a stemma to which the red granite Alexandria Alexander also belongs. One can
suggest that a Hellenistic image of Alexander the Great with his hair sweeping upward over the fore-
head was created by an Alexandrian atelier. That portrait served as the model for both the Alexandria
and Nahman Alexanders because both heads are so close to one another and so distinctly different
from other images of Alexander the Great as to suggest a common origin. It may be for this reason
that an anastole appears to be the coiffure of choice for the majority of portraits of Ptolemaic kings
in Hellenistic style. 89 The popularity of this particular coiffure for depictions of Ptolemaic kings in
Hellenistic style suggests that the coiffure was introduced as an insignia closely associated with images
of Alexander the Great created specifically in Egypt. The Ptolemies associating themselves with Alex-
ander the Great in order to promote their own legitimacy as rulers of Egypt would naturally adopt
his coiffure as their own in their portraiture. Taken together, both portraits suggest the existence of
an Alexandrian image of Alexander the Great which served as the fountain and source of inspiration
for both these images as well as for images of the Ptolemies.

Independent Scholar

84
Inter alia, Athenaeus, Deipnosophistai, 197D and 201F: E. E. Rice, The Grand Procession of Ptolemy Philadelphus (Oxford,
1983), 89 and 2021; and Gnther Grimm, Repliken Meisterwerke und hellenistischer Herrscherportrts aus dem
ptolemischen gypten, in Deutsches Archologisches Institut, Akten des XIII. Internationalen Kongresses fr klassische Archologie
Berlin 1988 (Mainz, 1990), 45059.
85
Fabienne Burkhalter, Moulages en pltre antiques et toreutique alexandrine, in Nicola Bonacasa and Antonino Di Vita,
eds., Alessandria e il Mondo hellenistico-romano: Studie in onore di Achille Adriani 2 (= Studi e Materiali II,5) (Rome, 1984), 33447.
86
Smith, Hellenistic Sculpture, 7983; and Margarete Bieber, The Sculpture of the Hellenistic Age [revised edition] (New York,
1961), 144.
87
Nicola Bonacasa, Aspetti e problemi della scultura alessandrina, in Sesto Congresso internazionale di Egittologia, Atti I
(Turin, 1992), 56.
88
Bianchi, Images of Isis and her Cultic Shrines Reconsidered, 470505, esp. 494.
89
Kyrieleis, Bildnisse der Ptolemer, pl. 2 [Paris, Muse du Louvre Ma 849 (Ptolemy I Soter)]; and pl.13 [Copenhagen, National
Museum ABb290 (Ptolemy II. Philadelphus)]; pl.20 [Copenhagen, Ny Carlsberg Glyptothek 573 (Ptolemy III Euergetes II)];
passim.