It was not so unusual for someone to turn into a god in Egypt. It happened to the Emperor Hadrian’s lover, a beautiful young man named Antinous, who was drowned in the Nile in the autumn of 130 AD. It was also the fate of Queen Arsinoë II, who had a complicated life. At the age of 15 she became wife to the 60-year-old ruler of Thrace. When he died in battle, she married her half-sibling, who murdered two of her sons. Her next husband was her full brother.
A headless sculpture of Arsinoë stands about halfway around Sunken cities at the British Museum. It is, as a label rightly points out, an almost perfect fusion of Greek and Egyptian art. Arsinoë was represented as an incarnation of Aphrodite. The hard black stone has been polished until it has the smoothness of skin; Arsinoë’s nakedness is emphasised by the diaphanous drapery that clings to her body.
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