Of the Cleopatras that litter Egyptian history (and there are many), by far the most famous is Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator (c.69 – 30 BCE). She ruled Egypt, either solely or in conjunction with a male relative, from 51 BCE until her death, after which Egypt became a Roman province, so she was in effect the last independent Egyptian monarch of the ancient era. Her reign was eventful by any standard as she had to contend with the power politics of Rome, and her relationships with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony would come to define her at least in modern literature. She has been the subject of innumerable paintings, plays and films right down to the present day, so must be the most reproduced Egyptian monarch in human history. Many years ago she achieved the ultimate honour – she was immortalised in 1/72 scale plastic in the HYTTY Historic Figures set, and now we have the queen modelled again, this time by Linear-A and with members of her court.

Over the years much ink has been spilt on what Cleopatra actually looked like. Ancient historians love to describe most significant ancient women as stunningly beautiful, although Plutarch breaks with tradition and describes her appearance as “in itself not altogether incomparable, nor such as to strike those who saw her”. However, the only real evidence we have is some stylised carvings, which follow a formula, some coins of her head in profile, from which not much can be deduced with confidence, and one or two possible statue heads. So with no certain evidence, Linear-A have depicted our heroine (first figure above) as very attractive and with a great body. She wears a very long, low-cut flowing dress which does not look at all Egyptian to us, but we must remember that Cleopatra’s family lineage was mostly Macedonian, and as a garment of Greek influence this is a bit more plausible. The chances are she wore Macedonian or Egyptian style clothing on different occasions as she felt most appropriate, though whether this elegant costume was part of her wardrobe we cannot say. She does seem to wear one item that looks authentic, which is the band around her head – the royal diadem – which is appropriate for Greek royalty of the time. Her hair is a bit odd, partly in a bun, but also flowing down to her shoulders – we are not sure what is going on there. She also wears a belt, and bands on upper arm and wrist on both arms. A necklace completes the outfit, and there is no other obvious jewellery. She is hitching her dress to reveal a good deal of her shapely leg, which does not immediately strike us as the sort of thing queens do very much, but who knows. So, is this a good model of Cleopatra? To be honest, we really do not know, although this figure does not say ‘Cleopatra’ to us. Perhaps it is authentic, or perhaps it owes at least as much to representations in modern times, most famously that of Elizabeth Taylor in the film Cleopatra (1963).

Moving on from the queen, none of the other figures in this set are identified on the box. The second figure is of a lady attired in a very complex costume of dress over a petticoat, and wearing a cloak over all. She wears a highly ornate headband, what might be a spectacular necklace around the neck, and a sash loosely tied around her waist. Her hair is plaited in twin plaits. She is barefoot and holds a fan, but is she a servant? It seems unlikely as she is much too fabulously dressed for such a humble role, even in the royal household, and indeed she also seems to be too exotic even for some close handmaiden of the queen. The alternative, therefore, is she is a courtier, though that tends to be portrayed as male-dominated, so again there is no evidence that we know of to validate this figure.

The third figure is of a stooping man leaning on his staff. He wears a very voluminous long kilt and his upper torso is partly covered by a very odd semi-tailored animal pelt of some sort. He has something round his neck, but otherwise has no ornamentation. This must be some sort of courtier, advisor or similar, but the costume seems more mythical to us, and not what you might expect of a senior official attending his monarch. Lacking good evidence for the appearance of the Egyptian court we cannot say for sure, but none of these three figures feel right to us.

The last two men are clearly guards at the court. The first displays many features of the Macedonian heritage that still pervaded the Ptolemaic court even 250 years after the death of the first Ptolemy. He has a crested helmet, a form of linothorax, a sash tied high around the waist (traditionally a sign of an officer) and long greaves above sandals. The construction of the body of his linothorax is strange – vertical strips in two rows – and we could find no corroboration for this, while the back of his head appears to have been modelled as braids with beads in. Where any of these details came from we do not know. The last man is naked apart from an animal skin worn as a kilt, and a form of sandal. The pelt is a surprise, since a linen one of regular shape would have been normal, but perhaps as a palace guard he is being identified as special here. Perhaps it is implying he is so tough he relieved the original owner of this skin himself? His sandals are a simple sole with a strap over the toes anchored between the first and second toe – what we today call flip-flops. Finally, while he carries a reasonable spear and shield, he is left-handed, which is an interesting choice by the designer.

Sculpting is faultless as usual for the 3D printed figures of Linear-A, beautifully done and making the most of the method to have no flash and no excess plastic, even in difficult regions like around the staff of the centre figure. For ancient Egyptians (or, if you prefer, Macedonians) they are very tall, and Cleopatra herself stands 25.5 mm tall (184 cm) in her sandals, which is pretty tall for a woman even today.

It is fair to say this is not what we were expecting of this set when we first heard of it. Most post-ancient depictions of Cleopatra show her in Egyptian costume, although it is likely that she followed the family tradition and dressed at least some of the time in Macedonian/Greek-style clothing. However, we puzzled over all of the figures here, though without any good evidence for the subject we can only say that the feel of the figures seems wrong to us. Well made certainly, but we remain to be convinced by this set.