Ancient Greece - 270/68 BCE Ptolemaic Kingdom, Arsinoe II AV Octodrachm NGC AU

Posthumous issue of Paphos under Ptolemy VI, dated Year 34 (148/7 BCE). Obverse: beaded border / veiled head of deified Arsinöe II right (who died in 270 BCE), wearing diademed stephane and horn of Ammon, scepter surmounted by lotus over left shoulder, K in left field. Reverse: beaded border / APΣINOHΣ-ΦIΛAΔEΛΦOY, double cornucopia bound with fillet, containing pyramidal cakes, pomegranates and other fruits, grape cluster hanging from the rim of each horn.

Sculpted head of Arsinöe II on exhibit at the British Museum.

Arsinöe II was a Ptolemaic queen and co-regent of Ancient Egypt's Ptolemaic Kingdom. Given the title, "King of Upper and Lower Egypt," she was also pharaoh. By her marriage to King Lysimachus, Arsinöe was Queen of Thrace, Anatolia, and Macedonia. Upon her later marriage to her half brother, Pharaoh Ptolemy II Philadelphus, she became co-ruler of the Ptolemaic Kingdom.

It was after her death that Ptolemy II created the cult of Arsinöe Philadelphus. She had been a priestess at Mendes, and it was there that she received burial and deification rites. Those rites are memorialized in the Mendes stele. That stele also contains the decree of Ptolemy II announcing her cult. All Egyptian temples were compelled to present a cult statue of Arsinöe II next to the main deity of the sanctuary. In the relief atop the stele, Arsinöe is presented among deities receiving sacrifices from Ptolemy. This image recurred throughout Egypt. Separate temples in Arsinöe's honor were built at Memphis and elsewhere.