This was posted today on RogueClassicism, printed originally in the Sri Lanka Sunday Times.
Embossed on the gold coin is the arrogant profile of Alexander the Great. On it, the young conqueror’s features endure: his luxuriant curly hair and the crooked line of his broken nose; his elongated cheeks and large, unblinking eyes. Curiously though, his head is covered in the scalp of an elephant, its trunk curling triumphantly over his brow. Around his neck is the image of the Gorgon, the coiling snakes worn as an aegis. The horn of Ammon protects his temple. The striking image is valued for far more than its obvious beauty. It is believed to be the only portrait actually created during the lifetime of Alexander the Great to survive into modernity. This is Alexander as he saw himself – invulnerable, verging on godhood, immortalized in the moment of his triumph ...
It is a forgery as I explained in the Celator, vol 21, No 9, Sept 2007. It imitates the second style of Ptolemy's tetradrachms as Satrap. It is implausible (to say the least) that Ptolemy would have invented a new style of this Alexander-in-an-elephant-headdress for his first issue, then reverted to a style first issued under Alexander a few years later for his second issue. More likely an ignorant forger has copied the common second style tetradrachms of Ptolemy, without realising that the existence of the rare first issue exposes the fraud.
