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Greek Cross Room
The Greek Cross Room is decorated in Egyptian style, although the pharaonic statues flanking the entry door are nineteenth-century imitations. There’s another Roman mosaic, showing the phases of the moon, from the second century AD, and two huge porphyry boxes - the sarcophagi of queens Helen and Constanza. On Helen’s, soldiers vanquish their enemies, a reference to the fact that she was the mother of Constantine, while that of Costanza, the daughter of the emperor, shows putti carrying grapes, loaves of bread and lambs - a reference to the eucharist, as she was a devout Christian. Look behind the sarcophagus, on the left, at the lifesize statue of a striding woman - believed to be the only surviving likeness of Cleopatra.
