Roxana, wife of Alexander The Great

Remake of ROXANA, Sogdian wife of Alexander the Great (? – 310 BC), somewhere in the Pamir mountains of modern-day Tajikistan.

This reconstruction is highly speculative, because we know nothing about Sogdian female clothing of the Achaemenid period. But we know the Sogdians of this period were more like the nomadic Saka / Scythians to their north than the sedentary Persians and Bactrians to their south-west. The Sogdian warriors represented in Persian monuments like Persepolis or the tombs of Xerxes and Darius I, wear the same clothes as the Scythians. So I reconstructed Roxana’s dress based on what we know of Saka female clothing, like for example the preserved clothes of the “Ice Maiden” of Pazyryk, in the Siberian Altai mountains. The gold appliques are based on the Oxus Treasure, a Bactrian hoard from the Achaemenid period found in southern Tajikistan, containing objects in both the Persian “court style” and the Scythian “animal style” of the steppes. The neck ring is based on a find from southern Siberia that combines the Scythian and Persian styles. The crown is based on an undated find from Tajikistan, which has clear Achaemenid influence. The “akinakes” dagger is based on finds from nomadic burials (kurgan) between the Pamir mountains and the Aral Sea. The Indian etched carnelian bead necklace is based on finds from the same nomadic burials. Sogdian terracotta figurines from Samarkand dating to the 1st-3rd centuries AD show women with dots painted or tattooed on their cheeks, so I included it.

Regarding the red hair, the only surviving representation of Roxana (or alternatively Stateira, Alexander’s other wife of Persian royal lineage) is in a Roman fresco from Pompeii, that is probably a copy of a lost Greek original. The fresco from Pompeii represents her as a pale-skinned redhead, which was a highly idealized complexion for women in ancient Greece, something that is not beyond the realms of possibility among East Iranic peoples and matches Greco-Roman authors describing Roxana as “the most beautiful woman of Asia”. The same Roman fresco represents Alexander with dark blond or light brown hair and tanned skin. The Saka cauldron behind her is based on a find from southern Uzbekistan, which was used for decades in the kitchen of the local family that found it.



Author: JFoliveras, digital painting