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Learn about the debate over Cleopatra's race and skin color, based on historical sources and modern speculation. Find out why scholars generally agree that she was mostly Greek and partly Iranian, and how some claim she was black or Jewish.
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- Was Cleopatra Black?
- Experts Disagree About Cleopatra’s Heritage
- The Argument For Cleopatra’s Potential Egyptian Heritage
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“We don’t know her exact racial heritage. We don’t know who Cleopatra’s mother was. There’s been a lot of research to prove that her mother was Egyptian, but we can’t know for sure,” Professor Haley says in Queen Cleopatra. Dr. Sally-Ann Ashton, the author of Cleopatra and Egypt, says in the docuseries that Cleopatra’s grandmother’s identity is als...
The Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities has already responded to Netflix’s Queen Cleopatradocuseries with a statement insisting that Cleopatra was of Macedonian descent. (Macedonia was a kingdom located in modern-day Greece.) “The Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Archaeology [Dr. Mustafa Waziri] confirms that Queen Cleopatra was...
For now, it seems that historians will have to agree to disagree. But some historians are leaning toward her having native Egyptian blood. “If you look at her depictions, she looks different depending on who it is that’s depicting her,” Debora Heard, a Ph.D. candidate in anthropology specializing in Nubian archaeology & Egyptian studies, says in th...
The docuseries Queen Cleopatra, produced by Jada Pinkett Smith, features an actress of mixed heritage to reflect the debate about Cleopatra's possible Egyptian ancestry. Historians and experts disagree on her exact racial heritage, which is unknown due to missing information in her family tree.
- Margeaux Sippell
Cleopatra was an Egyptian queen, but her ancestry is uncertain and debated. Learn about the arguments from silence, art, and genetics, and the theories of race and ethnicity in ancient Egypt.
Aug 9, 2023 · What's more, our conception of skin color as "white" or "Black" would have been foreign to the ancient people living at the time. Cleopatra VII reigned from roughly 51-30 B.C. and was the last...
Dec 12, 2019 · Cleopatra was not ethnically Egyptian but had Macedonian Greek ancestry. Her skin colour is debated, but she had a prominent aquiline nose and soft features.
Apr 20, 2023 · Debates over Cleopatra’s “race” were reactivated after Netflix released a trailer for its four-part docudrama Queen Cleopatra last week, starring Adele James, a Black actor. The series is ...
Apr 28, 2023 · One of Egypt’s most famous archaeologists and twice-serving antiquities minister, Zahi Hawass, was adamant: Cleopatra was not Black. “If we see statues and forms of her father and...
