Ethnicity of Cleopatra
The ethnicity of Cleopatra VII, the last active Hellenistic ruler of the Macedonian-led Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt, has caused debate in some circles.
[6] Mary Lefkowitz, Professor Emerita of Classical Studies at Wellesley College, traces the main origins of the Black Cleopatra claim to the 1946 book by J.
[13] Roman frescoes in Pompeii and Herculaneum similar to the Vatican and Berlin marble sculptures have been identified as possible portraits of the queen based on comparable facial features and royal iconography.
This was based largely on the examination of a headless skeleton of a female child in a 20 BCE tomb in Ephesus (modern Turkey), together with the old notes and photographs of the now-missing skull.
[22] The race and skin color of Cleopatra VII, the last active Hellenistic ruler of the Macedonian Greek Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt, has caused some debate,[2] although generally not in scholarly sources.
Mary Lefkowitz, Professor Emerita of Classical Studies at Wellesley College, traces the main origins of the black Cleopatra claim to the 1946 book by J.A.
'[28] Mary Lefkowitz responded to Haley by noting that the historical Cleopatra VII was not a victim but rather a Hellenistic despotic ruler who lost a "closely matched struggle for power.
"[29] When prompted on Lefkowitz's criticism of her 1993 article, Haley further argued in favor of Cleopatra symbolizing for African-American women "the treatment we have received at the hands of Eurocentric patriarchy.
[31] As a national icon for Egyptians, Cleopatra has been seen by such figures as Ahmed Shawqi as representative of the conflict between Egypt and imperialist European powers.
[32] (As pointed out by historian Adrian Goldsworthy, however, if there had been any 'great struggle' of civilizations in the historical Cleopatra VII's lifetime, it was "not between east and west, but Greek and Roman".
[36] For Dame Mary Beard, Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge and scholar of Ancient Roman civilisation, "The truth is that we have no idea of the origins of Cleopatra.
[41][42][43] It spurred a lawsuit in Egypt claiming that the documentary was distorting the reality in order to promote Afrocentrism, and that Netflix's programs were not in line with Egyptian or Islamic values.
[44][45] Rebecca Futo Kennedy contends that discussing whether someone was "black" or "white" is anachronistic, and that asking this question says "more about modern political investments than attempting to understand antiquity on its own terms".
[13] Ernle Bradford writes that it is "reasonable to infer" Cleopatra had dark hair and "pale olive skin" by how she portrays herself as a "Eastern Mediterranean type" on her official coins, and that she challenged Rome not as an Egyptian woman, "but as a civilized Greek.
[51][52][53] The diademed 'Esquiline Venus' statue in the Capitoline Museums is also speculated as being an additional depiction of the queen,[54][48][55] especially due to her connection with the Greek goddess Aphrodite as seen on some of her coinage.
[60] Duane W. Roller writes about the Pompeian fresco: "there seems little doubt that this is a depiction of Cleopatra and Caesarion before the doors of the Temple of Venus in the Forum Julium and, as such, it becomes the only extant contemporary painting of the queen.
"[48] Walker, Roller and Joann Fletcher observe the similarity of this Pompeiian painting with the face preserved in the "Vatican Cleopatra", the damage on the left cheek of the sculpture possibly from the arm of a cupid that may have been torn off.
[48][58][61] Posthumous portraits include a fresco of Pompeii's House of Giuseppe II depicting her possible suicide by poisoning,[50] a painted portrait in Pompeii's House of the Orchard showing a side view of her diademed bust, and a highly similar fresco from nearby Herculaneum, the latter which matches the visage of her sculptures and official coinage.
"[74] Scholars generally identify Cleopatra as having been essentially of Macedonian Greek ancestry with some distant Persian and Sogdian Iranian descent.
[75][76][77] Cleopatra I Syra was a descendant of the Seleucid Queen Apama, the Sogdian Iranian wife of Seleucus I Nicator, a Macedonian Greek companion of Alexander the Great.
"[98] Jean Bingen points out that Cleopatra's second title Philopatris ('the one who loves her patris') clearly refers to her Macedonian ancestry, invoking the blood of both the Ptolemies and the Greek Seleucids.
[103] As noted by Donald R. Dudley, Cleopatra and her family were "the successor[s] to the native Pharaohs, exploiting through a highly organized bureaucracy the great natural resources of the Nile Valley.
"[104] For example, Ancient Greek scholar Athenaeus reports that Cleopatra gave away enslaved people, including "Aethiopian boys", to her dinner guests.
This was based largely on the claims of Hilke Thür of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, who in the 1990s had examined a headless skeleton of a female child in a 20 BCE tomb in Ephesus (modern Turkey), together with the old notes and photographs of the now-missing skull.
When a DNA test was made that attempted to determine the identity of the child, it was impossible to get an accurate reading since the bones had been handled too many times,[20] and the skull had been lost in Germany during World War II.
Furthermore, craniometry as used by Thür to determine race is based in scientific racism that is now generally considered a discredited pseudoscience with "a long history of being put to use in racially motivated and often overtly and explicitly racist ways.
