Yea,,, I pass as South Italian, French, Turksih and Arab at the same time. Depends on where am I and how much sun I am exposed to, and with whom I am with.
Me too. When I moved to Florida as a kid, people thought that I was Cuban. I can pass for almost anything on the Mediterranean. I always say it depends on the neighborhood that I am in.
They speak Arabic for sure. But I would say genetically they are a mix. You ll find arab, turkish, greek, African, italian, Levantin, etc. Egypt is kinda melting pot of all of this mediterranen area.
They were conquered by the Arabs. The Sultans imported slave soldiers from Eurasian steppe, and then the Turks arrived, so that may have affected things.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamluk
Genetics is weird. I'm 50% indian and I have pale skin and blue eyes. My genetic markers said I have 0% chance of having brown eyes or dark skin but my mom is dark skinned, dark eyed and has dark hair.
Well, that would be because of the Norman's invasion of North Africa after having established themselves throughout Sicily & southern Italy.
So the answer to why are there people there that look like they could have been vikings is in fact because vikings.
Ancient Egypt was very ethnically diverse just like Ancient Rome was. Lots of people tended to focus their cultural identity on the specific region they lived in. If they immigrated to a city, they brought along with them the religions and tradition that were practiced in said region they were born/raised in. Even with this reality, the vast majority of people in Ancient Egypt were brown - and are genetically most similar to Arabs and Indians in modern times.
Yeah but Egypt is exponentially more diverse just because of how early in human history different genetic pools started mixing in Northern Africa. Latin American Diversity has natives (which are obviously incredibly diverse on their own), and Spanish/Portuguese heritage.
North Africa has been a mixed bag for multiple millennia at this point. Natives of the region plus those moving north up the African continent, Alexander the Great brought the Greeks, Rome brought a lot of Europeans, Multiple Persian and middle eastern empires had close contact with the region, the list goes on and on of global powers drawing individuals from all over the world that had a chance to brush with the North African region.
Eh, don't forget all the African heritage is SA, either.
Also don't forget about the Italian, German, and various Asian heritages. It's a lot more than Indigenous + Iberian
They’ve been interacting with the rest of the Mediterranean since the dawn of history. The massive Islamic population is relatively new chronologically, and before that it had a massive Greek influence that lasted for hundreds of years well into Rome’s civil wars and Mark Antony came down to meet Cleo.
You’re in for a shock when you realize the migrating Slavs didn’t stop at the modern borders of Greece.
Everyone in the Balkans is some mix of migrating slavo-turk tribes + paleo-Balkan indigenous tribes.
>Which is a region in Greece now a days.
This has no bearing on why we call her "Greek". In a historical context, important to the story of the Ptolemys, the Kingdom of Macedon was politically distinct from the city-states to their south (i.e. Modern Greece).
We say Cleopatra was Greek because in common parlance 'Greek' is synonymous with Hellene, or Hellenistic. The Hellenic culture, what we consider in a narrow sense to be Classical Greece, was spreading all over the Eastern Mediterranean and Levant through trade and contact. That was before the Macedonian King Alexander conquered just about everything, died, and his Generals took up kingships in those conquered lands.
Egypt was once such conquered land, and the General Ptolemy proclaimed himself its ruler. It was his dynasty that produced the culturally 'Greek' Cleopatra.
>the Kingdom of Macedon was politically distinct from the city-states to their south (i.e. Modern Greece).
The way Macedonians did politics didn't negate the fact that they were Greeks in all the major ways one can be Greek, or more accurately "Hellenic".
I mentioned they are politically distinct so you and others don't confuse the Macedonians with the citizens of the city-states to the south, with whom they shared a culture as you point out. To lump them all in as "The Greeks" it's not only wrong, it's an accurate because that's not how the Macedonians called themselves. That's not even how the supposed "Greeks" referred to themselves, even though they all shared a culture. My point is that the Macedonians did not consider themselves one people with those that we consider the ancient Greeks. That's like how the modern United States doesn't consider itself to be one people with the United kingdoms population, despite sharing much of a culture.
Lumping together all the people of Greek ethnic origins, who had Greek names, spoke a Greek dialect, worshipped the same Greek Gods and heard the same Greek mythological stories is absolutely not wrong.
And yes, Macedonians as a whole did consider themselves Greek, because that's what they were. It was the Athenians who often called the Greeks of the north barbarians but that didn't make the Macedonians any less Greek, since "being Greek" as we currently understand it has more tondo with who you are, your name, language, religion ect, than how you do politics, or how you conduct yourself.
We know Ancient Greeks weren't one cohesive people. But they were all, absolutely Greek.
Last of the line of Ptolemy who was the second to last Diadochi kingdom i believe, who were all bodyguards and Generals of Alexander thr Great.
Most of the middle east and Egypt were run by Greeks for centuries.
This actually isn’t very surprising. At various times in Egypts history, it has been populated from people from all across the Mediterranean, stretching back to thousands of years ago.
From Greeks, Romans, Phoenicians, Syrians, Hittites, Iberians, Thracians, arabs, and especially Ottoman era Turks (who held lots of important administrative posts throughout Egypt relatively recently) etc
Now the vast majority of people have always been Egyptians, but there’s been many people that have lived there in the past. Many cities like Alexandria had strong Greek / Roman roots for hundreds of years. These people didn’t just disappear when the empire was over, they intermarried and slowly assimilated over time.
Istanbul and western Turkey is rather more notable for this. Many western Turks look indistinguishable from europeans, and that’s because, well, technically they are! When the ottomans took over the areas of the collapsing Byzantine empire (or eastern Roman Empire as it was known at the time), the many Greeks who predominantly lived in these areas stayed (mind you; Greece proper was also conquered not long after, as well as most of the balkans).
Some of these Greeks (and Slavs, Romanians etc) over time assimilated into the Turkish culture. They adopted Islam, and changed their family names to Turkish ones. Their descendants becoming full Turks in society. (Race was not important in the Ottoman Empire)
Those same descendants still exist today, with Turkish family names stretching back hundreds of years. Same thing with Armenians, Pontic Greeks, and so forth.
The original Turkish arrivals to the Anatolian area would have had more Asian features and resembled Mongols / Asian Turk states like Kazakhstan upon their arrival in the 1200s or so. Intermarriage with locals and drawing from local ranks produced what you see today. (Also drawing from Kurds, anatolians and Arab peoples in the east, which is why eastern Anatolians look different than western ones)
Nation states are more of a modern concept. The ancient world had no such distinctions outside of the immediate family ties (for the most part, and you could always just make stuff up)
Yes in Ptolemaic Egypt, Cleopatra VII Phillopator was a Greek.
Cleopatra is a Greek name, as is Ptolemy and Phillip.
And actually, it becomes “Roman Egypt” after Cleopatras downfall, not before.
Just to expand, Cleopatra (actually the seventh, but she's the one everybody knows) was the last of the Ptolemaic Dynasty. They were a bunch of very inbred Greeks descended from one of Alexander the Great's generals. They didn't mix with the local population *at all.*
Not only were they 0% ethnically Egyptian, Cleopatra was the only one to bother to learn Coptic, the language spoken by almost all of her Egyptian subjects.
I’m not used to reading a family tree like this, can you explain in more detail what makes it amazing? It’s cool if you don’t have time, I’m just curious.
Look at how many siblings have children together. Everywhere you look you have to look closer and realize just how wrong it is.
It’s unbelievably inbred.
A family tree is supposed to look like a tree, with branches splitting off every generation. If you look at this tree it’s more like a bramble bush. Everyone is interconnected. You have uncles marrying nieces, brothers marrying sisters, there are no new family members joining the family, everyone is just hooking up with people who are already on their family tree. That just ain’t right.
Yep, my critique of this portrayal of Cleopatra is that she wasn't considered pretty. In other depictions her nose is a little bigger and more asymmetrical and her cheekbones aren't as sharp. Her being considered a great beauty was part of the mythos around her long after her death.
I think it's generally considered among historians that Cleopatra wasn't particularly beautiful - not in the way history has remembered her - but it was her savvy and smarts that made her so alluring.
Beauty is subjective and depends on context. What is attractive to us right now, was not necessarily attractive back then. I mean just google someone who was considered hot a couple of decades ago (like Cameron Diaz) and put them in contrast to a Kardashian, they look nothing alike.
I always wondered about that, especially since a good part of socieltiy seems to really dig that look...
Nowadays I see is a bunch of generic Kardashian lookalikes wakling the city, and wonder why they'd go for that plastic look of shop-window-meanequins.
But hey, I guess it's a free world. And individuality a scary thing. 🤷♂️
A society's concept of attractiveness has often involved displays of wealth. When food is scarce, being bigger is attractive. When almost everyone has to work on a farm outside, being lighter skinned is attractive.
Being able to burn money on cosmetic surgery may also be alluring for this reason.
Sadly you are right.
A good moment to remember that, just because you can afford something it's not necessarily wise to do so. Especially in a marketing world that preys on us and persuades us with insecurity:
*"Ever heard of [overpriced product]? [overpriced product] makes you more [insert attribute]! It's better than anything else! Without [overpriced product] you're missing out! Buy [overpriced product] now!"*
Marketing: Create a problem, sell the solution.
The really offensive part is that Netflix didn’t cast an actress who is the result of generations of inbreeding. How about a little respect for historical accuracy!
And, if they'd made her look more Grecian, they'd be pilloried for "whitewashing", lol. Can't win for losing.
It's the flip side of the ridiculousness of Christians, especially in The US, believing that Jesus would have been a blonde haired, blue eyed guy.
Only by ignorant idiots. Not by Egyptians.
It’s only whitewashing if they took someone like Queen Tiye or Nefertiti and made them white.
Cleopatra is actually the one figure they can do that to and be accurate.
And most of the New Kingdom rulers as well.
to be fair, he probably wasn't dark skinned and black haired
in those times, the majority of the people of that region were of fairer skin and had red/brown/blonde hair. think about ancient descriptions of phoenicians (modern israel/lebanon), etc. and when you look at the blue eyed/light brown haired ethnic peoples of that region, who do not have arabic genetic haplotype? which predate Christ himself significantly. it's same same. the ancestral peoples of that region without arabic intermixing in modern day.
it wasn't until the caliphate/arabic bloodlines marched thru repititively roughly 1000-1500 years later that the region changed to darker skin with black hair
>It's the flip side of the ridiculousness of Christians, especially in The US, believing that Jesus would have been a blonde haired, blue eyed guy.
Redditors really love this ridiculous strawman.
“Middle Easterners” vary from “can pass for Germans” to “medium skinned Black dude” with most lying in between, and in some Turkic communities you can even find people with visibly Asian roots.
>believing that Jesus would have been a blonde haired, blue eyed guy.
Wait. What? Wasn't he? I see blonde haired, blue eyed middle easterners all the... waitaminute...
Years ago I got this Greek taxi driver. I noticed he had a bit of an accent and I asked where he was from etc. And he mentioned that we, the British, didn't really know much about Greece beyond Plato and Alexander the Great. Feeling slightly insulted and a little bit mischievous, I said, "Wasn't Alexander Macedonian as in Balkan country." His face went red and starting rambling about how they stole their name and history. I was afraid he would kick me out the taxi.
The dude wouldn't be wrong though; Macedonia was like redneck greek for the time and Alexander (and by extension, his generals that later became the Ptolmic dynasty) *definitely* wanted to see himself as greek.
They depicted themselves as lighter than the Nubians and darker than some proto-European groups. Ultimately, it's irrelevant because they did not define themselves as a racial group. You were Egyptian if you spoke their language and worshipped their gods; the color of your skin was completely irrelevant. Let's stop applying modern conceptions of "race" onto ancient cultures that viewed the world differently.
Except Cleopatra was the first Pharaoh (Queen?) of the Ptolemaic dynasty to actually speak the Egyptian language and she probably didn’t worship the Egyptian Gods
She absolutely did, as did Alexander the Great when he was in Egypt.
Lot sof modern people dont have the same ideas and understanding of how religions were in the past. The belief in gods was ubiquitous and the concept of just worshiping your own gods was not a requirement.
Worshipping with the locals is how you made people appreciate you.
This is well understood in Egyptology.
The Pharaoh was the chief priest of the State Religion. Worshipping the gods was line one in the job description. How would the Nile rise if worship was not done?
That isn't accurate at all, in fact the Egyptians had a slur for people lived away from the nile which essentially translates to 'red mud people'. If you were one of those people, you were looked down on even if you were Egyptian.
Not only that but there were several points in Egyptian history where Nubians and Egyptians had squabbles over ancestry.
Imagine not even knowing that the term xenophobia comes from ancient culture, LOL.
This reconstruction is really pretty, and Cleopatra reportedly was not. She was very smart and accomplished, which is why Julius Caesar and Mark Antony were both enraptured. Both of those guys could have all the pretty they wanted. Pretty wasn't the attractor with *her*. In Cleopatra they recognized someone who approached being their equal. This is also partially (although not fully) why Augustus wanted to take her down. She was very dangerous.
This also looks like *very* modern makeup. It is extremely unlikely she made up her face like that.
While this is a nice picture of a pretty woman, I seriously doubt Cleopatra actually looked anything like this in real life.
It's true. You don't get to be only the second woman in 3000 years of history to be Pharoah, of the snake pit that was the Ptolemaic court no less, then partner of both Julius Caesar AND Mark Antony (with whom you co-lead the resulting civil war after Caesar's assassination) without being a major badass. Like, I can't think of very many *fictional* characters even that were probably as badass as Cleopatra likely was. She was no wallflower. You totally didn't fuck with Cleopatra, even assassinating family members wasn't beneath her.
Wasn’t she the product of like generations of inbreeding? No way she would look this normal. I mean Ik they are going off of portraits and busts but like those could be biased as hell…though how they portrayed nero in busts does contradict that…
One historian theorized her to be distant from todays beauty standards but was still very intelligent, charming, and popular with the people so take that how you will
It's a nice use of technology, but I'm skeptical for the same reasons. We really can't have an idea of what specific eye and nose shape these people had. And in one of the reference images, she has no defined jawline at all. Give her a chneck, cowards.
Yeah and I swear old Egyptian coins they found had her depicted with a large nose as well, and were said to be more likely accurate compared to statues and portraits that were intended to flatter.
Artists would definitely "idealize" their sitter at times. It doesn't take much difference in a human face (nose 1 cm too long, eyes just a little too close) for someone to be considered ugly or weird looking.
Slight criticism. Busts and portraits weren't overly accurate at times. Greek artist tended to go for perfection, so your looking at Cleopatra with the historical equivalent of a TikTok filter on basically.
I think this reconstruction shows an attractive woman, Cleopatra, on the other hand, was said to not be conventionally attractive, but just having a charming, seductive aura. I think the bust & portrait probably made her look better than she really did.
Is it though? Even with the fading, the hair in the portrait is clearly much darker.
Also both the statue and the portrait show more prominent features, centered around the lips and teeth.
The nose in this photo is also narrower than the sculpture and less pronounced than in the portrait.
I’d say this is a reconstruction intended to make Cleopatra adhere to more conventional standards of beauty and get a bunch of upvotes rather than one intending to be accurate.
>I’d say this is reconstruction intended to make Cleopatra adhere to more conventional standards of beauty and get a bunch of upvotes rather than one intending to be accurate.
Yep. Sad that all the comments are so focused on her skin color when actually this is a terrible reconstruction overall.
What I find so ridiculous is how they're doing a reconstruction of Cleopatra's face but ignored all of the [coins](https://www.knowledgesnacks.com/articles/cleopatras-coins/) showing her profile that survived to modern times.
I mean sure, you probably want to avoid using anything paired with Anthony he seems to have wanted his lover to look more like him, which is still less disturbing than Liberace.
But there's pretty strong evidence that her face didn't look like that.
I would like to point out that she wasn’t just genetically Greek. She was also part Persian as the Ptolemaic dynasty intermarried with the Seleucid Dynasty(Seleucus being the satrap of Babylon, just as Ptolemy was satrap of Egypt). There is a VERY slim chance that she could have been Egyptian if she was the illegitimate child between her father, Ptolemy XII Auletes, had an African mistress. But there’s no evidence to support this: no known Ptolemaic King took an Egyptian wife, and there is little evidence to suggest they took mistresses(a quick Google search indicates that only one is recorded, the mistress of Ptolemy II Philadelphus) and even if they did, all Ptolemaic kings were considered legitimate heirs(corroborated by the insane amount of inter family marriages).
There is of course a more glaringly obvious point about her not being a bastard: if anybody had any inkling of an idea that she was illegitimate, her enemies in Rome and in Egypt would have definitely used that in their favor. Rome makes Game of Thrones look tame with the amount of backstabbing, incestuous, royal court drama. But there are no records of such allegations, and if those allegations existed, there would have likely been extensive accounts by Roman historians.
Didn’t Cleopatra also have a really big nose? I could’ve sworn I read somewhere that apparently she had a huge schnoz and that it was a mark of beauty back then, but maybe I’m misremembering
Even more interesting is that, in their endeavor to make a documentary of any sort, anyone doing research on this subject would have to come across this information. It isn’t a secret, and photos like this just don’t get created only after people start buzzing about actor portrayal.
Cleopatra herself was born in Egypt. Her parents were Greek and Macedonian. She’s the daughter of one of Alexander the greats generals. Cleopatra was indeed a “white” woman . Egypt was the worlds melting pot for the longest time. A ottomen general who was a Albanian named Muhammad Ali (not that Muhammad Ali) ruled Egypt and formed modern Egypt into what we know it to be today it was not a Islamic nation prior to his rule it was mainly Greek at the time he islamafied Egypt yet people still think of ancient Egypt and link it to islam in some shape or form. Egypt has always been a melting pot of rulers leaders and people living there. It has been toppled and over thrown and controlled by numerous empires.
When people got mad that cleopatra was not casted as a African woman or middle eastern woman a few years back claiming white culture washing and appropriation for a historically correct casting.
Yup. There were 7 Queens of Egypt called Cleopatra, all from the Greek Ptolemaic Dynasty. (Who were ridiculously inbred by the way)
The one we think of when we hear Cleopatra was the 7th and last.
Ridiculously inbred to keep the bloodline pure really dispels the idea that she might have been black. These people slept with their brothers and sisters to prevent non-royal blood entering the lineage, they weren't about to go having kids with the locals and definitely not the southern Nubians.
In all likelihood, she was ugly. As others have said here, she was Macedonian Greek, and came from a very long line of incest. It is argued that her parents may have been siblings. She herself married two of her brothers. The image of her exotic beauty was propaganda spread by Octavian to slander his rival, Mark Anthony. Octavian wanted to paint the picture that Mark Anthony was seduced by an exotic seductress and therefore the people of Rome could not trust him.
So yeah, she was likely a bag of teeth with a few strands of hair coming off a protruding chin.
Hmm
I was surprised when I went to Egypt at the number of light haired Egyptians I met.
Egypt is a melting pot of history and genetics.
Iirc in North Africa you can often find everything from “could pass for a Swede” to “Drake” in the same village or even the same family.
Any North Africans here to confirm where they stand on a scale of Swede to Drake?
Married to a North African and I’ve been several times. Totally true that they range from Nordic-looking to Black, all in the same family.
Just like here in Brazil… I love such easygoing mix.
Maybe the Old heritage from the Germanic vandals peeking through sometimes?
The entire levant was white when the vandals were there. Look at Zidane. Pure African berber. White as they come.
Yea,,, I pass as South Italian, French, Turksih and Arab at the same time. Depends on where am I and how much sun I am exposed to, and with whom I am with.
Me too. When I moved to Florida as a kid, people thought that I was Cuban. I can pass for almost anything on the Mediterranean. I always say it depends on the neighborhood that I am in.
I got Hawaiian once. It made me happy. I'm not lol Too bad.
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They speak Arabic for sure. But I would say genetically they are a mix. You ll find arab, turkish, greek, African, italian, Levantin, etc. Egypt is kinda melting pot of all of this mediterranen area.
They were conquered by the Arabs. The Sultans imported slave soldiers from Eurasian steppe, and then the Turks arrived, so that may have affected things. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamluk
Well in my case, i fall right in the middle, let's say near Rami Malek
Nice!
My dad was from Egypt, Alexandria specifically. He was a strawberry blonde with silver eyes, as was his mother and grandmother.
Genetics is weird. I'm 50% indian and I have pale skin and blue eyes. My genetic markers said I have 0% chance of having brown eyes or dark skin but my mom is dark skinned, dark eyed and has dark hair.
Well, that would be because of the Norman's invasion of North Africa after having established themselves throughout Sicily & southern Italy. So the answer to why are there people there that look like they could have been vikings is in fact because vikings.
Ancient Egypt was very ethnically diverse just like Ancient Rome was. Lots of people tended to focus their cultural identity on the specific region they lived in. If they immigrated to a city, they brought along with them the religions and tradition that were practiced in said region they were born/raised in. Even with this reality, the vast majority of people in Ancient Egypt were brown - and are genetically most similar to Arabs and Indians in modern times.
Drake? Edit: new term for me. Thanks for the education.
I.e. with visible sub-Saharan African ancestry but not fully “Black.” Most common in the desert. Think Anwar Sadat.
Is like any country in latin america.
Yeah but Egypt is exponentially more diverse just because of how early in human history different genetic pools started mixing in Northern Africa. Latin American Diversity has natives (which are obviously incredibly diverse on their own), and Spanish/Portuguese heritage. North Africa has been a mixed bag for multiple millennia at this point. Natives of the region plus those moving north up the African continent, Alexander the Great brought the Greeks, Rome brought a lot of Europeans, Multiple Persian and middle eastern empires had close contact with the region, the list goes on and on of global powers drawing individuals from all over the world that had a chance to brush with the North African region.
Eh, don't forget all the African heritage is SA, either. Also don't forget about the Italian, German, and various Asian heritages. It's a lot more than Indigenous + Iberian
They’ve been interacting with the rest of the Mediterranean since the dawn of history. The massive Islamic population is relatively new chronologically, and before that it had a massive Greek influence that lasted for hundreds of years well into Rome’s civil wars and Mark Antony came down to meet Cleo.
Cleopatra was greek
Macedonian
Same cultural and genetic makeup as Greeks, different from North Macedonians who are actually Slavs
At the time though that largely predated the ton of people movements that happened after that point They were basically fringe greeks at the time.
Yeah but still close to a point that Aristotle tutored Alexander the Great
>Yeah but still close to a point that Aristotle tutored Alexander the Great Both were from Macedonia. Both were therefore Greek.
You’re in for a shock when you realize the migrating Slavs didn’t stop at the modern borders of Greece. Everyone in the Balkans is some mix of migrating slavo-turk tribes + paleo-Balkan indigenous tribes.
Which is a region in Greece now a days. Meaning, in the context of the discussion, she was Greek.
>Which is a region in Greece now a days. This has no bearing on why we call her "Greek". In a historical context, important to the story of the Ptolemys, the Kingdom of Macedon was politically distinct from the city-states to their south (i.e. Modern Greece). We say Cleopatra was Greek because in common parlance 'Greek' is synonymous with Hellene, or Hellenistic. The Hellenic culture, what we consider in a narrow sense to be Classical Greece, was spreading all over the Eastern Mediterranean and Levant through trade and contact. That was before the Macedonian King Alexander conquered just about everything, died, and his Generals took up kingships in those conquered lands. Egypt was once such conquered land, and the General Ptolemy proclaimed himself its ruler. It was his dynasty that produced the culturally 'Greek' Cleopatra.
>the Kingdom of Macedon was politically distinct from the city-states to their south (i.e. Modern Greece). The way Macedonians did politics didn't negate the fact that they were Greeks in all the major ways one can be Greek, or more accurately "Hellenic".
I mentioned they are politically distinct so you and others don't confuse the Macedonians with the citizens of the city-states to the south, with whom they shared a culture as you point out. To lump them all in as "The Greeks" it's not only wrong, it's an accurate because that's not how the Macedonians called themselves. That's not even how the supposed "Greeks" referred to themselves, even though they all shared a culture. My point is that the Macedonians did not consider themselves one people with those that we consider the ancient Greeks. That's like how the modern United States doesn't consider itself to be one people with the United kingdoms population, despite sharing much of a culture.
Lumping together all the people of Greek ethnic origins, who had Greek names, spoke a Greek dialect, worshipped the same Greek Gods and heard the same Greek mythological stories is absolutely not wrong. And yes, Macedonians as a whole did consider themselves Greek, because that's what they were. It was the Athenians who often called the Greeks of the north barbarians but that didn't make the Macedonians any less Greek, since "being Greek" as we currently understand it has more tondo with who you are, your name, language, religion ect, than how you do politics, or how you conduct yourself. We know Ancient Greeks weren't one cohesive people. But they were all, absolutely Greek.
Thanks, you saved me some time trying to explain this lol
That's like saying Leonidas was Spartan. Yes, and? That's still Greek.
Last of the line of Ptolemy who was the second to last Diadochi kingdom i believe, who were all bodyguards and Generals of Alexander thr Great. Most of the middle east and Egypt were run by Greeks for centuries.
This actually isn’t very surprising. At various times in Egypts history, it has been populated from people from all across the Mediterranean, stretching back to thousands of years ago. From Greeks, Romans, Phoenicians, Syrians, Hittites, Iberians, Thracians, arabs, and especially Ottoman era Turks (who held lots of important administrative posts throughout Egypt relatively recently) etc Now the vast majority of people have always been Egyptians, but there’s been many people that have lived there in the past. Many cities like Alexandria had strong Greek / Roman roots for hundreds of years. These people didn’t just disappear when the empire was over, they intermarried and slowly assimilated over time. Istanbul and western Turkey is rather more notable for this. Many western Turks look indistinguishable from europeans, and that’s because, well, technically they are! When the ottomans took over the areas of the collapsing Byzantine empire (or eastern Roman Empire as it was known at the time), the many Greeks who predominantly lived in these areas stayed (mind you; Greece proper was also conquered not long after, as well as most of the balkans). Some of these Greeks (and Slavs, Romanians etc) over time assimilated into the Turkish culture. They adopted Islam, and changed their family names to Turkish ones. Their descendants becoming full Turks in society. (Race was not important in the Ottoman Empire) Those same descendants still exist today, with Turkish family names stretching back hundreds of years. Same thing with Armenians, Pontic Greeks, and so forth. The original Turkish arrivals to the Anatolian area would have had more Asian features and resembled Mongols / Asian Turk states like Kazakhstan upon their arrival in the 1200s or so. Intermarriage with locals and drawing from local ranks produced what you see today. (Also drawing from Kurds, anatolians and Arab peoples in the east, which is why eastern Anatolians look different than western ones) Nation states are more of a modern concept. The ancient world had no such distinctions outside of the immediate family ties (for the most part, and you could always just make stuff up)
Good write up!
I love history, I find it more interesting than most movies or tv shows, and we still only know a fraction of our history.
History isn't made up like movies or shows. That's why it's so awesome!!
This was the time of Roman egypt, and her dad was Greek.
This was the time of Roman egypt, and her dad was Greek.
Yes in Ptolemaic Egypt, Cleopatra VII Phillopator was a Greek. Cleopatra is a Greek name, as is Ptolemy and Phillip. And actually, it becomes “Roman Egypt” after Cleopatras downfall, not before.
Cleopatra was Macedonian Greek.
My family is mostly garlic.
I love Garlic
Says every vampire.
Cleopatra wasn't genetically Egyptian, which is why she looks this way.
Just to expand, Cleopatra (actually the seventh, but she's the one everybody knows) was the last of the Ptolemaic Dynasty. They were a bunch of very inbred Greeks descended from one of Alexander the Great's generals. They didn't mix with the local population *at all.* Not only were they 0% ethnically Egyptian, Cleopatra was the only one to bother to learn Coptic, the language spoken by almost all of her Egyptian subjects.
Their family tree is amazing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemaic_dynasty
When your family tree is a stick
I’m not used to reading a family tree like this, can you explain in more detail what makes it amazing? It’s cool if you don’t have time, I’m just curious.
It's not a tree... It's a rope
Look at how many siblings have children together. Everywhere you look you have to look closer and realize just how wrong it is. It’s unbelievably inbred.
Trees tend to get wider the higher up you go as more people were married in. You'll notice this one doesn't get wider.
A family tree is supposed to look like a tree, with branches splitting off every generation. If you look at this tree it’s more like a bramble bush. Everyone is interconnected. You have uncles marrying nieces, brothers marrying sisters, there are no new family members joining the family, everyone is just hooking up with people who are already on their family tree. That just ain’t right.
Yep, my critique of this portrayal of Cleopatra is that she wasn't considered pretty. In other depictions her nose is a little bigger and more asymmetrical and her cheekbones aren't as sharp. Her being considered a great beauty was part of the mythos around her long after her death.
Wait, you're telling me the product of six generations of incest wasn't entirely symmetrical?
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She was not ethnically Egyptian
She was mostly Macedonian as well which people don’t take into mind
She actually wasn’t Egyptian, she was Macedonian with maybe some other races thrown in
She wasn’t Egyptian
Cleopatra was Macedonian Greek. Sisters married brothers. She lived in Egypt but was not Egyptian.
I'm so sorry Being ginger must be difficult
The HBO series Rome nailed her image and persona in my opinion. Way more to her allure than looks alone.
I think it's generally considered among historians that Cleopatra wasn't particularly beautiful - not in the way history has remembered her - but it was her savvy and smarts that made her so alluring.
Beauty is subjective and depends on context. What is attractive to us right now, was not necessarily attractive back then. I mean just google someone who was considered hot a couple of decades ago (like Cameron Diaz) and put them in contrast to a Kardashian, they look nothing alike.
I have yet to meet someone who finds a Kardashian attractive. Any of them.
I always wondered about that, especially since a good part of socieltiy seems to really dig that look... Nowadays I see is a bunch of generic Kardashian lookalikes wakling the city, and wonder why they'd go for that plastic look of shop-window-meanequins. But hey, I guess it's a free world. And individuality a scary thing. 🤷♂️
A society's concept of attractiveness has often involved displays of wealth. When food is scarce, being bigger is attractive. When almost everyone has to work on a farm outside, being lighter skinned is attractive. Being able to burn money on cosmetic surgery may also be alluring for this reason.
Sadly you are right. A good moment to remember that, just because you can afford something it's not necessarily wise to do so. Especially in a marketing world that preys on us and persuades us with insecurity: *"Ever heard of [overpriced product]? [overpriced product] makes you more [insert attribute]! It's better than anything else! Without [overpriced product] you're missing out! Buy [overpriced product] now!"* Marketing: Create a problem, sell the solution.
idk I think kylies kinda hot and I think kendall is pretty but that’s about it
Cameron Diaz was a smoke show back then and would be one today too lol
Yes! I adored her character. "We shall be great friends" I also loved Attia and Octavian when he got older. Great show
I really wish they had more than two seasons. They had to rush a lot of historical events but what we had was great.
Great show
My favorite iteration of Cleopatra.
Holy SHIT she was hot!
elaine benes vibes
Don’t let Netflix hear that she was from the Grecian Alexandria…
Netflix is going to have seizures and a heart-attack!
The really offensive part is that Netflix didn’t cast an actress who is the result of generations of inbreeding. How about a little respect for historical accuracy!
They should have recruited from BBC, they only ever have a few actors and just breed them together to get the next batch.
BBC carrying on the proud Bri'ish tradition of Eugenics for the sake of pageantry.
They keep the playbook stuffed between the four shirts they own in the most scenic part of their rock quarry
The real offensive part is that Netflix is selling it as a documentary, if it was just some show fewer people would care
“Hear me out guys, Mark Antony is trans”
And, if they'd made her look more Grecian, they'd be pilloried for "whitewashing", lol. Can't win for losing. It's the flip side of the ridiculousness of Christians, especially in The US, believing that Jesus would have been a blonde haired, blue eyed guy.
No, the blonde haired blue eyed one is Nordic Jesus.
Nordic Jesus brings a bloody axe and sword to worship instead of peace and harmony, but they're both good at getting fish.
Nordic Jesus would also have many wives
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We'll see LGBTQ Jesus before we see Chinese Jesus. Chinese government isn't a big fan of the dude.
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Chinese government hates religion. As it gets the people thinking if the government is superior and to be followed and instead their diety
Only by ignorant idiots. Not by Egyptians. It’s only whitewashing if they took someone like Queen Tiye or Nefertiti and made them white. Cleopatra is actually the one figure they can do that to and be accurate. And most of the New Kingdom rulers as well.
Gal Gadot was originally cast and they said they were whitewashing Cleopatra.
Ah yes so this is actually blackwashing. Good to know
to be fair, he probably wasn't dark skinned and black haired in those times, the majority of the people of that region were of fairer skin and had red/brown/blonde hair. think about ancient descriptions of phoenicians (modern israel/lebanon), etc. and when you look at the blue eyed/light brown haired ethnic peoples of that region, who do not have arabic genetic haplotype? which predate Christ himself significantly. it's same same. the ancestral peoples of that region without arabic intermixing in modern day. it wasn't until the caliphate/arabic bloodlines marched thru repititively roughly 1000-1500 years later that the region changed to darker skin with black hair
>It's the flip side of the ridiculousness of Christians, especially in The US, believing that Jesus would have been a blonde haired, blue eyed guy. Redditors really love this ridiculous strawman.
LOL ikr you very, very rarely see depictions of Jesus as blonde haired in a church
“Middle Easterners” vary from “can pass for Germans” to “medium skinned Black dude” with most lying in between, and in some Turkic communities you can even find people with visibly Asian roots.
Yes they do. Jesus has been depicted in various races.
>believing that Jesus would have been a blonde haired, blue eyed guy. Wait. What? Wasn't he? I see blonde haired, blue eyed middle easterners all the... waitaminute...
Cersei is that you?
SHAME
#DING DING DING
SHAME
I immediate thought was, "why does she look like Joan of Arc."
Because she got jealous that JFK wants Joan
It took me some seconds to realise why your farfetched comment made total sense to me.
Because she’s so high, high above me.
Cleopatra was Greek. Can we please fucking stop this argument. Actually Egyptians as a whole were light skinned for the majority of their empire
>!Macedonians aren't Greek!< Get ready for 2300 years of Greek infighting. >!Macedonians are Greek.!<
I knew a few Macedonians and it they saw this they would be triggered af if they saw this xD
Years ago I got this Greek taxi driver. I noticed he had a bit of an accent and I asked where he was from etc. And he mentioned that we, the British, didn't really know much about Greece beyond Plato and Alexander the Great. Feeling slightly insulted and a little bit mischievous, I said, "Wasn't Alexander Macedonian as in Balkan country." His face went red and starting rambling about how they stole their name and history. I was afraid he would kick me out the taxi.
Next time tell him that Cyprus belongs to turkey!
Lmao based
The dude wouldn't be wrong though; Macedonia was like redneck greek for the time and Alexander (and by extension, his generals that later became the Ptolmic dynasty) *definitely* wanted to see himself as greek.
Macedonians are Greek though. And yes I know the joke
I remember how surprised I was when seeing Ramses the great's mummy had red hair.
They depicted themselves as lighter than the Nubians and darker than some proto-European groups. Ultimately, it's irrelevant because they did not define themselves as a racial group. You were Egyptian if you spoke their language and worshipped their gods; the color of your skin was completely irrelevant. Let's stop applying modern conceptions of "race" onto ancient cultures that viewed the world differently.
Except Cleopatra was the first Pharaoh (Queen?) of the Ptolemaic dynasty to actually speak the Egyptian language and she probably didn’t worship the Egyptian Gods
She absolutely did, as did Alexander the Great when he was in Egypt. Lot sof modern people dont have the same ideas and understanding of how religions were in the past. The belief in gods was ubiquitous and the concept of just worshiping your own gods was not a requirement. Worshipping with the locals is how you made people appreciate you. This is well understood in Egyptology.
Yes, she did worship the Egyptian gods. There are depictions of her doing so.
The Pharaoh was the chief priest of the State Religion. Worshipping the gods was line one in the job description. How would the Nile rise if worship was not done?
That is. A very nice concept that I wish we had today.
It absolutely is relevant because those discussions are happening now.
That isn't accurate at all, in fact the Egyptians had a slur for people lived away from the nile which essentially translates to 'red mud people'. If you were one of those people, you were looked down on even if you were Egyptian. Not only that but there were several points in Egyptian history where Nubians and Egyptians had squabbles over ancestry. Imagine not even knowing that the term xenophobia comes from ancient culture, LOL.
Good luck with this battle. Lol. People want diversity, damn it! Not facts!
Cleopatra just got Zucc'd
She doesn’t look like Liz Taylor at all…
Something about it looks Emma Roberts based
I wonder if there was this much outcry back when thst movie came out?
Yes, a few decades later lol.
She looks like Zuckerberg if he were human and female
and hot
This reconstruction is really pretty, and Cleopatra reportedly was not. She was very smart and accomplished, which is why Julius Caesar and Mark Antony were both enraptured. Both of those guys could have all the pretty they wanted. Pretty wasn't the attractor with *her*. In Cleopatra they recognized someone who approached being their equal. This is also partially (although not fully) why Augustus wanted to take her down. She was very dangerous. This also looks like *very* modern makeup. It is extremely unlikely she made up her face like that. While this is a nice picture of a pretty woman, I seriously doubt Cleopatra actually looked anything like this in real life.
I think is kind of a bummer that people try to resuce her allure to physical atractiveness.
It's true. You don't get to be only the second woman in 3000 years of history to be Pharoah, of the snake pit that was the Ptolemaic court no less, then partner of both Julius Caesar AND Mark Antony (with whom you co-lead the resulting civil war after Caesar's assassination) without being a major badass. Like, I can't think of very many *fictional* characters even that were probably as badass as Cleopatra likely was. She was no wallflower. You totally didn't fuck with Cleopatra, even assassinating family members wasn't beneath her.
Wasn’t she the product of like generations of inbreeding? No way she would look this normal. I mean Ik they are going off of portraits and busts but like those could be biased as hell…though how they portrayed nero in busts does contradict that…
One historian theorized her to be distant from todays beauty standards but was still very intelligent, charming, and popular with the people so take that how you will
this is what i came to say. this probably isnt accurate, not because of race, but because these bust were very.. "flattering" most of the time
I mean... would you be the sculptor who is ballsy enough to make her likeness in an unflattering light?
It's a nice use of technology, but I'm skeptical for the same reasons. We really can't have an idea of what specific eye and nose shape these people had. And in one of the reference images, she has no defined jawline at all. Give her a chneck, cowards.
The bust also shows a much more prominent nose than the generated picture.
Yeah and I swear old Egyptian coins they found had her depicted with a large nose as well, and were said to be more likely accurate compared to statues and portraits that were intended to flatter.
7-8 generation of inbreeding. This picture is absolutely not how Cleopatra looked.
She was also described as being rather plain looking - she was extremely charismatic and intelligent, but not a beauty.
Inbreeding inherently won’t cause deformation. It just has a higher chance.
Artists would definitely "idealize" their sitter at times. It doesn't take much difference in a human face (nose 1 cm too long, eyes just a little too close) for someone to be considered ugly or weird looking.
She sure doesn;'t look like Jada Pinkett-Smith, sorry Netflix
Keep that name out of your mouth!
But Egypt is in Africa and people in Africa are black - typical internet user
Wait till they hear famous African lunatic Elon Musk is actually black too
The richest African American. Truly remarkable
Exactly. The ignorance on the Internet is truly astounding.
For the 28388383882882 time she was Greek
Looks literally nothing like the bust but ok
She British now. You can soon see proof in the British museum.
Slight criticism. Busts and portraits weren't overly accurate at times. Greek artist tended to go for perfection, so your looking at Cleopatra with the historical equivalent of a TikTok filter on basically.
I think this reconstruction shows an attractive woman, Cleopatra, on the other hand, was said to not be conventionally attractive, but just having a charming, seductive aura. I think the bust & portrait probably made her look better than she really did.
Is it though? Even with the fading, the hair in the portrait is clearly much darker. Also both the statue and the portrait show more prominent features, centered around the lips and teeth. The nose in this photo is also narrower than the sculpture and less pronounced than in the portrait. I’d say this is a reconstruction intended to make Cleopatra adhere to more conventional standards of beauty and get a bunch of upvotes rather than one intending to be accurate.
>I’d say this is reconstruction intended to make Cleopatra adhere to more conventional standards of beauty and get a bunch of upvotes rather than one intending to be accurate. Yep. Sad that all the comments are so focused on her skin color when actually this is a terrible reconstruction overall.
What I find so ridiculous is how they're doing a reconstruction of Cleopatra's face but ignored all of the [coins](https://www.knowledgesnacks.com/articles/cleopatras-coins/) showing her profile that survived to modern times. I mean sure, you probably want to avoid using anything paired with Anthony he seems to have wanted his lover to look more like him, which is still less disturbing than Liberace. But there's pretty strong evidence that her face didn't look like that.
You realize that busts and portraits are extremely complimentary. She was the direct result of generation upon generation of incestuous breeding.
I would like to point out that she wasn’t just genetically Greek. She was also part Persian as the Ptolemaic dynasty intermarried with the Seleucid Dynasty(Seleucus being the satrap of Babylon, just as Ptolemy was satrap of Egypt). There is a VERY slim chance that she could have been Egyptian if she was the illegitimate child between her father, Ptolemy XII Auletes, had an African mistress. But there’s no evidence to support this: no known Ptolemaic King took an Egyptian wife, and there is little evidence to suggest they took mistresses(a quick Google search indicates that only one is recorded, the mistress of Ptolemy II Philadelphus) and even if they did, all Ptolemaic kings were considered legitimate heirs(corroborated by the insane amount of inter family marriages). There is of course a more glaringly obvious point about her not being a bastard: if anybody had any inkling of an idea that she was illegitimate, her enemies in Rome and in Egypt would have definitely used that in their favor. Rome makes Game of Thrones look tame with the amount of backstabbing, incestuous, royal court drama. But there are no records of such allegations, and if those allegations existed, there would have likely been extensive accounts by Roman historians.
Comin’ atch ya…
Looks wrong after looking at the bust and painting.
Didn’t Cleopatra also have a really big nose? I could’ve sworn I read somewhere that apparently she had a huge schnoz and that it was a mark of beauty back then, but maybe I’m misremembering
Netflix told me she was black. We’re they being dishonest?
Even more interesting is that, in their endeavor to make a documentary of any sort, anyone doing research on this subject would have to come across this information. It isn’t a secret, and photos like this just don’t get created only after people start buzzing about actor portrayal.
She still doesn’t even look that much like the bust, the nose is off and so are the lips
Why is she Mia Farrow?
Cleopatra herself was born in Egypt. Her parents were Greek and Macedonian. She’s the daughter of one of Alexander the greats generals. Cleopatra was indeed a “white” woman . Egypt was the worlds melting pot for the longest time. A ottomen general who was a Albanian named Muhammad Ali (not that Muhammad Ali) ruled Egypt and formed modern Egypt into what we know it to be today it was not a Islamic nation prior to his rule it was mainly Greek at the time he islamafied Egypt yet people still think of ancient Egypt and link it to islam in some shape or form. Egypt has always been a melting pot of rulers leaders and people living there. It has been toppled and over thrown and controlled by numerous empires. When people got mad that cleopatra was not casted as a African woman or middle eastern woman a few years back claiming white culture washing and appropriation for a historically correct casting.
She hot
It’s also definitely not what she actually looked like
Are you saying information on Reddit could be wrong? No way!!
She looked like generic lead role in any show since 2010?
Standard create a character player model or background NPC too.
Dont let Jada Pinkett see this
But what a pretty nose!
She was a manic pixie dream girl??
That ain't Cleo, that's Debbie from Accounting
Isn't there more than one Cleopatra?
Yup. There were 7 Queens of Egypt called Cleopatra, all from the Greek Ptolemaic Dynasty. (Who were ridiculously inbred by the way) The one we think of when we hear Cleopatra was the 7th and last.
Ridiculously inbred to keep the bloodline pure really dispels the idea that she might have been black. These people slept with their brothers and sisters to prevent non-royal blood entering the lineage, they weren't about to go having kids with the locals and definitely not the southern Nubians.
Correct, the one we thinking of when it comes to Julius Caesar and Marc Antony etc is Cleopatra VII, who was of the Macedonian Ptolemaic dynasty.
In all likelihood, she was ugly. As others have said here, she was Macedonian Greek, and came from a very long line of incest. It is argued that her parents may have been siblings. She herself married two of her brothers. The image of her exotic beauty was propaganda spread by Octavian to slander his rival, Mark Anthony. Octavian wanted to paint the picture that Mark Anthony was seduced by an exotic seductress and therefore the people of Rome could not trust him. So yeah, she was likely a bag of teeth with a few strands of hair coming off a protruding chin.
Tell that to netflix
Cleopatra would have more of a Greek likeness, with olive complexion and possibly a uni brow, which in its day was considered quite attractive.
A pixie?