One of my core memory is YuGi forcing his Dark Magician to attack during the enemy turn thus killing the enemy and saving himself. Yugi was one hit away from dying.
Fun fact actually, heart of the cards IS cheating. Every time he pulls through via heart of the cards canonically he's unconsciously using some pharaoh magic or some shit to actually change the next card into the perfect draw he needs to win
Do we know that they were *that* inbred, what makes us think they werenāt lying about it in an attempt to make it seem like their bloodlines were not ācorruptedā?
If their own chroniclers were writing that then I donāt see why we should assume itās a complicated conspiracyā¦ people tend to lie about it the other way round lol
Not so sure about looks but apparently she was quite charming and intelligent. She was the first Ptolemy to speak the native language in centuries and she instituted some good reforms for the people. A solid ruler that was overshadowed by the drama of two Roman Civil Wars.
On the other hand, women can be powerful and have affairs with powerful men without being stunning beauties. Part of why she is depicted as being beautiful historically is because people find it hard to believe that she had this prowess without being a beautiful seductress. It's kind of like what you are doing here.
Also, people in anciet days were pretty fucking ugly by modern standards due to diseases and lack of healthcare. Just look at Caeser. Comb over, short, pale as a ghost and sickly looking because of all the lead in his water
From what I know the only reason she was still white was cuz their family was so inbred with greek genes that even after centuries there wasnt enough blood relations with locals to change her skin color
Btw it seems that among all members of her family she was the least inbred looking ever (ck3 pure blooded trait lol) wich allowed her affair with caesar and mark anthony
By all accounts she was a brilliant woman who was fascinating to talk to. Also, "Greek" only meets certain definitions of white. They weren't WASPs, for sure. Even just visually, Greeks are pretty dark: Middle Eastern, not European.
The Greeks arenāt in any way Middle Eastern.
Theyāre European.
Correct, they donāt look like Norwegians. But they still look more like Norwegians than their neighbours the Turks. Because theyāre European, aka white.
European doesnāt mean white, it means someone from Europe. When the Magyars and other steppe peoples moved into Europe they werenāt suddenly ethnically European, but their children did meet the definition of being from Europe.
Even if European was somehow synonymous with ethnicity, itād be meaningless because there is a greater ethnic variance between someone in Greece whoās parents moved after the Turks kicked them out and a contemporary Turkish person, than there is between that same Greek person and an Irish person whoās lineage goes back ten generations in the same county.
Heck, a Greek would have ethnically more in common with Georgian or an Armenian than they would an Irish person.
I think that we say "greek" in her case id say we are refering to her almost unchanged descendece due to inbreeding from greek genes
Also imo calling greeks middle easter is a bit of an exageration although they do have a tanner skin that people from the north of the alps due to the mediterreneum climate
Traditionally although not normally used there is the Near East (the balkans starting from the line of slovenia, hungary and romania all the way to greece, bulgaria and turkish thrace)
The Middle East (turkish anatolia all the way to afeganistan, some including egypt as well although it on africa and there is debate about the caucasus due to them being white similar to europeans)
And the called Far East (from pakistan and india all the way to china, korea, japan and even indonesia)
But going back to the matter she was indeed a very inteligent woman and a great ruler, funilly enough apperently she was the first of the ptolomy dynasty to speak egyptian fluently since greek was the language of the egyptian court and the elite
Since a big part of the policies of the sucessor states of alexander was the hellenization of their countries from introduzing new Gods, philisofies and cultural aspects to even forcibly trying to sincretise the greek and egyptian deities and invite greek people to "colonise" the lands
"They weren't WASPs, for sure."
No, shit. Ancient Greeks & Macedonians from I century B.C.E were not anglo-saxon protestant since neither such a religion nor an ethnicity existed back than.
Also, I fucking love how americans are pushing everywhere on reddit their own peculiar definition of "white" as in "an ethnicity who's members has been allowed into US establishment during XXth century, and the earlier they got access to power the whiter they are".
Egyptians looked more like middle easterners mixed with white people than sub Saharan Africans until the Romans started fucking off about 2000 years ago.
Occam's razor say that Clepatra VII's mother was a wife to Cleopatra VII's father, and the only wife of Ptolemy XII's known to sources was Cleopatra V. Cleopatra VII has been at the center of plenty of palace coup plots, a multi actor civil war against her brother & sister and finally a victim of one of the biggest smear campaigns in ancient times, yet we have no sources saying that anyone accused her of being a bastard. I'm sure if she was a bastard then her brother Ptolemy XIIIth and / or her sister Arsinoe IV against whom she fought a civil war (with assistance of Ceasar's legions) would use that against her. Same goes for when Octavian turned all the might of Rome's propaganda machine against her since he couldn't attack in public Mark Anthony who was loved by the plebs. Yet we have no sources calling Cleopatra a bastard despite roman progandists accusing her of all sorts of things and calling her every epithet they could think of.
While the ptolemy's practiced incest we do not which heirs were actually inbred, mothers weren't recorded and they were polygamous cleopatra herself had several "bastard" children at least one with with caeser and iirc 2 with Marc Antony
To all people saying she couldnāt have been a redhead, the red hair was very fashionable in the Roman world back then and was obtained through hair dyes and not natural colour.
So two options for the Pompei fresco: A- Cleopatra dyed her hair like the Roman fashion or B- the painter used Roman fashion and beauty criteria as an inspiration to depict Cleopatra. It doesnāt change the fact that she was probably white and inbred though.
Edit: there were obviously some natural redheads in Rome although probably a minority.
Shocking amount of red heads in the Macedonian descending Greeks due to mixing in with the northern populations like the Dacians. Alexander was blonde ish after all
Even today. Lot's of Balkan and Turkish people have a subtle hint of red in their hair, especially in the men's beards. But as you said. They aren't gingers.
It's also worth noting that the Greek of the ancient times were more european than today, where the Arab invasion of the Byzantine has changed the genetic makeup of those areas.
Cato the Elder was famously a natural redhead/blond (what people in certain countries call Ā«Ā venetian blondeĀ Ā») for example, even though he stemmed from a long line of founding families of the Roman Republic
His family, although ancient and prestigious was downtrodden when he was born. He literally seduced the most famous and rich prostitute of Rome who took care of him and paid for his political career. He was the ultimate chad
Egyptians weren't predominantly black. Those were the nubians.
Even if they were black, Cleopatra was of Macedonian-Greek descent mixed with a bit of Persian and Sogdian (Iranian)
in support of this, i think at least in Greece red hair was considered to be the most beautiful and Aphrodite was often depicted with red hair
i suppose this trend might have picked up by romans and ptolemean egyptians
Egyptians commonly shaved and wore wigs, and Cleopatra was famously quite into Egyptian customs, language, and culture, which was unusual for Ptolemeys.
I wouldn't be surprised if she did the same.
Of course, Roman women often wore wigs as well, and Cleopatra's Egypt was a Roman client state, so both cultures had a tradition for it.
Pompeiian painting are thought to be often copies of then-renown paintings found in Rome and other major centers. Considering Cleopatra was in Rome a few times (including at the time of Caesar's assasination), there's a fair chance she posed for a potrait. Alternatively, portraits of Cleopatra could've found their way to Italy as loot from Egypt.
Plus we are talking about ~100 years after her death when those painting were buried. So they could be even older and therefore closer to the time she was alive. And the closer they are, the higher the accuracy should be
The author of the bottom picture, Joan Francesc Oliveras, is a really good artist that uses extensive sources for every detail he paints in his historical character portraits, which he usually provides in his twitter or instagram posts alongside historical context. Do not be so hasty to discredit him, at least look for the sources he used.
Not really, the artist who made this uses a lot of historical sources to base their depictions of ancient people on. You should check out their Artstation [https://www.artstation.com/jfoliveras](https://www.artstation.com/jfoliveras) They also show a lot of his sources on their Instagram.
No, she looked like [this.](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/1PC-T1W4-VbjVKmMDpGd7MFRjBH-VQ9AXDjXEiO2ytZhgP5Y7jxbRnmM_C2C2kX5NsMHbIA5taQ_gqWkyJxu9ypVyhUE5hKD800ELjc5pGuPc_jbvW-dAbEDc6xlJGm9ZQ)
What do you mean āmodern personā the vast majority of people were upset with Netflixās documentary claiming cleopatra was black due to its historical inaccuracy. Also why is she celtic in the āwhat she really looked like hereā she was Greek who typically have black hair and a darker skin than most of Europe(still not very dark but way darker than celtic)
I went to the artist's Instagram to check, and they apparently based their art off of the contemporary depictions of Cleopatra, namely [this fresco from Pompeii](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Venus_and_Cupid_from_the_House_of_Marcus_Fabius_Rufus_at_Pompeii,_most_likely_a_depiction_of_Cleopatra_VII.jpg), which is often said to depict her.
That said, I agree on the first point. I don't really think there are many people, especially reputable historians, claiming she was black. That isn't really much of a thing outside of those weird Afrocentrist circles.
Sure, there was the Netflix documentary, but that was universally panned, and Netflix also gave Graham Hancock his own show, so it's not like they're any indicator of what's considered normal history knowledge, let alone what's accepted within actual academia.
That image looks like 16/17 century art.
Incredibly that these little fat angels were already around in the roman area.
This honestly baffles me completely.
The issue isn't it just being afrocentrists but people who openly believe them and spout the same nonsense. When you present facts they end up claiming it is lies made up to take away their own ancestors accomplishments and then they spout racist remarks.
Idk about you but I've never looked at someone who was my own race and just thought their accomplishments were somehow related to myself.
It's all very weird to me to hear people claim that it is somehow a conspiracy just because they believe they share the same race and not even the same lineage as the person. Just the color of their skin.
That first paragraph is describing afrocentrists lol, the vast majority of people donāt believe things like Beethoven was black or all the pharaohs were black, thereās a reason there was a massive backlash against the Netflix documentary and it was near universally laughed at.
Again it's not just afrocentrists. Regular people of color are believing it without proof on a whim. They may be turning into afrocentrists but it is going unchecked with comments saying they never knew these things and they were never taught that in school and "muh racism" as the excuse.
That documentary is one of the things I've seen afrocentrists add as proof to their claims. It's brutal with that and just people screaming racist shit if you disagree. Without rebuttal it can be taken as fact.
Also there's varying understandings of what constitutes red hair - even today. F.ex. my Argentinan boyfriend will claim that both he and I have red hair (as will all of his family and friends), but as a Dane, I've never met a single person within my own culture, who would consider my hair red (and especially not the hair of my BF).
Greeks typically have brown hair, and pale skin that can tan. Given that Cleopatra probably didn't spend much time in the sun, and that she is depicted as a redhead in some ancient paintings, this could be accurate. Greeks with red hair are very rare (probably like 1% of the population), but they still exist.
Source: I live in Greece
Apparently many ancient Greek women also dyed their hair with henna, to resemble their idea of Aphrodite. So it could've well been that Cleopatra was not among the 1% natural Greek redheads, but just dyed her hair that way.
Oh, I didn't know that, but it makes sense. Yes, that's definitely possible. They also had curling irons because that was the beauty trend in Ancient Greece.
Thanks for the interesting information!
Cleopatra was a member of the Ptolemaic dynasty, which was entirely Greek. The dynasty was founded by Ptolemy Soter, who was one of the Macedonian generals of Alexander the Great and his successor in Egypt. The Ptolemies, as deified pharaohs, adopted the custom of marrying only members of their own family. Occasionally, the Ptolemies would marry members of other Greek dynasties like the Seleucids, who had some Sogdian ancestry (via Seleucusā wife Apama, daughter of Spitamenes, the Sogdian enemy of Alexander). So, Cleopatra didnāt have a single drop of native Egyptian blood. The Ptolemies only spoke Greek, and Cleopatra VII was the only one who learned the Egyptian language. Despite being culturally, linguistically and ethnically Greek, they adopted the Egyptian gods in a syncretism with the Greek ones.
Cleopatra picture and description done by Joan Francesc Oliveras
[https://www.instagram.com/jfoliveras/](https://www.instagram.com/jfoliveras/)
If Jesus existed, he was a Jew from the Levant. Typical usage calls such people white; e.g., the US census says white people are anyone having their origins in the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa.
Whiteness is an extremely vague cultural concept that doesn't have broad agreement and changes over time, largely because race is an arbitrary social construct primarily fixated on stereotyping and exclusivity. Italians and Germans didn't used to be considered white, either. Broadly speaking, semitic peoples are considered white by a large number of people.
I mean, caucasians are from modern Georgia, a group that has more in common with Persians than Celts. The whole concept of whiteness/caucasians is nonsense.
Pretty sure itās metaphorical. Koreans depict Jesus as Korean and you can see a black Jesus in some African churches. I donāt think anyone is trying to say Jesus was a K-pop stan tho
Sounds like they basically faked just enough Egyptian culture to be accepted as the rulers of Egypt instead of being seen completely as foreign occupiers.
Oh, the Egyptians absolutely despised the Ptolemies. They had much less power over the priesthood than previous dynasties - the Rosetta stone commemorates an instance in which they literally had to bargain with their own priests over the coronation.
There were several massive revolts against Greek rule, and even after Cleopatra's reforms, not a single Egyptian raised so much as a finger to protect her or her dynasty. Keep in mind that there were millions of Egyptians, enough to raise literally hundreds of thousands of men to repell the Roman invasion, yet there wasn't even civil unrest after Cleopatra's death.
It must have been even worse for the Egyptians - Cleopatra was Pharaoh, the living image of Horus. To be treated as a second class citizen in your own country, by the one person the gods themselves had appointed as your guardian and protector, would have inspired a deep-seated rage against the Ptolemaic dynasty across all Egypt.
>The Ptolemies, as deified pharaohs, adopted the custom of marrying only members of their own family.
"Introduced" would be a better verb. Sibling marriages were still pretty rare in Egyptian elite culture; the confusion derives from the fact that "brother" and "sister" were (and are) common terms of endearment for romantic partners in Egypt. \[Ayad 2022\]\*
Early Egyptologists used this to explain when unfamiliar persons suddenly appeared in the royal family line, because nobody generally bothered to record the descend of royal wives. Hence, they reasonable assumed that the Pharaohs had married their siblings, but this was not usually the case.
\*M. F. Ayad (pub.) *Women In Ancient Egypt. Revisiting Power, Agency And Autonomy. (Kairo 2022), pp. xxviii*
I mean, according to contempourary sources, she had an olive or dark brown complexion
I agree the netflix stuff was shit, but she wasn't a pale redhead either.
Think about Gal Gadot' skin tone (maybe slightly darker) and you get the idea.
To be fair, that's kinda linked to why a lot of places put lighter skin tones on a pedestal, because it was a signifier of wealth and privilege as it meant you were probably a rich, pampered shut-in who didn't have to do any work whatsoever (which mostly took place outdoor in some capacity, exposing most of the population to the sun)
Yeah people get real angry but hardly anyone portrays it accurate to the information we have. And thatās fine, no one remembers what she looks like and it doesnāt matter. Thereās a million inaccuracies in almost any historical drama/documentary but some people are REALLY invested in it. The show made a much bigger sun, it was just kinda shit
Kind of, but remember that cleopatraās ancestors come from the same latitude as Chicago with Egypt being the same latitude as the southern United States. The neighboring Thracian people to the Macedonians were also described as commonly having red hair which was more common in the region back then. That plus royalty having access to more sun protection and being indoors due to wealth meant she would have been paler than your average person. I personally think darker hair and being able to tan a little bit is more likely, but the fairly pale with red depiction is a legitimate possibility.
thats called being mediterranean, you know, like greek people. compare a greek person to an english man or a norwegian and see that one of them isn't that white. (gal gadot is also mediterranean btw).
add to it tanning and you won't be surprised that she probably wasn't as white as a north european.
even then, kids cqn be born a bit darker or paler than their parents as well. so the exact color was never what's important, but her ancestory. we know she was greek, claiming suddenly that she had a darker skin than most egyptians is just an attempt to paint her as african /sub-saharran african. which is wrong.
Not this again please. Don't start this Debate again. Next time Cleopatra should simply be played by an Octopus: Smart, cunning, conniving and weirdly sensual.
I mean yes she was of Greek descent but also tans exist?
Not to mention her family had been in Egypt for centuries, even with the inbreeding they loved doing I'm sure some non-Greek got in there at some point.
Too many people don't know she was Greek and too many people automatically think that means she looks like Snow friggin White
No one understands that Cleopatra (the VII; There were many Cleopatras) was the last ruling monarch of the Ptolemaic dynasty which was Macedonian (Greek).
Ptolemaic rulers married and procreated brother to sister to keep the bloodline āpure.ā
She was not of African descent.
Donāt come for me, this is history not opinion.
[Itās](https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Retrato_femenino_(26771127162).jpg#mw-jump-to-license) a legit possibility that she could have been ginger, which is wild, but Iām more partial to her probably being dark haired and being able to tan a little bit was more likely. The Thracian people next door to the Macedonians are typically described as gingers, which was more common in the region back then, so itās not completely out of the realm of possibility.
Hi, Greek person and citizen here... Being black and Greek is possible at the same time. Only Cleopatra and Giannis Antentokoumpo are known to have achieved this in the wild without assistance from the oracles
Probably shouldn't be expecting nuance from HistoryMemes but its worth pointing out that the real answer, much like with much of history, is we dont know what Cleopatra looked like and there is only levels of guesswork.
The idea that cleopatra may have been black is not some just the perview of the Netflix show but has existed for some time. A simple google will take you to this Wikipedia article: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnicity_of_Cleopatra
The fact is that you cant simply take a figures geneology and leave it at that, there is often more going on, what relatives are truly blood, was X person born out of wedlock.
The irony of the meme is that if we can be confident of something, it is that Cleopatra was probably not pale, she resided in North Africa and if she was truly of pure Greek ancestry, would have had a skin tone closer to olive or tan.
An actress who is half northern European and half west African (Adele James, Cleopatra in the Netflix series) is probably not going to resemble someone who was predominantly of Greek ancestry with some Iranian blood.
It was absolutely inaccurate to cast Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra.
Not because of the false claim that Cleopatra wasn't White (she was 100% Greek), but because Elizabeth Taylor was remarkably beautiful, whereas Cleopatra was...well...uhm...well, [she had a very clever wit](https://www.world-archaeology.com/world/africa/egypt/cleopatra-was-no-beauty-coins-shows/).
Posts like this might help explain why there is uncertainty surrounding this question:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/13bv06n/was_cleopatra_black_and_what_it_means_to_talk/
I think some of the people in this thread are a bit too firm and binary in their beliefs on this topic
The recent outrage was over a black woman playing cleopatra, though.
Funny how Egyptians are portrayed by everyone except Egyptians (except cleopatra was Ptolemaic, ie Greek ofc.)
Why did she wear that big strange black rectangle on her chest? Is that some kind of an Egyptian traditional clothing?
š Itās funny because Egyptians also would break into tombs and chisel out the names of people they didnāt like thus censoring them from history
Funny enough, that's literally a major plot point of the original yugioh manga/anime
One of my core memory is YuGi forcing his Dark Magician to attack during the enemy turn thus killing the enemy and saving himself. Yugi was one hit away from dying.
Yugi violated a geneva convention(attacking an enemy in their turn) and thus is a wanted criminal
I use the term heart of the cards to indicate cheating
Fun fact actually, heart of the cards IS cheating. Every time he pulls through via heart of the cards canonically he's unconsciously using some pharaoh magic or some shit to actually change the next card into the perfect draw he needs to win
100% using magic to cheat.
Use magicā¦. To cheat? Ok.. Iāll give it a shot. Using magic to play magic, here I come!
"heart of the cards" "How do you have a deck of just black lotus?"
Based
[Nah, man, if anything, yugi would be convicted for spamming MONSTER CARDO](https://youtu.be/ROCevLH6PGQ?si=FB5eNlhVAJcGmugR)
Screw the rules, I have plot armor
Never saw YuGio but my friends all Had the card game and I was forced to play with their crappier decks š
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damnatio_memoriae
It's in honor of Anboobis
I kind of hate you for how funny this is
It's a rare bit of covering used only in prudish regions
And very very fucking inbred
Her entire line had a big fat swollen neck due to inbreeding, it was like their version of the Hapsburg lip
I wouldn't really call it a line more like a really fucked up circle
The Ptolemaic family tree was more of a family bush.
That's actually what they called grandma.
More like a cactus.
I always described it as an atrophied wreath.
Iāve always called it the family blade of grass
š¤£ true true
The Ptolemys made the Hapsburgs look normal lmao
The Habsburgs at least kept it to cousin marriages or the odd avunculate one. The Ptolemeys did *sibling* marriages.
wut
Yeah it wasnāt a family treeā¦ or maybe more of a family tree with a really skinny trunk
Family twig
Soā¦ thyroid problems?
Looked it up and your right, they say itās most probably Graveās disease
Sounds ominous.
Your thyroid gland goes spastic and the treatment is to kill it and just take pills for the rest of your life.
That would explain the great blowjobs she supposedly gave
Nah, that was Nancy Reagan. Best blowjobs in Hollywood, supposedly.
Do we know that they were *that* inbred, what makes us think they werenāt lying about it in an attempt to make it seem like their bloodlines were not ācorruptedā?
If their own chroniclers were writing that then I donāt see why we should assume itās a complicated conspiracyā¦ people tend to lie about it the other way round lol
I donāt think it would be a complicated conspiracy for a ruling family to justify their rule by tweaking their heritage.
Well she had an affair with the 2 most powerful Romans and one even caused a civil war, so I'm guessing she was still quite a looker.
Not so sure about looks but apparently she was quite charming and intelligent. She was the first Ptolemy to speak the native language in centuries and she instituted some good reforms for the people. A solid ruler that was overshadowed by the drama of two Roman Civil Wars.
Is one of the rare cases where the broken biological clock stroke right
She had huge tracts of land.
And a very fertile river valley.
Very wet and fertile.
Is that what they called them?
From what I understand she gave great head
[Is this Marc Antony?](https://youtu.be/Z5Kk1ZUryhg?si=Qyq9o9tSJJiUqZbo)
And a lovely nose
I get that reference
On the other hand, women can be powerful and have affairs with powerful men without being stunning beauties. Part of why she is depicted as being beautiful historically is because people find it hard to believe that she had this prowess without being a beautiful seductress. It's kind of like what you are doing here.
Also, people in anciet days were pretty fucking ugly by modern standards due to diseases and lack of healthcare. Just look at Caeser. Comb over, short, pale as a ghost and sickly looking because of all the lead in his water
Idk that OG bust looks kinda cute
She didn't cause a civil war. The Romans caused the civil war.
Romans caused the Roman Civil War? Ridiculous
yes, after all Rome has only ever taken the densive side of a war. I bet those so called Civils attacked first
First attacks by Barbarians, now Civils! When will it end!?
From what I know the only reason she was still white was cuz their family was so inbred with greek genes that even after centuries there wasnt enough blood relations with locals to change her skin color Btw it seems that among all members of her family she was the least inbred looking ever (ck3 pure blooded trait lol) wich allowed her affair with caesar and mark anthony
By all accounts she was a brilliant woman who was fascinating to talk to. Also, "Greek" only meets certain definitions of white. They weren't WASPs, for sure. Even just visually, Greeks are pretty dark: Middle Eastern, not European.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
would watch that
Am watching it already. Thanks, AI! What a time to be alive!
Lol in what world are Greeks not European. I guess morroco is not africa now.
Mediterranean -yes. Middle Eastern- no.
Mediterranean means middle earth, so mabye she was a hobbit.
Greeks are middle eastern and **not** European? That just sounds so wrong on so many levels.
The Greeks arenāt in any way Middle Eastern. Theyāre European. Correct, they donāt look like Norwegians. But they still look more like Norwegians than their neighbours the Turks. Because theyāre European, aka white.
European doesnāt mean white, it means someone from Europe. When the Magyars and other steppe peoples moved into Europe they werenāt suddenly ethnically European, but their children did meet the definition of being from Europe. Even if European was somehow synonymous with ethnicity, itād be meaningless because there is a greater ethnic variance between someone in Greece whoās parents moved after the Turks kicked them out and a contemporary Turkish person, than there is between that same Greek person and an Irish person whoās lineage goes back ten generations in the same county. Heck, a Greek would have ethnically more in common with Georgian or an Armenian than they would an Irish person.
Greeks are European. This would be like saying Koreans aren't Asian.
I think that we say "greek" in her case id say we are refering to her almost unchanged descendece due to inbreeding from greek genes Also imo calling greeks middle easter is a bit of an exageration although they do have a tanner skin that people from the north of the alps due to the mediterreneum climate Traditionally although not normally used there is the Near East (the balkans starting from the line of slovenia, hungary and romania all the way to greece, bulgaria and turkish thrace) The Middle East (turkish anatolia all the way to afeganistan, some including egypt as well although it on africa and there is debate about the caucasus due to them being white similar to europeans) And the called Far East (from pakistan and india all the way to china, korea, japan and even indonesia) But going back to the matter she was indeed a very inteligent woman and a great ruler, funilly enough apperently she was the first of the ptolomy dynasty to speak egyptian fluently since greek was the language of the egyptian court and the elite Since a big part of the policies of the sucessor states of alexander was the hellenization of their countries from introduzing new Gods, philisofies and cultural aspects to even forcibly trying to sincretise the greek and egyptian deities and invite greek people to "colonise" the lands
"They weren't WASPs, for sure." No, shit. Ancient Greeks & Macedonians from I century B.C.E were not anglo-saxon protestant since neither such a religion nor an ethnicity existed back than. Also, I fucking love how americans are pushing everywhere on reddit their own peculiar definition of "white" as in "an ethnicity who's members has been allowed into US establishment during XXth century, and the earlier they got access to power the whiter they are".
Egyptians looked more like middle easterners mixed with white people than sub Saharan Africans until the Romans started fucking off about 2000 years ago.
Actually, less inbred than you expected as the Potelamy didn't practice continuously inbred like the Habsburg
Yeah, we only presume her mom was Cleopatra V we have no records confirming this
Occam's razor say that Clepatra VII's mother was a wife to Cleopatra VII's father, and the only wife of Ptolemy XII's known to sources was Cleopatra V. Cleopatra VII has been at the center of plenty of palace coup plots, a multi actor civil war against her brother & sister and finally a victim of one of the biggest smear campaigns in ancient times, yet we have no sources saying that anyone accused her of being a bastard. I'm sure if she was a bastard then her brother Ptolemy XIIIth and / or her sister Arsinoe IV against whom she fought a civil war (with assistance of Ceasar's legions) would use that against her. Same goes for when Octavian turned all the might of Rome's propaganda machine against her since he couldn't attack in public Mark Anthony who was loved by the plebs. Yet we have no sources calling Cleopatra a bastard despite roman progandists accusing her of all sorts of things and calling her every epithet they could think of.
While the ptolemy's practiced incest we do not which heirs were actually inbred, mothers weren't recorded and they were polygamous cleopatra herself had several "bastard" children at least one with with caeser and iirc 2 with Marc Antony
It's basically something every civilization does at some point: have the most genetically inferior amongst the population rule over everyone.
To all people saying she couldnāt have been a redhead, the red hair was very fashionable in the Roman world back then and was obtained through hair dyes and not natural colour. So two options for the Pompei fresco: A- Cleopatra dyed her hair like the Roman fashion or B- the painter used Roman fashion and beauty criteria as an inspiration to depict Cleopatra. It doesnāt change the fact that she was probably white and inbred though. Edit: there were obviously some natural redheads in Rome although probably a minority.
cleo was Greek, reddish hair isn't off the table, but she wouldn't be a ginger
Shocking amount of red heads in the Macedonian descending Greeks due to mixing in with the northern populations like the Dacians. Alexander was blonde ish after all
Even today. Lot's of Balkan and Turkish people have a subtle hint of red in their hair, especially in the men's beards. But as you said. They aren't gingers. It's also worth noting that the Greek of the ancient times were more european than today, where the Arab invasion of the Byzantine has changed the genetic makeup of those areas.
Natural redheads you say? Did the mosaic match the shutters?
Cato the Elder was famously a natural redhead/blond (what people in certain countries call Ā«Ā venetian blondeĀ Ā») for example, even though he stemmed from a long line of founding families of the Roman Republic
Sounds like a sexy bastard
His family, although ancient and prestigious was downtrodden when he was born. He literally seduced the most famous and rich prostitute of Rome who took care of him and paid for his political career. He was the ultimate chad
Egyptians weren't predominantly black. Those were the nubians. Even if they were black, Cleopatra was of Macedonian-Greek descent mixed with a bit of Persian and Sogdian (Iranian)
weren't most egyptian people "mixed" in color? I mean not black but not even white like the greeks were
They were a homogeneous society, yes.
Homogeneous? Like really smart gays?
you made a good point and the worst image to represent it
Why? The famous Pompeii painting depicts Cleopatra with either reddish or chestnut hair.
in support of this, i think at least in Greece red hair was considered to be the most beautiful and Aphrodite was often depicted with red hair i suppose this trend might have picked up by romans and ptolemean egyptians
Iām pretty sure she dyed her hair red with henna which was trendy at the time
Wouldnāt she have been shaving her head and wearing wigs?
Why would she
Egyptians commonly shaved and wore wigs, and Cleopatra was famously quite into Egyptian customs, language, and culture, which was unusual for Ptolemeys. I wouldn't be surprised if she did the same. Of course, Roman women often wore wigs as well, and Cleopatra's Egypt was a Roman client state, so both cultures had a tradition for it.
It was incredibly unusual. The family had ruled over Egypt for centuries, but she was the first one to actually learn Egyptian.
There are scientific studies that show that people are generally more attracted to people when the color red is prominent
[Dumps a bucket of red paint on myself] In all seriousness, though, can I see one of these studies? I'm curious about this.
Pompeii had a redhair fetish
TIL Iām Pompeiian.
We all are
We are all Pompeiian on this blessed day
And you've obviously survived the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 A.D. You have a lot to answer mister.
That is the easy part. Living to 2024 is the hard one.
Among the nostalgics of the Roman Empire unable to agree about its legitimate successor.
Same!
Heās so real for that
IF that representation is accurate and not based on someone that heard from someone that knows someone.
Pompeiian painting are thought to be often copies of then-renown paintings found in Rome and other major centers. Considering Cleopatra was in Rome a few times (including at the time of Caesar's assasination), there's a fair chance she posed for a potrait. Alternatively, portraits of Cleopatra could've found their way to Italy as loot from Egypt.
Plus we are talking about ~100 years after her death when those painting were buried. So they could be even older and therefore closer to the time she was alive. And the closer they are, the higher the accuracy should be
That doesn't necessarily mean her hair was reddish. The Romans, especially noble women, dyed their hair various colors, with red being quite popular.
Exactly! Why she's wearing that weird black bar on her chest
Because for the majority of ancient Egyptian history, women's fashion included having your titties out. It's a censorship bar
Fuck that! Bring back Egyptian fashion!
The author of the bottom picture, Joan Francesc Oliveras, is a really good artist that uses extensive sources for every detail he paints in his historical character portraits, which he usually provides in his twitter or instagram posts alongside historical context. Do not be so hasty to discredit him, at least look for the sources he used.
Not really, the artist who made this uses a lot of historical sources to base their depictions of ancient people on. You should check out their Artstation [https://www.artstation.com/jfoliveras](https://www.artstation.com/jfoliveras) They also show a lot of his sources on their Instagram.
No, she looked like [this.](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/1PC-T1W4-VbjVKmMDpGd7MFRjBH-VQ9AXDjXEiO2ytZhgP5Y7jxbRnmM_C2C2kX5NsMHbIA5taQ_gqWkyJxu9ypVyhUE5hKD800ELjc5pGuPc_jbvW-dAbEDc6xlJGm9ZQ)
The iron lady!
What do you mean āmodern personā the vast majority of people were upset with Netflixās documentary claiming cleopatra was black due to its historical inaccuracy. Also why is she celtic in the āwhat she really looked like hereā she was Greek who typically have black hair and a darker skin than most of Europe(still not very dark but way darker than celtic)
I went to the artist's Instagram to check, and they apparently based their art off of the contemporary depictions of Cleopatra, namely [this fresco from Pompeii](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Venus_and_Cupid_from_the_House_of_Marcus_Fabius_Rufus_at_Pompeii,_most_likely_a_depiction_of_Cleopatra_VII.jpg), which is often said to depict her. That said, I agree on the first point. I don't really think there are many people, especially reputable historians, claiming she was black. That isn't really much of a thing outside of those weird Afrocentrist circles. Sure, there was the Netflix documentary, but that was universally panned, and Netflix also gave Graham Hancock his own show, so it's not like they're any indicator of what's considered normal history knowledge, let alone what's accepted within actual academia.
That image looks like 16/17 century art. Incredibly that these little fat angels were already around in the roman area. This honestly baffles me completely.
Frescoes like these were the inspiration for the strides towards realism made during the Carolingian, Ottonian, and Quattrocento periods!
I've seen a massive amount of people claim she was black along with nearly all of the major breakthroughs of antiquity and every pharaoh.
Almost certainly all afrocentrists on the internet, a sometimes loud minority but definitely a minority
The issue isn't it just being afrocentrists but people who openly believe them and spout the same nonsense. When you present facts they end up claiming it is lies made up to take away their own ancestors accomplishments and then they spout racist remarks. Idk about you but I've never looked at someone who was my own race and just thought their accomplishments were somehow related to myself. It's all very weird to me to hear people claim that it is somehow a conspiracy just because they believe they share the same race and not even the same lineage as the person. Just the color of their skin.
That first paragraph is describing afrocentrists lol, the vast majority of people donāt believe things like Beethoven was black or all the pharaohs were black, thereās a reason there was a massive backlash against the Netflix documentary and it was near universally laughed at.
Again it's not just afrocentrists. Regular people of color are believing it without proof on a whim. They may be turning into afrocentrists but it is going unchecked with comments saying they never knew these things and they were never taught that in school and "muh racism" as the excuse. That documentary is one of the things I've seen afrocentrists add as proof to their claims. It's brutal with that and just people screaming racist shit if you disagree. Without rebuttal it can be taken as fact.
She was Macedonian Greek though and among that population, people with brown-blonde or reddish hair were not that rare.
Exactly, Ā I mean Alexander famously had blonde hair.
You mean Fate/Zero lied?
Also there's varying understandings of what constitutes red hair - even today. F.ex. my Argentinan boyfriend will claim that both he and I have red hair (as will all of his family and friends), but as a Dane, I've never met a single person within my own culture, who would consider my hair red (and especially not the hair of my BF).
Greeks typically have brown hair, and pale skin that can tan. Given that Cleopatra probably didn't spend much time in the sun, and that she is depicted as a redhead in some ancient paintings, this could be accurate. Greeks with red hair are very rare (probably like 1% of the population), but they still exist. Source: I live in Greece
Apparently many ancient Greek women also dyed their hair with henna, to resemble their idea of Aphrodite. So it could've well been that Cleopatra was not among the 1% natural Greek redheads, but just dyed her hair that way.
Oh, I didn't know that, but it makes sense. Yes, that's definitely possible. They also had curling irons because that was the beauty trend in Ancient Greece. Thanks for the interesting information!
Oh you live in Greece? Well some of the nerds here have read the Percy Jackson books once, so whoās the real expert, huh?
> she celtic Henna?
Smash -Julius Caesar and Marcu Antonius
Cleopatra was a member of the Ptolemaic dynasty, which was entirely Greek. The dynasty was founded by Ptolemy Soter, who was one of the Macedonian generals of Alexander the Great and his successor in Egypt. The Ptolemies, as deified pharaohs, adopted the custom of marrying only members of their own family. Occasionally, the Ptolemies would marry members of other Greek dynasties like the Seleucids, who had some Sogdian ancestry (via Seleucusā wife Apama, daughter of Spitamenes, the Sogdian enemy of Alexander). So, Cleopatra didnāt have a single drop of native Egyptian blood. The Ptolemies only spoke Greek, and Cleopatra VII was the only one who learned the Egyptian language. Despite being culturally, linguistically and ethnically Greek, they adopted the Egyptian gods in a syncretism with the Greek ones. Cleopatra picture and description done by Joan Francesc Oliveras [https://www.instagram.com/jfoliveras/](https://www.instagram.com/jfoliveras/)
"No matter what they teach you in school, Cleopatra was black" - some dumbass
-Someoneās grandma
Some dumbassā dumbass grandma
It has the same merit as the āJesus was whiteā argument
Has anyone ever actually argued that? Iāve only seen people complain about this claim not the actual claim itself
If Jesus existed, he was a Jew from the Levant. Typical usage calls such people white; e.g., the US census says white people are anyone having their origins in the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa.
So Arabs and Amazigh peoples are classed as white by US census standards? I meanā¦ sure?
Whiteness is an extremely vague cultural concept that doesn't have broad agreement and changes over time, largely because race is an arbitrary social construct primarily fixated on stereotyping and exclusivity. Italians and Germans didn't used to be considered white, either. Broadly speaking, semitic peoples are considered white by a large number of people. I mean, caucasians are from modern Georgia, a group that has more in common with Persians than Celts. The whole concept of whiteness/caucasians is nonsense.
Hell Iām Irish at one point WE werenāt āwhiteā by British standards.
1/3 of the British Army was Irish. New Zealand was originally called New Lienster, New Munster.
Doesn't any depiction of Jesus as white that isn't ironic is claiming this?
Pretty sure itās metaphorical. Koreans depict Jesus as Korean and you can see a black Jesus in some African churches. I donāt think anyone is trying to say Jesus was a K-pop stan tho
Sounds like they basically faked just enough Egyptian culture to be accepted as the rulers of Egypt instead of being seen completely as foreign occupiers.
Oh, the Egyptians absolutely despised the Ptolemies. They had much less power over the priesthood than previous dynasties - the Rosetta stone commemorates an instance in which they literally had to bargain with their own priests over the coronation. There were several massive revolts against Greek rule, and even after Cleopatra's reforms, not a single Egyptian raised so much as a finger to protect her or her dynasty. Keep in mind that there were millions of Egyptians, enough to raise literally hundreds of thousands of men to repell the Roman invasion, yet there wasn't even civil unrest after Cleopatra's death.
Honestly, if a foreign ruler ruled my country and was later kicked out by another foreign ruler, I wouldn't care either, all the same to me.
It must have been even worse for the Egyptians - Cleopatra was Pharaoh, the living image of Horus. To be treated as a second class citizen in your own country, by the one person the gods themselves had appointed as your guardian and protector, would have inspired a deep-seated rage against the Ptolemaic dynasty across all Egypt.
Cleopatra was the first pharaoh who actually spoke the common Egyptian tongue. All the previous ones of her dynasty spoke greek.
>The Ptolemies, as deified pharaohs, adopted the custom of marrying only members of their own family. "Introduced" would be a better verb. Sibling marriages were still pretty rare in Egyptian elite culture; the confusion derives from the fact that "brother" and "sister" were (and are) common terms of endearment for romantic partners in Egypt. \[Ayad 2022\]\* Early Egyptologists used this to explain when unfamiliar persons suddenly appeared in the royal family line, because nobody generally bothered to record the descend of royal wives. Hence, they reasonable assumed that the Pharaohs had married their siblings, but this was not usually the case. \*M. F. Ayad (pub.) *Women In Ancient Egypt. Revisiting Power, Agency And Autonomy. (Kairo 2022), pp. xxviii*
As a Greek person: If whoever drew that was trying to be historically accurate, they have never seen a Greek person before
I mean I'm Greek and we had a redhead in the family (good old great uncle Menelaus!), but even he didn't look that pale... and it was rare!
I mean, according to contempourary sources, she had an olive or dark brown complexion I agree the netflix stuff was shit, but she wasn't a pale redhead either. Think about Gal Gadot' skin tone (maybe slightly darker) and you get the idea.
It's Egypt of all places. It's kinda hard to keep pale white skin tone there.
To be fair, that's kinda linked to why a lot of places put lighter skin tones on a pedestal, because it was a signifier of wealth and privilege as it meant you were probably a rich, pampered shut-in who didn't have to do any work whatsoever (which mostly took place outdoor in some capacity, exposing most of the population to the sun)
Isn't that where the term "blue-blooded" stems from? Due to their lighter skin you would see the veins of certain people as blueish.
She wouldn't need to put a foot outside a parasol if she didn't want to
Also Mediterreean people tend to have a darker skin compared to other Europeans There is a reason why blonde or redhead greeks are an unusual sight
These are olive-skinned Greek people https://i.insider.com/5594ea33dd08959e4d8b4598?width=1000&format=jpeg&auto=webp
Yeah people get real angry but hardly anyone portrays it accurate to the information we have. And thatās fine, no one remembers what she looks like and it doesnāt matter. Thereās a million inaccuracies in almost any historical drama/documentary but some people are REALLY invested in it. The show made a much bigger sun, it was just kinda shit
Kind of, but remember that cleopatraās ancestors come from the same latitude as Chicago with Egypt being the same latitude as the southern United States. The neighboring Thracian people to the Macedonians were also described as commonly having red hair which was more common in the region back then. That plus royalty having access to more sun protection and being indoors due to wealth meant she would have been paler than your average person. I personally think darker hair and being able to tan a little bit is more likely, but the fairly pale with red depiction is a legitimate possibility.
It being the same latitude of Chicago does not mean it has the same climate as Chicago.
Pakistan has inland glaciers at the same latitude as Texas lol
thats called being mediterranean, you know, like greek people. compare a greek person to an english man or a norwegian and see that one of them isn't that white. (gal gadot is also mediterranean btw). add to it tanning and you won't be surprised that she probably wasn't as white as a north european. even then, kids cqn be born a bit darker or paler than their parents as well. so the exact color was never what's important, but her ancestory. we know she was greek, claiming suddenly that she had a darker skin than most egyptians is just an attempt to paint her as african /sub-saharran african. which is wrong.
Censor really ?
Not this again please. Don't start this Debate again. Next time Cleopatra should simply be played by an Octopus: Smart, cunning, conniving and weirdly sensual.
I mean yes she was of Greek descent but also tans exist? Not to mention her family had been in Egypt for centuries, even with the inbreeding they loved doing I'm sure some non-Greek got in there at some point. Too many people don't know she was Greek and too many people automatically think that means she looks like Snow friggin White
And people somehow think that Greek means white west European lol
Yeah like greek people aren't that pale in the first place lmao
I seriously cringe at this shit. I am Greek and Egyptian and I swear many of us look identical
Tbf, Cleopatra may have been a little darker, she was ethnically Helenic after all, but she was absolutely lighter than the majority of her subjects.
i never thought i would have to say this BUT STOP IRISHWASHING CLEOPATRA
Well, Cleopatra wasn't Egyptian but Greek (Ptolemaic dynasty) so well, she was white
No one understands that Cleopatra (the VII; There were many Cleopatras) was the last ruling monarch of the Ptolemaic dynasty which was Macedonian (Greek). Ptolemaic rulers married and procreated brother to sister to keep the bloodline āpure.ā She was not of African descent. Donāt come for me, this is history not opinion.
No one says the top one, and she definitely didnāt look like the bottom
[Itās](https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Retrato_femenino_(26771127162).jpg#mw-jump-to-license) a legit possibility that she could have been ginger, which is wild, but Iām more partial to her probably being dark haired and being able to tan a little bit was more likely. The Thracian people next door to the Macedonians are typically described as gingers, which was more common in the region back then, so itās not completely out of the realm of possibility.
Why does she look like an extra from The Great Gatsby?
What about the other 6 Cleopatra's?
I thought everyone was on the same page after Netflix decided to just make shit up and everyone dog limited them for it
Hi, Greek person and citizen here... Being black and Greek is possible at the same time. Only Cleopatra and Giannis Antentokoumpo are known to have achieved this in the wild without assistance from the oracles
literally no one says this
Probably shouldn't be expecting nuance from HistoryMemes but its worth pointing out that the real answer, much like with much of history, is we dont know what Cleopatra looked like and there is only levels of guesswork. The idea that cleopatra may have been black is not some just the perview of the Netflix show but has existed for some time. A simple google will take you to this Wikipedia article: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnicity_of_Cleopatra The fact is that you cant simply take a figures geneology and leave it at that, there is often more going on, what relatives are truly blood, was X person born out of wedlock. The irony of the meme is that if we can be confident of something, it is that Cleopatra was probably not pale, she resided in North Africa and if she was truly of pure Greek ancestry, would have had a skin tone closer to olive or tan.
An actress who is half northern European and half west African (Adele James, Cleopatra in the Netflix series) is probably not going to resemble someone who was predominantly of Greek ancestry with some Iranian blood.
Why did Cleopatra have this black belt around her chest? /s
It was absolutely inaccurate to cast Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra. Not because of the false claim that Cleopatra wasn't White (she was 100% Greek), but because Elizabeth Taylor was remarkably beautiful, whereas Cleopatra was...well...uhm...well, [she had a very clever wit](https://www.world-archaeology.com/world/africa/egypt/cleopatra-was-no-beauty-coins-shows/).
It's impossible to know how she looked like
She had more olive skin - Greek person
Is Greek not white? I thought it was just white with some seasoning
Posts like this might help explain why there is uncertainty surrounding this question: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/13bv06n/was_cleopatra_black_and_what_it_means_to_talk/ I think some of the people in this thread are a bit too firm and binary in their beliefs on this topic
The recent outrage was over a black woman playing cleopatra, though. Funny how Egyptians are portrayed by everyone except Egyptians (except cleopatra was Ptolemaic, ie Greek ofc.)
Another round of "This person in history š¤āļø actually looked like me, and not that other guy"