Was Cleopatra Black?

What "we" think? We who?

I suppose this is too outrageous an image to ponder?

Eoe, Lovely image, but Cleo was Greek- not African. Really.

Here's a link to her genealogy:

http://genealogy.about.com/library/family_trees/bl_cleopatra.htm

Eoe, those pictures were jokes. And yep, your picture could be what an African queen looked like a few thousand years ago. So long as she's not supposed to be an Egyptian queen, but a central, equatorial African queen.

1. Egyptians aren't (and were never) black.
2. Cleo (as Witchy says) was Greek anyway.

So zero, ZERO, chance of a black Cleopatra.

Really.

(Am I repeating myself?)

Yep?

She is obviously a Nubian, in no way a central equatorial African...

This is what a central, equatorial African would look like:

I stand corrected, Francis!

Can you stand like that, Eoe?

I agree, Eoe's image looks Nubian:

If this is a "true" imagine of her - and she is believed to be beautiful, it could simply be, what was considered beautiful during her time. For example, look at any paintings of beautiful women...depending on the era, we would not consider many of them to be beautiful, however, at that time, they were considered beautiful.

She wasn't Greek. Greece and Macedonia were not the same place nor the same peoples.

www.ancientmacedonia.com/gandeto.html

My point is simply this-who knows really? Who knows who slipped in and out of who's tent, palace, cave, whatever? On continents rich with people of all colors, one can only hazard a guess at best.

I do not think anybody has said otherwise.

You're right. I mean a hundred years ago, buxom, reubenesque females were considered beautiful (evidence of delectation for fatties in mesolithis Malta too!). And just 40 years ago, wide hips and untrimmed pubic hair was a staple in feminine beauty. It was all stick thin until recently. We're coming out of that now, thank God. But, yep, you're right - society's perception of the beautiful changes very often. Yet I would argue their are always some underlying similarities.

Whatever the case, we are talking colour here, not beauty. Liz Taylor pictures were shown (Northern European type), Monica Bellucci (Mediterranean type) and a couple of black models. Out of the four we've had posted, I'd suggest Bellucci, being like Cleo a mediterranean herself (Italian), is probably the closest in terms of race, forget beauty (no-one ever was as hot as Bellucci).



Here's a picture of Mirhan Hussein, a modern day Egyptian girl from Cairo and wannabe singer-model. She's currently on their version of fame academy. As you can see, she's closest to Bellucci in terms of race.

God I love Monica Bellucci.

Waf, waf!

Uttering nonsense again, iamsam?

Or have you never seen hot women?

huuuuuuh?

While it's true Greece as a unified country did not exist, how are Athenians, Macedonians and Spartans not racially speaking the same peoples? Even if there were slight differences in features, you cannot be suggesting the Macedonians were black?!

And how are you backing up the claim "She wasn't Greek"?

Damn it! Francis! We meet again.

Listen, you are welcome to prove me wrong on this one (as, going on previous experiences, you no doubt will), but let's start a separate thread on "Who in the history of hotness was hotter than Monica Bellucci?" eh? I'll definitely join in.

Monica Bellucci seems pretty hot. I can see that even as a woman. So who are your hot picks Francis?

(just noticed Iamsams post - go ahead and start your own ogling thread)

Ok, start the thread, I'll join you..

I'll tell you on the other thread, GW...

http://able2know.org/topic/134862-1

That's true. But Macedonia lies North of Greece -- farther away from Africa. If Cleopatra had Black ancestors, they would have been even less likely to come from a Macedonian lineage than a Greek lineage.


That's true as well. But just because nobody really knows, that doesn't mean every guess people make on the matter has an equal chance of being true. So, sure, it isn't categorically impossible that Cleopatra was partly Black. But for that, she would have had to beat at least two long odds:

1. Cleopatra's official lineage is a dynasty of in-breeding Macedonian immigrants to Africa. Because of the persistent in-breeding, most people in this lineage were of purely European ancestry. Only some of them were adopted into the lineage, after being fathered out of wedlock by those Macedonians and their courtesans. But most weren't.
   
   
2. The courtesans in the court of Egyptian kings would have been a more or less representative sample of the local population. The local population in Mediterranean Egypt was White, as was practically all the African population North of the Sahara, and as it has remained to this day. Sure, there might have been the odd Nubian among those courtesans. (Nubia lied in the Nile Valley, in today's Southern Egypt and Northern Sudan It's the only region remotely within reach whose inhabitants would have been Black.) But most courtesans on an Egyptian court wouldn't have been Nubian.

Mind you, the claim in Black folklore isn't that Cleopatra might have been kind of blackish. It's that she probably was, and that Hollywood producers must have been very Eurocentric to cast Liz Taylor and similar-looking actresses for the role of Cleopatra. This variant of the claim is just glurge. Cleopatra is much more likely to have looked like Liz Taylor than like Pam Grier.

Whatever makes you happy. I'm done with it.

Reality isn't about what makes you happy. It's about what's true. You are not entitled to a historic reality that makes you happy; none of us is. (Dagmaraka put it best in the post that became my signature line.) But if you prefer not to face reality as it is, if you prefer to believe in myths that make you happy instead -- then fine, suit yourself!