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The race of Cleopatra VII, the last active Hellenistic ruler of the Macedonian Greek Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt, has caused some debate in non-scholarly circles. For example, the article "Was Cleopatra Black?" was published in Ebony magazine in 2012, Mary Lefkowitz, Professor Emerita of Classical Studies at Wellesley College, traces the origins of the Black Cleopatra claim to the 1972 book by J.A. Rogers called "World's Great Men of Color." Lefkowitz refutes Rogers' hypothesis, on various scholarly grounds. The black Cleopatra claim was further revived in an essay by afrocentrist John Henrik Clarke, chair of African history at Hunter College, entitled "African Warrior Queens." Lefkowitz notes the essay includes the claim that Cleopatra described herself as black in the New Testament's Book of Acts – when in fact Cleopatra had died more than sixty years before the death of Jesus Christ.

Scholars identify Cleopatra as essentially of Greek ancestry with some Persian and Syrian ancestry, based on the fact that her Macedonian Greek family (the Ptolemaic dynasty) had intermingled with the Seleucid aristocracy of the time. Grant states that Cleopatra probably had not a drop of Egyptian blood and that she "would have described herself as Greek." Roller notes that "there is absolutely no evidence" that Cleopatra was racially black African as claimed by what he dismisses as generally not "credible scholarly sources."

Cleopatra's official coinage (which she would have approved) and the three portrait busts of her considered authentic by scholars (which match her coins) portray Cleopatra as a Greek woman in style. Polo writes that Cleopatra's coinage present her image with certainty and asserts that the sculpted portrait of the "Berlin Cleopatra" head is confirmed as having a similar profile.

The Berlin Cleopatra, a Roman sculpture and marble portrait of the queen in the Altes Museum, 1st century BC

In 2009, a BBC documentary speculated that Cleopatra might have been part North African. This was based largely on the examination of a headless skeleton of a female child in a 20 BCE tomb in Ephesus (modern Turkey), together with the old notes and photographs of the now-missing skull. The remains were hypothesized to be those of Arsinoe IV, half-sister to Cleopatra, and conjecture based on discredited processes suggested that the remains belonged to a girl whose "race" may have been "North African". This claim is rejected by scholars, based on the remains being impossible to identify as Arsinoe, the race of the remains being impossible to identify at all, the fact that the remains belonged to a child much younger than Arsinoe when she died, and the fact that Arsinoe and Cleopatra shared the same father but had different mothers,

Background

The race and skin color of Cleopatra VII, the last active Hellenistic ruler of the Macedonian Greek Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt, has caused some debate, although generally not in scholarly sources. For example, the article "Was Cleopatra Black?" was published in Ebony magazine in 2012, and an article about Afrocentrism from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch mentions the question, too.

Mary Lefkowitz, Professor Emerita of Classical Studies at Wellesley College, traces the origins of the black Cleopatra claim to the 1972 book by J.A. Rogers called "World's Great Men of Color." Lefkowitz refutes Rogers' hypothesis. She notes Rogers's inability to correctly number Cleopatra's family (for example, naming Cleopatra's brother Ptolemy XIII Theos Philopator as her father, who was actually Ptolemy XII Auletes, and naming Ptolemy XI Alexander II as Ptolemy XII's father when he was in fact Ptolemy IX Soter), using as his main sources a misinterpretation of William Shakespeare's "Antony and Cleopatra" (written over 1,500 years after Cleopatra's death) and falsely citing Encyclopedia Britannica (when in fact it did not then or ever claim Cleopatra was black), and that his presumption Cleopatra's paternal grandmother was a black African slave is "based in the more recent past." She further stresses slavery in ancient times was very different from modern black chattel slavery, as slaves were not taken based on skin color but were in actuality mostly war captives, largely including Greeks, and notes Roger's claim of a black grandmother is based on practices by slave owners of the 19th century. The black Cleopatra claim, Lefkowitz continues, was further revived in an essay written by afrocentrist John Henrik Clarke, chair of African history at Hunter College, entitled "African Warrior Queens" for "Black Women in Antiquity." She notes the essay was largely drawn on the writings of Rogers with Clarke's added "supporting information of his own" that includes his claim Cleopatra described herself as black in the New Testament's Book of Acts – when in fact Cleopatra had died more than sixty years before the death of Jesus Christ. She also notes that if Cleopatra's paternal grandmother was Egyptian and that is how she learned Egyptian, it would be more likely for Cleopatra's father Ptolemy XII to be the first Ptolemy to learn Egyptian instead of Cleopatra (noting those like Rogers and Clarke never mention him), who is the only member of the Ptolemaic dynasty known to have learned Egyptian in addition to her native tongue Koine Greek and eight other languages.

In response to the book Not Out of Africa by Lefkowitz, Molefi Kete Asante, Professor of African American Studies at Temple University wrote the article "Race in Antiquity: Truly Out of Africa", in which he emphasized that he "can say without a doubt that Afrocentrists do not spend time arguing that either Socrates or Cleopatra were black."

Known depictions

Cleopatra's official coinage (which she would have approved) and the three portrait busts of her considered authentic by scholars (which match her coins) portray Cleopatra as a Greek woman in style, including the Greek chiton, Hellenistic diadem, and Greek chignon. Francisco Pina Polo writes that Cleopatra's coinage present her image with certainty and asserts that the sculpted portrait of the "Berlin Cleopatra" head is confirmed as having a similar profile with her hair pulled back into a bun, a diadem, and a hooked nose. Ernle Bradford writes that it is "reasonable to infer" Cleopatra had dark hair and "pale olive skin" by how she portrays herself as a "Eastern Mediterranean type" on her official coins, and that she challenged Rome not as an Egyptian woman, "but as a civilized Greek."

Coin portrait tetradrachm of and approved by Cleopatra VII Philopator, the last ruler of the Ptolemaic Kingdom

Ancestry

Scholars generally identify Cleopatra as essentially of Greek ancestry with some Persian and Syrian ancestry, based on the fact that her Macedonian Greek family (the Ptolemaic dynasty) had intermingled with the Seleucid aristocracy of the time (notably including the first Cleopatra, Queen Cleopatra I Syra, wife of Ptolemy V Epiphanes).

While her mother's identity is uncertain, she is generally believed to be Cleopatra V of Egypt, the sister or cousin wife of Ptolemy XII Auletes, who was the daughter of Ptolemy IX Soter or Ptolemy X Alexander I. Additionally, while the identity of her paternal grandmother is not certain, she is generally believed to be Cleopatra IV, via Ptolemy XII's father, Ptolemy IX Soter, or a Greek Alexandrian woman. Claims of illegitimacy were never used against Cleopatra in the extremely hostile propaganda campaign by Augustus, Michael Grant noting that if Cleopatra had been illegitimate, her "numerous Roman enemies would have revealed this to the world."

Grant states that Cleopatra probably had not a drop of Egyptian blood and that she "would have described herself as Greek." Grant also proposes that Cleopatra's paternal grandmother may have been mixed Syrian and Greek, in line with the precedent of Persian and Syrian blood in the Ptolemaic line, and continues that "certainly she was not an Egyptian," noting there is only one known Egyptian mistress of a Ptolemy (from the 3rd century BCE). Lefkowitz writes that this Egyptian woman, named Didyame, was the mistress of Ptolemy II Philadelphus. She notes that among Ptolemy II’s many mistresses, Didyame was specifically signaled out because she was Egyptian, and not of the usual Greek stock among Ptolemaic mistresses (who included among Ptolemy II's mistresses, the courtesans Bilistiche, Agathocleia, Stratonice of Libya, and Myrto—whose coloring and ethnicity were not specifically pointed out like Didyame, “presumably because they were Greek”). She further notes that if she had any children by Ptolemy, they never became king (all Ptolemaic kings were regarded as fully legitimate save for Ptolemy XII Auletes). She contends that it is "misleading to suggest that the unique non-Greek mistress Didyame provides evidence of a common practice.”Lefkowitz (1997, pp. 44–45, 50). and no known Egyptian wife of a Ptolemaic king.

Roller (2010, pp. 15, 18, 166) speculates that Cleopatra VII could have been the daughter of a hypothetical half-Macedonian-Greek, half-Egyptian woman belonging to the priestly family of Ptah (the other main candidate he notes would be Cleopatra V/VI) located in Memphis in northern Egypt, but contends that whatever Cleopatra's ancestry, she valued her Greek Ptolemaic heritage the most. Roller (2010) further notes that "there is absolutely no evidence" that Cleopatra was racially black African as claimed by what he dismisses as generally not "credible scholarly sources." He goes onto say outside the hypothesis of Cleopatra being three-quarters Macedonian Greek and a quarter Egyptian, there is "no room for anything else, certainly not for any black African blood." Diana Preston also writes that Cleopatra's paternal grandmother may have been part Syrian, continuing that even if Cleopatra had an Egyptian grandmother "it does not follow she was a black African" and that Cleopatra "almost certainly had olive skin and dark eyes." Adrian Goldsworthy notes Cleopatra, having Macedonian blood with a little Syrian, was probably not dark skinned (he also notes Roman propaganda never mentions it), contending "fairer skin is marginally more likely considering her ancestry," and that she "was no more Egyptian culturally or ethnically than most residents of modern day Arizona are Apaches." He further notes that Cleopatra's native tongue was Greek, that it was in "Greek literature and culture she that was educated," that her worship of Isis was "strongly Hellenised," and that although she was presented in some statuary in the idealized Egyptian style, she was unlikely to have dressed like this outside of performing certain rites. Instead, he continues, Cleopatra "wore the headband and robes of a Greek monarch." Stacy Schiff concurs Cleopatra was not dark-skinned, that "the Ptolemies were in fact Macedonian Greek, which makes Cleopatra approximately as Egyptian as Elizabeth Taylor", that her Ptolemaic relatives were described as "honey skinned", that she was part Persian, and that "an Egyptian mistress is a rarity among the Ptolemies."

Mary Lefkowitz notes that had Cleopatra's grandmother or mother been Egyptian, it surely would have been pointed out in the records, and concludes that whatever her ancestry, Cleopatra "regarded herself as Greek." Schiff continues that Cleopatra "faithfully held up the family tradition." In essence, Cleopatra's loyalties were to her Ptolemaic Greek heritage. As noted by Donald R. Dudley, Cleopatra and her family were "the successor[s] to the native Pharaohs, exploiting through a highly organized bureaucracy the great natural resources of the Nile Valley."

Arsinoe IV - half-sister

In 2009, a BBC documentary speculated that Arsinoe IV of Egypt, the half-sister of Cleopatra VII, may have been part North African and then further speculated that Cleopatra's mother, thus Cleopatra herself, might also have been part North African. This was based largely on the claims of Hilke Thür of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, who in the 1990s had examined a headless skeleton of a female child in a 20 BCE tomb in Ephesus (modern Turkey), together with the old notes and photographs of the now-missing skull. She hypothesized the body as that of Arsinoe. Arsinoe and Cleopatra, shared the same father (Ptolemy XII Auletes) but had different mothers, with Thür claiming the alleged African ancestry came from the skeleton's mother. However, researchers Clarence C. Gravlee, H. Russell Bernard, and William R. Leonard, and others have demonstrated that skull measurements are not a reliable indicator of race and the measurements were jotted down in 1920 before modern forensic science took hold. To date it has never been definitively proved the skeleton is that of Arsinoe IV. Furthermore, craniometry as used by Thür to determine race is based in scientific racism that is now generally considered a pseudoscience that supported "exploitation of groups of people" to "perpetuate racial oppression" and "distorted future views of the biological basis of race." When a DNA test that attempted to determine the identity of the child, it was impossible to get an accurate reading since the bones had been handled too many times, and the skull had been lost in Germany during World War II. Mary Beard wrote a dissenting essay criticizing the findings, pointing out that one, there is no surviving name on the tomb and that the claim the tomb is alleged to invoke the shape of the Pharos Lighthouse "doesn't add up"; second, the skull doesn't survive intact and the age of the skeleton is too young to be that of Arsinoe's (the bones said to be that of a 15–18-year-old child, with Arsinoe being around her mid twenties at her death); and thirdly, since Cleopatra and Arsinoe were not known to have the same mother, "the ethnic argument goes largely out of the window."

See also

• Afrocentrism
• Ancient Egyptian race controversy
• Biological anthropology
• Cleopatra
• Demographics of Egypt
• Egyptomania
• Ptolemaic dynasty
• Ptolemaic Kingdom

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