Ethnicity of Cleopatra

The ethnicity of Cleopatra VII, the last active Hellenistic ruler of the Macedonian-led Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt, has caused debate in some circles.^[2][3] There is a general consensus among scholars that she was predominantly of Macedonian Greek ancestry and minorly of Iranian descent (Sogdian and Persian). Others, including some scholars and laymen, have speculated whether she may have had additional ancestries.^[3][4][5]

For example, the article "Was Cleopatra Black?" was published in Ebony magazine in 2002.^[6] Mary Lefkowitz, Professor Emerita of Classical Studies at Wellesley College, traces the main origins of the Black Cleopatra claim to the 1946 book by J. A. Rogers called World's Great Men of Color, although noting that the idea of Cleopatra as black goes back to at least the 19th century.^[7][8] Lefkowitz refutes Rogers' hypothesis, on various scholarly grounds. The black Cleopatra claim was further revived in an essay by Afrocentrist author John Henrik Clarke, chair of African history at Hunter College, entitled "African Warrior Queens."^[9] 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.^[9] Some early twentieth century scholars speculated Cleopatra was part Jewish, but this hypothesis did not last into later twentieth century historiography.^[5]

Scholars generally identify Cleopatra as having been essentially of Greek ancestry with some Persian and Sogdian Iranian ancestry, based on the fact that her Macedonian Greek family (the Ptolemaic dynasty) had intermarried with the Seleucid dynasty.^{[10][4][11][note 1]} 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, although the Cherchell bust is now largely considered by scholars to be that of Cleopatra's daughter, Cleopatra Selene II.^{[12][13][14][15][16]} Francisco Pina Polo writes that Cleopatra's coinage presents her image with certainty and asserts that the sculpted portrait of the "Berlin Cleopatra" head is confirmed as having a similar profile.^[13] Roman frescoes in Pompeii and Herculaneum similar to the Vatican and Berlin marble sculptures have been identified as possible portraits of the queen based on comparable facial features and royal iconography.

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, sister or half-sister to Cleopatra,^[17][18] 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, Ptolemy XII Auletes, but may have had different mothers.^[19][20][21]

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