The looks of the last Egyptian Pharaoh Cleopatra have been a mystery of all times. Her face has been immortalized on a handful of artifacts from the ancient world, including coins and a relief. Perhaps the best-known depiction of her is a relief at the Dendera temple in Egypt that shows her alongside her son Caesarion. But despite these ancient depictions, we know very little about what the ancient world’s most powerful woman looked like.
Although, there are various claims of her being a woman having irresistible beauty and charm. She was also described by the Roman historian Cassius Dio as “a woman of surpassing beauty,” and was often portrayed by Hollywood as a glamorous seductress. These coin portraits, surprising though they may be to those who have grown up with a ‘Hollywood Cleopatra,’ are the only certain images that people had up of her which also made people realize that there could have been another face of Cleopatra.
Today many historians, under the influence of Sarah B. Pomeroy, an expert on the role of women in the ancient world, subscribe to the theory that Cleopatra’s looks—however pleasing they might have been—were ancillary to her considerable intelligence, learning, foresight, and strategic skills.
Also Read: Cleopatra’s Children: Did Cleopatra Have Any Children? (What Happened to Them)
WHAT WAS THE ETHNICITY OF CLEOPATRA?
The ethnicity of Cleopatra has been a topic of discussion over the years as some believed her, ethnicity of Macedonian Greek ancestry with Persian and Sogdian Iranian descent. This assumption was based on the fact that her being belonged to a Macedonian Greek family, the Ptolemaic dynasty. Her father was Ptolemy XII Auletes, and her mother was, probably, Cleopatra V Tryphaena, who was of Greek descent. Cleopatra’s father and mother both were children of the same father, one by a wife, and one by a concubine.
Therefore, her family tree has fewer branches, some of them unknown. You will see the same names crop up frequently, going back six generations. It was held, that the Ptolemies intermarried and largely kept their bloodline Hellenic which cannot be denied due to which almost all of her ancestors would have been fair-skinned is also true.
It is this enigmatic nature of Cleopatra’s grandmothers and her mother that suggests that Cleopatra may have had a mixed heritage, which would have tanned her skin complexion. However, based on her parent’s ethnicity, many even argued that Cleopatra should be considered white, where some argued her to be Black African, and so on. It has been a debate that has been going on for centuries and one that seems to have no end in sight.
Also Read: 7 Most Iconic Paintings of Cleopatra
FANTASIES ABOUT CLEOPATRA’S BEAUTY
There are various claims of her being a woman having irresistible beauty and charm. The image of her as a sultry seductress likely stems from a narrative originally pushed by Octavian (Augustus) to rationalize his rivalry and conflict with fellow Roman Marc Antony.
Although there are various scriptures and engravings, but they don’t give us much of a clue to her looks either, there are two or three heads in the classical style, but also several full-length statues in Egyptian style, and her appearance in these is quite different. Even though her face has been immortalized on a handful of artifacts from the ancient world, including coins and a relief. Perhaps the best-known depiction of her is a relief at Dendera temple in Egypt that shows her alongside her son Caesarion.
A small coin in the collection of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle was said to have changed our understanding of her which also made headlines around the world regarding her appearance where she was considered to be no beauty queen as the face on the coin was nothing like that of Elizabeth Taylor. Instead, she looked “plain,” even “shrewish,” and had a “hook-like hooter.”
Though the portraits found on the coins vary in style from artist to artist, they are generally consistent in detail, which suggests that the artists were following guidelines when they engraved the dies to strike the coins.
They were likely copying an official image that the queen herself had approved – nose and chin included as many of the coins represented Cleopatra’s figure mostly with the repeated features where she had a prominent nose, sloping forehead, sharply pointed chin and thin lips, and hollow-looking eye sockets.
Mostly these engravings of Cleopatra wearing the cloth diadem of a Hellenistic ruler around her head where her hair is drawn back in braids and coiled in a bun at the base of her skull and Over her shoulders she wears a mantle, covering her gown. It is also believed that Cleopatra used the powder made by crushing the Lapis Lazuli gemstone as an eyeshadow.
A discreet earring hangs from her earlobe, and around her neck is a string of pearls – the only hint of the riches described by the Roman poet Lucan, who pictures a dissolute Cleopatra as decked out “on neck and hair with all the Red Sea spoils.” Due to all of these philosophies being developed by various philosophers are only possible way to make a possible assumption based structure or the appearance of Cleopatra.
The Race Controversy: Was Black or Caucassian?
There has been a recent controversy regarding the queen’s skin color in Netflix’s docudrama. Tthe intense reactions to the trailer of Netflix’s Queen Cleopatra docudrama speak volumes about both Cleopatra’s enduring legacy and the strength of identity politics. The trailer was met with immediate accusations of falsifying history.
Social media hashtags and online petitions were followed by an Egyptian lawyer filing a complaint with the public prosecutor against Netflix. Although Queen Cleopatra is a docudrama, not a fully-fledged documentary, so we must separate the drama from the documentary side. Unless we are expecting every detail to be entirely accurate in the acted segments, even though after all of this people believed that the facts can’t be manipulated even though it is a docudrama.
The trailer showed Cleopatra having curly hair and a dark complexion which is completely different than what Cleopatra has been represented all these years in the books of history. Initially, the controversy was started by the casting of a Black actress, Adele James, to play the titular queen’ where critics claimed casting to be historically inaccurate, and labeled it as “appropriation.”
Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities also argued that the documentary nature of the series that the production head or the department of the docudrama needs to investigate the accuracy and reliability of historical and scientific facts regarding the facial structures of the Cleopatra figures in the trailer and as well as her appearance.