What \'race\' was Cleopatra?

[Epictetus]

BBC One has a show on 23 March which claims that Cleopatra was "part African." From the website:

Queen Cleopatra was a descendant of Ptolemy, the Macedonian general who ruled Egypt after Alexander the Great.

But remains of the queen's sister Princess Arsinoe, found in Ephesus, Turkey, indicate that her mother had an "African" skeleton.

I suppose the most common opinion is that Cleopatra was Greek. I've always been a bit skeptical that there would be no mixing of the ruling dynasty with other peoples over many generations, and it looks like this documentary is making the same claim.

I am a bit worried what sort of conclusion is coming out of this. Are they going to say that physical characteristics make the 'race,' and disregard cultural and linguistic aspects? There was a good deal of horizontal social mobility in the ancient Mediterranean, and I think many of the aristocratic orders were more 'multicultural' and 'multiracial' than we give them credit for.

Anyway, I think this program could be interesting; perhaps not so much about Cleopatra's 'race' but about the archaeology work done on Arsinoe's supposed tomb. Hopefully this will be picked up by international television providers so those of us not in the UK can see it too.

And I'm curious what others think about Cleopatra's 'race.'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/also_in_the_news/7945333.stm

[Sean Manning]

Dr. Mary Beard is skeptical of that study: look here. I don't have much trouble believing that the Ptolemies married (or just had children with) ethnic Egyptians and other people with ancestors from outside old Greece, but I don't know what the evidence is like.

[Lucius Rabirius]

At first in my opinion its very unimportant, what people looked like or what the "race" or whatever was. Its kinda useless to discuss the race or do investigations about this, you dont get so much information about history. And its also sometimes dangerous, if you look at early Kerameikos- documentations of Germany in Nazi- regime, its very scary, how they talk about Mykenaean graves and the race of buried persons or also early Ethnology- publications, they act like the same... :?

BUT also in this case the bloodline and genealogy of the Ptolemaemean Dynasty is very clear and discovered. So she looked probably very Macedonian and not so much Aegyptian or African. If you look at the genealogy, it looks a bit weird and scary :| , because sisters and brothers and whoever were married and got children so there is not a big mixture of local society and Ptolemaen kings and queens. Also the royal family had not so much contact to the local population, the chance to mix up dna is very unlikely.

I think, this news- article of the investigation of dna is a bit like gossip and useless science. They often do the same with Etruscans and that they came from Turkey, bla bla :mrgreen:

[Epictetus]

Thanks for linking to Mary Beard's comments, Sean. I hadn't realised that she had weighed in.

I'd still like to see the program, though. I'm curious.

[Alanus]

I think that we are looking at a typical example of "history vs. Gollywood." It's entirely possible that her "African" father could have slipped through the back door when the castratos wern't looking. But the notion that her sister, Cleo-of-the-large-nonAfrican-nose, was other than Macedonian is a "reacher." As for "race," we might see the same example in the Sarmatian Alans when Russian archaeologists describe examples of tall Caucasians and short Asians... all in the same burial ground and dated to the same period. "Race" is whatever anyone might claim it is and it's always conjectural.