Well, you are correct but since her parents and even Grandparents (there is doubt as to who exactly was Cleo’s father’s mother ) were all born in Africa then Cleo was of 100% African ancestry. I think even back for about 8 generations.
I mean, how far do you need to go back to say you’re a native? Of course, if one goes back far enough, the ancient Macedonians likely came from Africa, as we all likely did.
From what we can see, Cleo did not have what used to be called “negroid” characteristics, but then most of the ancient Pharoes of Egypt wouldn’t have those either.
And even further, one whose bedroom diplomacy ended up not preventing the loss of the kingdom.
If I ever want a daughter of mine for some reason to look up to an Egyptian empress, I’ll point to* Hatshepsut.* THAT was a queen. And probably quite a bit more “African”, whatever that means…
I can just picture one of the Ptolemies snorting at this reasoning and replying, a la the Duke of Wellington (attributed), that “being born in a stable does not make one a horse”. Though of course I have no idea whether or not any of 'em cared much (though on the other hand, apparently very few of them bothered to learn Egyptian, so maybe they did care).
If we have to draw crude racial distinctions then perhaps it might be easier to differ between Sub-Saharan Africans and other Africans?
There is a clear difference insofar as non-Sub-Saharan Africans are closers to Arabs/Greeks than they are to their Sub-Saharan neighbors.
Cleopatra did not look like a Sub-Saharan African and was not related thereto. Instead, she most likely looked almost entirely Macedonian which has been pointed out numerous times above.
Are there any Afrocentric scholars who claim any of the Cleopatras were black?
By scholars, I mean university professors and reputable journalists, not freelance crackpots.
I’ve never heard any serious Afrocentric scholar claim the Cleos or the Ptolemies in general as blacks, since it’s common knowledge they were Macedonian, a foreign dynasty, and presided over no major achievements.
The Afrocentric argument centers on native Egyptian dynasties, mainly in the Old and Middle Kingdoms, though they do claim Akenahten, Tut, Tiye, et al.
When I see things like this, I realize that the Afrocentrics have a point, though they tend to make too much of it. It’s one of those, “Who you going to believe, me, or your lying eyes?” situations.
http://wysinger.homestead.com/kemsit.jpg Consort.
Mainstream Egyptologists and the tourist economy of modern Egypt stand to lose a lot of social status and tourist cash if the massive achievements of ancient Egypt are associated with black Africans. So they naturally deny and whitewash, which in turn sets up an Afrocentric backlash. Since some of the the native Egyptian nobility clearly were black at various times going back to the beginning of ancient Egypt’s history, the dispute continues.
It’s clear that the ancient Egyptians were a mixture of various gene pools from neighboring areas. The Sahara desert was never an absolute barrier between different parts of Africa. In fact, it was a well watered grassland in prehistoric times, and the region surrounding the Nile has always been a migration route. The ancient Egyptians, Somalis, Bejas, and various Ethiopian ethnic groups like the Oromo probably had a common origin in the Horn of Africa. Whether you prefer to call these folks “black” or “dark skinned Caucasians” is up to you, though black Americans will tend to object when you describe people who look like their family members as anything but black.
Actually, I beleve so, though every one that I’ve heard of was a fool with tenure.]
One problem with looking at ancient scultpure, carvcings, and paintings is that skin colors weren’t neccessarily very accurate at the time and have not aged well. You can’t use that as a good source, bcause it’s unreliable and can change over the centuries.
And do Europeans tend to draw people light-skinned? Sure. So fricking what? In India, they sometimes pain pictures of Jesus with skin brown as stained oak. IN China, they draw Buddha Chinese. People usually draw people based on thsoe closest to them.
What Afrocentrists seem to mistake, however, is a natural human tendency for something sinister. White people don’t draw Cleopatra white because they want to “claim her for the White Power”. They do it because that’s what they do. And black people usually draw blacks. And as long as nobody makes a point of it, it doesn’t mean anything.
I am not an Egyptologist, although several of my colleagues in my department are. But I think most Egyptologists today acknowledge that Egypt was a multiracial society, and I doubt that mainstream scholars and tourism promoters (many of whom are Egyptian themselves) are really conspiring to prevent the general public from knowing this. And none of the academics that I know fear losing social status because of any association of black Africans with Egyptian monuments–actually, none of those academics really enjoy such a privileged status, anyway (to be quite honest, Egyptologists are some of the most socially-awkward people I’ve known, and that’s saying a lot coming from an academic!).
As to the artistic representations: smiling bandit is right that it’s very difficult to draw conclusions about race from them. Ancient Mediterranean cultures abided by certain artistic conventions that probably had little to do with actual skin color. For instance, the Minoans in Crete and on the Aegean isles, and the Egyptians in north Africa, tended to represent men consistently dark-skinned, and women light-skinned. This may be based in part on the appearance of SOME men and women–women from the nobility, for instance, wouldn’t work outdoors and wouldn’t be as suntanned as most of the men. But from this visual evidence, you can’t extrapolate the conclusion that all Mediterranean women are light-skinned–most women (and men) were not nobility, and would indeed have worked outdoors and been exposed to the sun. [actually, this is a constant problem for the history of art in general–a lot of the stuff that’s come down to us was made for an elite audience, and doesn’t necessarily tell us what the commoners–the vast majority of the population–were like].
I will admit, however, that the depiction of a woman with dark skin is hard to explain by the conventions of ancient Mediterranean art, since it would go against the standard “woman = light skin” convention. It’s very likely that Queen Tiye and Kemsit were black. If this is true, then Tutanhkamen (probably Tiye’s grandson) is also of black descent. At the same time, depictions of Tut (who is shown with the standard red-brown color of men in Mediterranean art) show him fighting battles against black-colored men–as seen in this chest from his tomb. This doesn’t mean that Tut didn’t have any black features himself, just that depicting his enemies as black was a convenient shorthand for indicating that his enemies in this battle were from an area to the south of Egypt–most Nubians being of a darker skin tone than most (not all) Egyptians. The other side of this chest, incidentally, depict Tut at war with a group of bearded men of a brown skin tone–these fellows are thought to be Syrians, and have the beards to convey this identification (Egyptians–particularly the pharaoh and nobility–were usually clean-shaven).
[Funny thing about these battle scenes–Egyptologists generally agree (as far as I know) that they never took place. These weren’t intended to be depictions of historical incidents, but symbolic portrayals of the pharaoh’s triumphs over all of the world, and over his enemies to the south, and to the east.]
As for Menjuhotpe II, he appears to be depicted in the standard Osiris pose for pharaohs. Osiris usually has a dark green face. Perhaps the paint in the statue has darkened–I don’t know. But it’s difficult to conclude anything about Menjuhotpe II’s actual skin color from such a sculpture–it would be as though an ancient Hindu represented his leader in the appearance of Krishna, and gave him a blue face (NB: there is no such tradition in Indian art–just offering an example of how depictions of pharaohs as Osiris would have worked).
Anyway, some ancient Egyptians were black-skinned. Some were very light-skinned. Most were probably somewhere in between, and this diversity continues to be visible in Egypt today. But the art, even when it’s portraiture, just isn’t very reliable for such data.
Except that in the case of Egypt, instead of the Sahara, there’s a convenient river. What was the “ethnic” difference between Northern Nubians and Southern Egyptians during the antiquity?
This (non-) issue is completely absurd. What on Earth would the exact skin tone of a Pharaoh have to do with anything? Because the skin tone is the only question, here. Cleopatra has nothing to do altogether with American Blacks (or White, for that matter, or Black Senegalese, or whatever) and her having a darker skin wouldn’t mean squat.
Also, like a previous poster : why Cleopatra??? Why isn’t the same question asked about, say, Thoutmosis III? It’s not like there’s a shortage of Pharaohs who might or might not have a skin darker than… darker than whom, anyway?
I suppose Afro-centrists would point out that in western societies it is common to (exceptionally) portray “the blacks” in a negative light. While this (universally accepted) Zeitgeist has fallen out of favour in intellectual circles it continues to pop up in: the works of historians, the blogs of Foreign ministers, and even the speeches of Presidents.
How often have you heard of something similar to these words: “the blacks/Africans have no history,” “nothing was even invented by the blacks/Africans,” “the blacks/Africans never learned to read,” “the blacks/Africans never had a civilization.” If you had an up bringing like me then I fear you have heard quite a lot of these examples, one could even believe them without a tinge of racial hatred.
There are good reasons to be sceptical of afro centrism (especially with some of the non-scholarly claims that are made). However, there is truth to the idea that common western history is white washed, I’d even say it was painted in a exceptionally anti-African/black slant (opposed to anti-china, anti-india, etc).
It doesn’t make sense to apply American standards of race to a society 2000+ years in the past on the other side of the world. Race is and has always been more like a gradient than narrowly defined categories. I think even the “sub-saharan” categorization is silly and somehow implies that everything south of the Saharan is homogenous and devoid of influence from the “Maghreb” and vice/versa. Cleopatra was predominantly of Greek descent, and that is where I end with her. Regarding the average Egyptian native, I don’t think one can compare the people of ancient Egypt with modern day Egyptians after thousands of years of invasion, conquering and exchange by and with so may different groups north, south, east, and west of area. It was truly the converging point of Africa, Europe, and Asia for thousands of years.
I think the best option is to go by how they depicted themselves and others in their time. A wide survey of temple paintings, busts, and sculptures reveal a wide array of phenotypes. We even have evidence of how they depicted foreigners ( http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/beauty5.jpg ). They usually depicted themselves (complexion wise) somewhere between the nearly literally black nubian and the pale Libyan, Syrian, Bedouin, and Hittite in the picture. IMO they were not the stereotpical “black” phenotype that most people in this thread appear to be using to define categorization as black, but also different from their European Mediterranean counterparts and even those in the Middle East.
I sorta suspect Cleopatra was chosen because it is very likely that she had no “Black” features at all, as a sort of litmus test of loyalty to Afrocentrism.
As others have said, there are plenty of Egyptian pharaohs who may have been Nubian in ancestry (even aside from the actual “Nubian Dynasty”). Claiming an “African origin” for these pharaohs would, however, cause no controversy at all, since no-one would deny that it is very possible. Only in the case of the Ptolemies is the whole notion somewhat absurd for the reasons mentioned (Macedonian origin, obsessive inbreeding).
As for Egyptian art … it is based on a number of artistic stereotypes of long standing. One of which is the traditional emnity with Nubia.
I am sure you are being sincere, but these are widely held beliefs that (in addition to the examples given above) are reflected in the writings of historical figures like David Hume
](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=10625615)
Now while some of the claims made by Afrocentists give me pause for reflection, I can honestly see their point on how blacks/Africans are marginalized out of the history books. I would also add that Afrocentists are committing grave errors too by homogenizing and simplifying Africa to fit their own western based racial concepts and agendas.
Africa is truly a diverse content (ethnically, politically, linguistically, genetically, culturally, historically, religiously, geographically, and yes even racially); its diverse in every way that can be imaginable, defiantly more so then our current simplified racial concepts of Africa allows. This is my biggest problem with Afrocentists their misrepresentations of Africa is just as wrong as anyone else’s misrepresentations.
Ok, tell me some sub-saharan africa history (where others weren’t involved, so we remove colonialism and the slave trade) that had a significant impact on world history.
Is this correct or not?
Originally Posted by Lust4Life
*A couple of thousand years B.C. people in the Orkney Islands at the north of Britain were building stone houses with inside restrooms with running water,Sub Saharan Africa never discovered the wheel, the plough,road building,irrigation,or a written language amongst other things. *
Quote:
Did Sub Saharan Africa ever independenly discover the wheel, the plough,road building,irrigation,or a written language?
My main point is that there is no such thing as “sub-saharan africa history.” “sub-saharan africa” is purely a western racially based paradigm. There exists though many different cultures and groups that (to many varying degrees) have had non-relating civilizations and exposures to other outside (non-African) groups or civilizations. Complex, eh? That’s the truth. It’s more messy then our modern racial concepts of Africa allows.
Dude please, you will even find an example of a Wheel on the chariot depicted on Tutankhamun’s Painted Box that Götterfunken linked. You would also find examples of all these things -minus road building for some reason- with a quick internet search (“plough, road building, irrigation, or a writtenlanguage”) in many civilizations that have come and gone in the area stretching from Egypt to Somalia. There is even abook (originally written in Arabic) from the 1500’s that details the invasion of Ethiopia by a Somali Ahmad ibn Ibrihim al-Ghazi which brought down the entire Abyssinia empire.
In west Africa I find a very different literateculture developing in a very different climate and geography that also includes iron working, irrigation/farming, etc.
Clearly the reason people make grand claims of African historical inferiority is not due to a lack of history in Africa, but because of the ignorance of westerners. This could also be due to the fact we have a overly simple and strongly racialized view of “Africa” as a whole (the term "sub-sahara Africa highlights this even more strongly -like there is anything that groups those people together other then their skin colour).
As I wrote before our racial perceptive that can even shift to label anything of (say historical) value (or high status) as non-African/black… Or maybe I’m just a tad crazy… Maybe both.
Though of course I have no idea whether or not any of 'em cared much (though on the other hand, apparently very few of them bothered to learn Egyptian, so maybe they did care).
