Egyptian Queen Cleopatra - A Mixed Race

Sankofa*

There's has been much speculation lately on the true nationality of Egyptian Queen Cleopatra race. I can remember reading an article on Timeonline. They claimed they have proof of her true nationality. Because they found her sister that was killed, Arsinöe. From the forensic evidence, she was of  N. African and White European.
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qlwpdrt (nTrt mr(t)-it.s) Cleopatra, neczeret meret ites

(The Goddess Cleopatra Who Is Beloved Of Her Father)

Cleopatra VII, who grew up to be the last of the Ptolemies. In 59 BC.


Cleopatra VII's titles as king of Egypt were 19:

Arsinoe and Cleopatra were daughters of Ptolemy XII by different wives.

She was the third daughter in line to her father Ptolemy XII; she later had another sister and two younger brothers. Cleopatra was born in 69 BC, to Ptolemy XII and his wife, Cleopatra V of Egypt.

Cleopatra was actually Cleopatra VII, and was the last pharaoh of Egypt, because Rome took over following her death.

Cleopatra’s full name was Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator. She reigned for 21 years, from 51 BC to 30 BC.


In the entire 300-year old Ptolemaic dynasty, Cleopatra was the only Pharaoh who could speak Egyptian.

Infact, she was the master of nine languages in all.


Cleopatra was one of the seven women named Cleopatra in the dynasty.
This is why she was officially known as Cleopatra VII.


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Forensic experts believe they have identified the skeleton of the queen’s younger sister, murdered over 2,000 years ago.

Daughter of Ptolemy I and Berenice I, sister of Philotera and Ptolemy II, then his wife. After Lisymach’s death she was married to Keraunos who crowned himself a king of Lisymachia after the diadochi battle. In 279 he murdered Arsinoe’s children and she escaped to Egypt where she managed to drive Arsinoe I out of the country and marry her brother and coregent between 280 and 272 BC. After death she was deified in the whole East-Mediterranean region.

The results vindicate the theories of Hilke Thür of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, who has long claimed that the skeleton was Arsinöe. She described the discovery of Arsinöe’s ethnicity as “a real sensation which leads to a new insight on Cleopatra’s family”.

The forensic evidence was obtained by a team working under the auspices of the Austrian Archeological Institute, which is set to detail its findings at an anthropological convention in the United States later this month.


Evidence obtained by studying the dimensions of Arsinöe’s skull shows she had some of the characteristics of white Europeans, ancient Egyptians and Black Africans, indicating that Cleopatra was probably of mixed race, too. They were daughters of Ptolemy XII by different wives.


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“It has got this long head shape,” said Wilkinson. “That’s something you see quite frequently in ancient Egyptians and Black Africans. It could suggest a mixture of ancestry.”

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Thoth (left) and Horus pour purifying liquid on Pharaoh Ptolemy XII.
From the temple of Haroeris and Sobek at Kom Ombo. Photograph c.1890.

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What do we know about Cleopatra's ancestry?


The Ptolemy dynasty was descended from the Greek Macedonian Ptolemy Soter, established as ruler of Egypt by Alexander the Great's conquest of Egypt in 305 B.C.E. (In other words, they were imperialist outsiders.)

We are not certain of the heritage of Cleopatra's mother or her paternal grandmother. That leaves 50% to 75% of her genetic heritage unknown -- and ripe for speculation.

Is there any evidence that either her mother or paternal grandmother was a black African? 

Is there any evidence that either of those women were not black Africans? 
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Cleopatra's Paternal Grandmother

Many scholars believe that Cleopatra's paternal grandmother was a concubine. That woman's background has been assumed to be either Alexandrian or Nubian. She may have been ethnically Egyptian, and she may have had a heritage which we'd today call "black."
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Cleopatra's Mother

Cleopatra's mother is usually identified as her aunt, Cleopatra V, daughter of Ptolemy IX. Her mother is also unknown; Cleopatra V was not the daughter of a royal wife, but we don't know if the mother was another Ptolemy relative or a concubine of Egyptian or Semitic African or Black African background.



Cleopatra Spoke Egyptian

We do have early evidence that Cleopatra was the first ruler in her family to actually speak the native Egyptian language, rather than the Greek of the Ptolemies -- but that would be evidence for an Egyptian ancestry, =  Black African.



BBC has a audio tape where you can hear the scientist discuss Cleopatra's African ancestry.

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


Hotep*