This was something that came to mind while preparing to color a recent Cleopatra drawing of mine. Now, while I know Cleopatra VII would have been Macedonian on her father's side, her mother's exact identity seems to be unknown and it seems her (half?) sister Arsinoe's skeletal remains had a mixture of African and European traits. Therefore, I'm quite partial to the idea that Cleopatra herself may have been biracial, as in an African/Macedonian mix.
If this was the case, how dark could she have gotten? Most biracial people I've seen seem to have Halle Berry's light yellow-brown color, but then most of them here in the US would be mixed with pale Northern Europeans. Would a biracial person be darker if the non-African side of their ancestry was olive-skinned Mediterranean rather than Nordic? In which case, could Cleo and Arsinoe have been a moderately brown color, like Gabrielle Union for example?
Posted by Linda Fahr (Member # 21979) on :
I would apply Sienna,light yellow, and white colors, to Mixing a light brown color. If you want to enhance, just add a little bit dash of Cadmium Red.
Posted by Thereal (Member # 22452) on :
It depends as whites are near fixed albino group so it's rare for a union with them to produce someone very dark,that is some what true for Chinese type folks but they have a different version of albinism so dark Chinese type people are possible, Winslow m iwaki is blasian but doesn't look as mixed.
quote:Originally posted by Thereal: It depends as whites are near fixed albino group so it's rare for a union with them to produce someone very dark,that is some what true for Chinese type folks but they have a different version of albinism so dark Chinese type people are possible, Winslow m iwaki is blasian but doesn't look as mixed.
I'm pretty sure Mediterranean people, like the ancient Macedonians (presumably), wouldn't have been as pale as Northern Europeans (let alone people from any population who actually do have albinism). I understand they tend to have dark hair and eyes as well as olive/tan skin.
Posted by Thereal (Member # 22452) on :
The Mediterranean covers Asia, African and Europe it doesn't really have much meaning in terms of race because north Africans and modern mid easterners look the same, assuming they were always like that you have to explain the various black populations in those areas on top of that mid easterners and north Africans are consider a white related group so the race question is already confusing.
Posted by the lioness, (Member # 17353) on :
16 Mar 2009 | 13:31 GMT | Posted by Daniel Cressey | Category: Technology
A BBC documentary is claiming that the famous Egyptian queen Cleopatra may have been at least part-African, rather than Greek.
The claim hinges on a skeleton that maybe Cleopatra’s sister Arsinoe, who some suspect was murdered on the orders of her sister. The remains were found at a tomb called ‘The Octagon’ in Ephesus, Turkey.
“That Arsinoe had an African mother is a real sensation which leads to a new insight on Cleopatra’s family and the relationship of the sisters Cleopatra and Arsinoe,” says Hilke Thuer, of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, who re-discovered the skeleton after earlier anthropologists had uncovered it and removed the skull in the 1920s.
The Times reports that the skull was reconstructed by forensic anthropologist Caroline Wilkinson, using measurements taken in the 20s. “It has got this long head shape. That’s something you see quite frequently in ancient Egyptians and black Africans. It could suggest a mixture of ancestry,” says Wilkinson.
Mary Beard, professor in classics at Cambridge, strikes a cautionary note on her blog.
First, Arsinoe was indeed supposed to have been murdered on the steps of the temple of Diana in Ephesus, and the Octagon (which was found in the 1920s) is a rather grand tomb which can be dated stylistically to the first century BC. But there is nothing more than that to link the tomb and the princess. There is no surviving name on the tomb and the claims that the shape was meant to evoke the shape of the lighthouse of Alexandria (and so hint at an Egyptian occupant) don’t add up for me. Second, the skeleton itself doesn’t survive intact. The crucial skull, on which the ethnic arguments are based, was lost in the second world war. The new conclusions (including a mock up of Arsinoe’s face) rely on the measurements of the skull left by the first excavators. The remaining bones are said to be those of a 15-18 year old; Arsinoe may well have been in her mid-20s when she died.
Third, we don’t actually know that Cleopatra and Arsinoe were full sisters. Their father was King Ptolemy, but they may well have had different mothers. In that case, the ethnic argument goes largely out of the window.
The rogueclassicism blog takes a similar tack:
The headlines of both the Telegraph (”Cleopatra had African ancestry, skeleton suggests”) and the AFP coverage (”Cleopatra ‘was part-African’”) show the leap the press is taking with this one, despite the fact that we are not entirely sure who Cleopatra’s mother was (she is not named in any Classical source as far as I’m aware and the suggestion that is was Cleopatra V (Arsinoe’s mother) is a long-standing conjecture) — she and Arsinoe did not necessarily have the same mother. But beyond that, we get this skull business and having Arsinoe’s ethnicity actually being determined from a reconstructed skull based on measurements taken in the 1920s? Although I fear being labelled as one having the “brainpan of a stagecoach tilter”, can there not be some actual DNA tests on the skeletal material? Was it even suggested? I think the jury’s still very much out on this one … The BBC documentary ‘Cleopatra: Portrait of a Killer’ will be shown in the UK on March 23 Posted by the lioness, (Member # 17353) on :
quote:Originally posted by Tyrannohotep: This was something that came to mind while preparing to color a recent Cleopatra drawing of mine. Now, while I know Cleopatra VII would have been Macedonian on her father's side, her mother's exact identity seems to be unknown and it seems her (half?) sister Arsinoe's skeletal remains had a mixture of African and European traits. Therefore, I'm quite partial to the idea that Cleopatra herself may have been biracial, as in an African/Macedonian mix.
If this was the case, how dark could she have gotten? Most biracial people I've seen seem to have Halle Berry's light yellow-brown color, but then most of them here in the US would be mixed with pale Northern Europeans. Would a biracial person be darker if the non-African side of their ancestry was olive-skinned Mediterranean rather than Nordic? In which case, could Cleo and Arsinoe have been a moderately brown color, like Gabrielle Union for example?
Nefertiti
this color could be used ^^^
Cleopatra, Roman Temple at Dendra
Posted by the lioness, (Member # 17353) on :
quote:Originally posted by Tyrannohotep: This was something that came to mind while preparing to color a recent Cleopatra drawing of mine. Now, while I know Cleopatra VII would have been Macedonian on her father's side, her mother's exact identity seems to be unknown and it seems her (half?) sister Arsinoe's skeletal remains had a mixture of African and European traits. Therefore, I'm quite partial to the idea that Cleopatra herself may have been biracial, as in an African/Macedonian mix.
If this was the case, how dark could she have gotten? Most biracial people I've seen seem to have Halle Berry's light yellow-brown color, but then most of them here in the US would be mixed with pale Northern Europeans. Would a biracial person be darker if the non-African side of their ancestry was olive-skinned Mediterranean rather than Nordic? In which case, could Cleo and Arsinoe have been a moderately brown color, like Gabrielle Union for example?
If this Arsinoe theory is correct what percentage African would Cleopatra be? Is it 25%, 35?
And of skin tone, what type of African would be the African parent?
Posted by Fourty2Tribes (Member # 21799) on :
I always pictured Cleopatra as a slightly darker Rain Pryor.
Posted by Lion (Member # 22807) on :
European traits? LOL
Posted by Oshun (Member # 19740) on :
Considering that Cleopatra was half Greek and she lived in a time after great Asiatic migration into Egypt, I doubt she'd be that dark to be perfectly honest. Although biracials can be very dark.
Posted by Autshumato (Member # 22722) on :
quote:Originally posted by Lion: European traits? LOL
What are those? Barbarism? LOL!
Posted by xyyman (Member # 13597) on :
how dark and how white. Dark as the father white as the mother Posted by xyyman (Member # 13597) on :
Or should I say "whiter" than the mother?
Posted by Elite Diasporan (Member # 22000) on :
