Was Cleopatra black?
On the left, Netflix’s Cleopatra. On the right, statues of the Egyptian queen. Pictures of Netflix and Bridgeman
verification – Since the broadcast of the trailer for a documentary series in which Cleopatra is embodied by the black actress Adele James, the debate about the skin color of the Egyptian queen continues to escalate.
Controversy over skin color and the origins of Cleopatra’s electrician. Earlier this week, the Netflix platform announced the launch of a documentary series about the last queen of Egypt. Thunderclap: the latter is embodied by black actress Adele James. Which annoys more than one. After the trailer’s release Queen Cleopatra Many netizens accused the platform of “black wash“or to submit to”cancel culture(erasing culture). A petition was also launched on Change.org and was signed 85,000 times before it was removed.
This is not the first time that questions about Cleopatra’s skin color have been discussed in our modern society. However, not much is known about the Queen’s physique, and her genealogy has not been fully established. What do history and science really say? Can we say, or at least assume, that Cleopatra was black?
Hypotheses about the identity of Cleopatra VII’s mother
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