http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1162130/Found-Skeleton-younger-sister-Cleopatra-murdered.html
New exciting proof that Cleopatra was of African descent and killed her sister!
Really?
Forensic experts believe they have identified the skeleton of the queen’s younger sister, murdered over 2,000 years ago.ARCHEOLOGISTS and forensic experts believe they have identified the skeleton of Cleopatra’s younger sister, murdered more than 2,000 years ago on the orders of the Egyptian queen.
The breakthrough, by an Austrian team, has provided pointers to Cleopatra’s true ethnicity. Scholars have long debated whether she was Greek or Macedonian like her ancestor the original Ptolemy, a Macedonian general who was made ruler of Egypt by Alexander the Great, or whether she was north African.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......
Excellent! Since the early 80s I've was thought and shown evidence that Cleopatra was of African stock by my Black Studies professors at my university. Thank you for providing this article.
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome...
ReplyDeleteThe typical story says that Cleopatra
was descended from one of
Alexander the Great's generals,
who took over ruling Egypt after
Alexander's empire broke up.
This would make Cleopatra a
Greek queen of an African country.
All of this raises the question of what
exactly do we mean by "African ancestry"?
If we go back far enough,
the entire human species could be
of African descent,
and there was almost certainly
interbreeding between
Greek and Egyptian populations
over the millennia that these
two cultures were in contact
even before Cleopatra was born.
The cranio-facial measurements of "Arsinoe"
are the basis of the assignment
of this African ancestry.
The idea is to take measurements
of the skull and assign the individual
to the ancestral category/race
to which they are most similar.
The techniques that have been
developed for distinguishing
different racial types based on
cranio-facial measurements,
are often qualitative,
rather than purely metric.
BUT, there is a trend in anthropology
today that recognizes that our
idea of race is much more based
on cultural characteristics
(with a slight input from
morphological characteristics
such as skin colour),
than it is based on any
genuine underlying physical differences.
Anyways, compared to the rest
of her colorful and tumultuous life,
the question of whether
Cleopatra had African ancestry
is probably the least
interesting thing about her.