What did they look like? No secret - they looked as they look now. 2000-4000 years is a VERY short time for evolution. There hasn't been time for any substantial changes. Remember, Egypt is in Africa.
What?! I had a class on Egypt years ago. The prof said Cleopatra was a Macedonian Greek and more than likely had blonde hair and blue eyes. Pretty sure she was little chubby, too. And there was no "mummy's curse"...that's mostly Hollywood! We have many misconceptions about many things and people, I'm sure. No way of really knowing about a lot ancient history. People like to make things up as they go to suit themselves...rewrite history...one thing we can be sure of...that will never cease...
Cleopatra was the descendant of General Ptolemy who acquired Egypt and its throne after the death of Alexander the Great. However the Ptolemy's adopted Egyptian customs. Its unclear who her mother was and whether she had any Egyptian blood. She may have been blonde and blue eyed. Given her image on coins she seems to have a fairly prominent nose and does not appear to have been a great beauty.
Cleopatra was the descendant of Ptolemy I Soter, one of Alexander the Great's Macedonian generals who on the death of Alexander, became ruler of Egypt and eventually declared himself Pharaoh.
Cleopatra was not black or olive skinned, you're right. She originated from Macedonia, which is Northern Greece... At that time the Ottomans did not invade the area. It was more European than Middle Eastern. So assuming she was more white than olive skinned, Caucasian than Arabic, would be a good assumption. She definitely was not Black African.
I read an article from a scholar from the middle east and he stated that American Blacks are trying to distort the truth about ancient Egypt and citing more and more that they were all black Africans what are linked or related to American Blacks. He explained that this is out right not true because American Blacks came from Western Africa not Eastern Africa, Ethiopia today, where Nubia existed. Nubia was South of Ancient Egypt, they were not he same. So none of the American Blacks have any link to Ancient Egypt or Nubia.... It is like saying the Irishmen from Ireland are related to Italians.. therefore the Irishmen are also Romans.
Cleopatra was not an "ancient" Egyptian. She was from the line of Ptolemy, who was one of Alexander's top generals. Alexander conquered Egypt, and after he died, Ptolemy took control of Egypt and made himself Pharaoh. So yes...
Cleopatra came along much later than the Egyptian empire they are talking about. She was Greek ( Macedonian) and did not even speak Egyptian. Picture is just convenient. Not correct
Cleopatra was likely at least 3/4 Macedonian Greek. The ethnicity of her maternal grandmother is uncertain, but the best evidence suggest she was from an Egyptian priestly family.
The choice of photo was unfortunate because the Ptolemaic line (installed after Alexander conquered Egypt and including Cleopatra) probably looked quite different from previous Egyptian rulers.
It shows U still have many misconceptions based largely on media propaganda. Cleopatra WAS A Macedonian Greek. Ptolemy Egypt was a dynasty left over from Alexander the GReat's empire (A GREEK). After his death his generals (GREEKS) had divided the empire into about 4 spheres and fought each other over several generations. The Ptolemy'S (GREEKS) ruled over Egypt until its annexation by the Roman Empire. The Greeks tended to 'keep it in the family' thus she was mostly, if not entirely GREEK. It may not suit media propaganda but it is a fact.
@ Vinny American Blacks have never tried to align themselves with Egyptians as we are fully aware that our ancestors came from West Africa and where ever you read this article was way off also. And Nubia was apart of lower Egypt. You can google the ancient maps of Egypt and see that. Pharaohs of the north would send their daughters to marry the darker Pharaohs of the south.
To Vinny: Yes, we American Blacks know that our African ancestors are from Western Africa for the most part and many of us could care less to align ourselves with any of the Blacks in Africa who sold us. We know about the 'Door of no Return'. Mind your own business.
I have had a number of American Blacks argue this point to me, that 'their Nubian skin was related to the black Pharaohs of ancient Egypt'....and 'they portrayed that they have royal Nubian blood in their veins'.
It was preached to me that it was true by American Blacks that they were related to Ancient Egyptians and that Cleopatra was black so this does become my business.
Vinny get over it already. Why do you care anyway? Your life goal is to prove Americans of African decent arent related to Egyptians. News flash yes they are if you go back far enough. Civilization started in the middle east and humans branch out from there.
The pyramids were considered as sacred tombs for the pharaohs passage to the afterlife that were not to be disturbed by anyone.. Are you sure that no elements or contaminants were embedded around the tomb to ward off others?
I doubt that if you want to base it on the fact that Cleopatra was supposedly of great distant Greeks have brown or tan skin with dark hair and dark eyes
The myth of the pyramids is that the great pyramid was built in 20 years
Even with todays modern equiptment we could not match that 20 year span The egyprians would had have toquary, finish , transport and put in place \one stone every 9 minutes for the full 20 years to build the pyramid in that time frame
They were built by using earth energy to partialy levitate the stones
the same process also softened the stones to make them more workable
Much of the interior structure is basically rubble with only the outer levels and interior spaces requiring skilled labor. I would imagine the supposed voids would be a result of varying densities
History is a funny thing because most of it is based on lies.....having said that we all know that the Egyptians and the Sumerians are of black skin that is why it was the land of Kemet which is another word for black. But the media has tried to remove Egypt from Africa and the middle east as well which is all part of Africa. But most don't know that the Original Jews come from Africa just like Hebrew language. The Africa reach is not just in Africa look around you and you'll see their influence everywhere! why is it that we study them? They already had the knowledge of the planets and the precession of the equinoxes. What most people don't know is that we are all one! There is proof that without black's there would not be whites we are all one. So please stop buying into the lie and find the truth......
We now know that slaves did not build the pyramids and certainly not Hebrew slaves. Workers were paid and reasonably well-cared for. If the early Hebrews, a warring, nomadic, collection of diverse tribes, worked for the Egyptians it was more likely in the Nile Delta area where workers did build structures, stables, and monuments to the pharaoh.
Hollywood movies about ancient times are so much fun to watch because they're so bad. People back then were short and not very attractive. Jesus in Hollywood-made movies was, for the most part, always played by a fair-skinned actor and in one case played by an actor with blue eyes! I think it was called "King of Kings". At least Mel Gibson got it right in "Passion of the Christ". I think Egyptians were probably the most attractive people. "Cleopatra" with Elizabeth Taylor was so AWFUL but it's worth watching just to see how many costume changes she makes and her fantastic eye makeup. Poor Richard Burton completely out of place in this fiasco.
Jesus in "King of Kings" had blue eyes to single him out as special. The rest of the cast had brown eyes. Cleopatra was of the Ptolemaic line founded by Alexander the Great (ever hear of Alexandria and the great library in Egypt?) so even though Cleo would have been tan its not out of line that someone of European decent played her.
Actually Hollywood is exactly where it was 60 years ago. John W played Khan. What a joke. But hey good find on the black guy playing Beowulf. That must have been tough
Capt Buzzkill, sorry to be a buzzkill, but Beowulf was never meant to be a historical story, it was fiction. With fiction, it doesn't matter what race the people are, because it never actually happened. Having a black actor play a part in Beowulf means nothing.
And why is that? I've studied Beowulf (even in old English) and there really isn't any mention of races of anybody in the story. Now, you might argue that they assumed everybody would be white since they didn't mention race, but it's not a historical record, so the race of the players in the story is irrelevant to the actual story. When trying to tell the story of people who *were not white* using white actors is rather silly, because at the least it's historically inaccurate, and at the most it does a disservice to the people who the story is about. If you said that Hollywood was making the story of the Emperor Constantine a black actor, THEN I would see your point and agree, but Beowulf is not a good example.
Do we know how LONG it took to build the Pyramids? We do know that slavery existed then and we do know that the Jews went as far as Ethiopia.
As for Tut, without and autopsy how can they know for sure? Seeing his parents were brother and sister he could have had down syndrome, which could have meant other health problems.
How were the pyramids built? Every-one was a mason..if you were to back to that time and you were a news reporter and interviewed people and asked what they did for a living the answer would be 'I am a Mason" except maybe cooks and maybe a few loafers or something there is your answer friends
I'm not sure how long it took to build the great pyramid but I can tell you one or two things from being there. First, there are approx. 2 1/2 million stones in the great pyramid. Second, the average weight of each stone is approx. 5000 pounds. The one thing that blew my mind while being in the burial chamber and looking at the walls of stone, you couldn't even get a razor blade in between each stone they were cut so precisely. Keeping in mind the thought of not using any type of present day equipment is unbelievable along with the fact this was well before the invention of the wheel to move the stones and also the additional fact they had no idea of what a horse looked like to move those stones until approx. 1000 years later. Can you possibly imagine? And all this took place approx. four thousand six hundred years ago! And it was only a few hundred years ago the entrance was finally found and broken into. Definitely one of the greatest building civilizations ever, second only to the Romans.
At the time of Cleopatra, they would be greek, so not hard to figure out. Before that, doubtful they were black but they certainly were not white either.
I spent 13 years in the remodeling industry and designed quite a few home remodeling projects. One day I go to thinking about how the ancients may have built these massive pyramids without having to use tens of thousands of slaves over decades of time. i have always thought that ancient peoples were no more or less smart than we are today. After seeing many concrete slabs poured, it occurred to me that they may have found a way of crushing and liquefying stone, mixing it with other materials, and actually pouring it onto already built wooden forms. If I had been given the job to design and build one of these things back then, that's the way I would have done it to save time and cut costs.
Umm that leaves out a little of the evidence though. There are quarries. but the stones are super perfect. the only way to reconcile the two has take into account both factors. wood frames I agree with unless they had something better. And when I said you i was using that in the generic. Perhaps I should have said people. whatever their solution was in ancient days it has to satisfy both criterion. Having been taken from a quarry. and being too perfect to come from a quarry.
Egypt was in North Africa, part of the Mediterranean civilizations (think Carthage), but also in contact with civilizations further south (think Nubia or Kush). Although their affinity shows that they influenced the cultures of the region as much as they were influenced by it, they had their own unique contributions. It is unlikely they were different from other humans to be set into a subset category.
Just like you people to take Kemet out of Africa. No where else on Earth. Kemet is older than the entire white race. It is even older than what the racist archeologists could dare to agree on. The Sphinx was at least built during the age of Leo. The one before the most recent one. At a time when the Sahara was still green, a long #$%$ freaking time ago. It has evidence that it has been weathered by rain.
These questions can actually be easily answered...if you know where to look. The pyramids for example. The best way to figure out how something was built is to try and build it. Of course it probably wouldn't be completed nor would it be to scale, but you could figure a lot out that way. As for what did the Egyptians look like, well, there are modern egyptions, but also look at their hyroglifs. On TV you can clearly see that that gave different color palates to sub Sahara individuals that they identified. That means that red paint they were using was a reflection of what they looked like. As for what is inside the great pyramid...scan it.
The lack of knowledge on Egyptian history is more confounding. It is akin to believing that a white American can reveal what the Native Americans looked like many years ago.
Peggie, actually white Americans can tell exactly what the natives in America looked like. Europeans arrived in 1609 & many white artists drew pictures of the natives, their villages, etc.
