Netflix's Cleopatra

[Roma_Victrix]

Here's another good take on the situation by another Youtuber:

I would assume that said revolt was dominated by the Upper Egyptian elite though (presumably because they felt slighted by the new regime).

Pretty much, yes, and it fits a pattern of Late Ancient Egypt (i.e. Iron Age Egypt) where the country was at times divided along those geographic lines politically. The Ptolemies wrestled with that problem for over two decades and it caused internal economic problems that perhaps persisted until the end of the dynasty.

Well, Nubians definitely exist of course, although it should be said that Egyptians and Nubians are two distinct groups with different ancestries. Compare this Egyptian football team to this Sudanese one, for example. Actually, the Sudanese team appears to have both 'MENA brown' and 'black African' players (unsurprising given Sudan's history).

Ancient Egyptians definitely were not northern European white, and the Greeks and Romans weren't either; they were aware of a difference between them and the Celtic and Germanic peoples to the north.

Good points, agreed. Obviously Sudanese people are incredibly darker than Egyptians overall, unless we're talking about someone like Anwar Sadat (who was of course half-Sudanese in origin). As I've mentioned here, this is a point the ancient Greeks even made about Egyptians and Nubians (Aethiopioi), comparing their relative looks to the differences of people from Northern India (Hindu/Vedic) versus Southern India (the Tamils). Also yes, the Greeks made it clear that Egyptians were significantly darker than them, but also noted the differences between themselves and Celts along with Thracians and Scythians.

Modern Egyptians are:
Geno 2.0 findings:
"Mediterranean – 65%
Southwest Asian – 18%
Sub-Saharan African 14%"


and Geno 2.0 Next Gen findings:
"Northern African (68% of the Egyptian genetic pool), Southwest Asia & Persian Gulf (17%), Jewish Diaspora (4%), Asia Minor (3%), East Africa (3%), and Sothern Europe (3%)."


National Geographic Genographic Project, excerpted from Coptic Literature's critique:
https://copticliterature.wordpress.c...ptian-results/
(the criticism in itself seems to boil down to: not enough real Egyptians, i.e. Copts, utilized)

Thanks for sharing the data here!

@ R_V



I agree its unfortunate Amazon backed this its like tossing kerosene onto the internet for those kinds of sites. JUst seems like a really unfortunate waste of money and providing people with something to point to and say see see thay have agenda and that buries facts.

Amazon? I think you meant to say Netflix. In either case yes, they are probably allowing it just because they know it will create a controversy, which in turn creates more buzz about the show. There are some in the entertainment industry who argue any press is good press, unless it's something like a sexual perversion/impropriety/violation that buries your career or that of an entire project in production (e.g. House of Cards after Kevin Spacey allegations).

[conon394]

Yes sorry did slip on the streaming service.

Video is solid. I guess I still think you have to allow wiggle room for live Stage/Opera. The skill set has to trump looking the part often. That said I not willing to cut Movies the same slack. Cleo needs to look mediterranean Greek - that should be doable on a screen feature. And umm you really need to loose the old kingdom look all the time.

[Laser101]

Yes sorry did slip on the streaming service.

Video is solid. I guess I still think you have to allow wiggle room for live Stage/Opera. The skill set has to trump looking the part often. That said I not willing to cut Movies the same slack. Cleo needs to look mediterranean Greek - that should be doable on a screen feature. And umm you really need to loose the old kingdom look all the time.

Rome I got pilloried for making this mistake in 2004 (notably, whatever else may be said of Rome II, it at least had a correctly Hellenistic Egyptian faction from the outset). You would think that popular culture would have learned after 20 years.
There was mention of Gal Gadot being considered Cleopatra in a film a while back, and being Israeli she'd be closer to the mark. Alternatively you could just use an Italian or Greek American.

Cycling back to a point made earlier:

The Ptolemies did deal with native rebellion against their rule, for instance, a brief period where they lost much of Upper Egypt to a rival native pharaoh claimant to the throne, but overall they maintained a carefully curated pageantry of occasional costume play in Memphis (during coronations) or in temple rituals aimed at appeasing their Egyptian subjects. This was particularly the case for the Egyptian priesthood, who received the benefits of Ptolemaic rule and staunchly stood by the Ptolemies in a perpetual client-patron relationship.

I think this is perhaps a bit too cynical about Ptolemaic ceremonial practice. The Ptolemies (and the Seleucids for that matter) engaged in the traditional rites of kingship of their new kingdom in order to build legitimacy (since it mattered to the populace that a king did the things a king was supposed to do, and kingship in both Egypt and Mesopotamia had a fundamental religious component). However, I don't think the (unintentional?) implication that the Ptolemies were just humouring their Egyptian subjects is correct; Classical religion did not work like modern Christianity or Islam. It's entirely plausible that the Ptolemies genuinely believed that the Egyptian gods would aid them if propriated in the traditional Egyptian way; Egyptian religion in particular had a certain level of 'cred' in the Classical world simply because of how old Egyptian culture was (the Great Pyramids are further back in time from Cleopatra than she is from the present). Of course, the Ptolemies did not stop making obeisance to the Greek gods, and ancient religion had no problem with this kind of 'bet-hedging' (indeed, it often encouraged it).

I have to wonder whether this causes problems with the Christian-influenced preconceptions of modern audiences; the notion of a Ptolemaic ruler engaging in worship of a Greek god one moment and an Egyptian god the next (or sometimes mixing them) doesn't fit with modern notions of religious identity.

[Kyriakos]

It was common for regional gods to be identified as "the same" as their counterparts in other pantheons. It's why Alexander was called "son of Amun Ra" by the Egyptian oracle, which meant he was son of Zeus.

[Infidel144]

Thanks for sharing the data here!

You are welcome.
Though I am curious about the difference in the two data sets, where the first one shows 14% sub-Saharan ancestry, which seems to be in line with other studies I have read about showing ca 8% more sub-Saharan ancestry developing post the ca 640AD Islamic conquest (which makes sense with the development of the trans-Saharan slave trade).
But the 'more refined' Next Gen data has a 3% east African and no mention of sub-Saharan.

[Roma_Victrix]

Yes sorry did slip on the streaming service.

Video is solid. I guess I still think you have to allow wiggle room for live Stage/Opera. The skill set has to trump looking the part often. That said I not willing to cut Movies the same slack. Cleo needs to look mediterranean Greek - that should be doable on a screen feature. And umm you really need to loose the old kingdom look all the time.

I wouldn't even draw a hard line at movies per se, since someone could make a ridiculous Sci-Fi movie about Cleopatra VII being an intergalactic empress in a Star Wars style space opera and cast her with a mixed race half-Japanese, half-Moroccan actress for all I care. That would actually be funny, and about as innocuous as Hamilton.

I get what you mean, though. The hard line about physical looks matching the part (in this case a vague Southern European or specifically a Greek) should clearly be drawn when it comes to serious biopic films and televised docuseries. Otherwise your production is going to get lambasted for cultural appropriation, which is exactly what happened here.

Rome I got pilloried for making this mistake in 2004 (notably, whatever else may be said of Rome II, it at least had a correctly Hellenistic Egyptian faction from the outset). You would think that popular culture would have learned after 20 years.
There was mention of Gal Gadot being considered Cleopatra in a film a while back, and being Israeli she'd be closer to the mark. Alternatively you could just use an Italian or Greek American.

Yeah, Rome: Total War deserved scorn for that, despite its otherwise legendary groundbreaking status. The Bronze Age New Kingdom style chariot rider armies of Egypt instead of Hellenistic era Ptolemaic forces was an egregious misrepresentation, on a level far above the flaming pigs or screeching women (which was just funny). The game also didn't do a very good job with its Iberian faction, something that later mods like EBI and EBII (for M2TW) have fully addressed.

Also, if we're going to cast a strictly Greek national or ethnically Greek-descended actor for the part, I choose Greek American actress Ally Ioannides for the win (pics below). Either her or Italian American Lady Gaga since she actually looks similar to Cleopatra's profile in coins, busts, and paintings.

Cycling back to a point made earlier:


I think this is perhaps a bit too cynical about Ptolemaic ceremonial practice. The Ptolemies (and the Seleucids for that matter) engaged in the traditional rites of kingship of their new kingdom in order to build legitimacy (since it mattered to the populace that a king did the things a king was supposed to do, and kingship in both Egypt and Mesopotamia had a fundamental religious component). However, I don't think the (unintentional?) implication that the Ptolemies were just humouring their Egyptian subjects is correct; Classical religion did not work like modern Christianity or Islam. It's entirely plausible that the Ptolemies genuinely believed that the Egyptian gods would aid them if propriated in the traditional Egyptian way; Egyptian religion in particular had a certain level of 'cred' in the Classical world simply because of how old Egyptian culture was (the Great Pyramids are further back in time from Cleopatra than she is from the present). Of course, the Ptolemies did not stop making obeisance to the Greek gods, and ancient religion had no problem with this kind of 'bet-hedging' (indeed, it often encouraged it).

I have to wonder whether this causes problems with the Christian-influenced preconceptions of modern audiences; the notion of a Ptolemaic ruler engaging in worship of a Greek god one moment and an Egyptian god the next (or sometimes mixing them) doesn't fit with modern notions of religious identity.

Agreed for the most part, but the Ptolemies were a bit cynical about it, actually. Per sources like Stanley M. Burstein (2004), if a wealthy Egyptian wanted themselves and their immediate family to become legally "Greek" and gain citizenship in a polis like Alexandria, Naukratis, or Ptolemais Hermiou, they would have to renounce their Egyptian culture and lifestyle, part of which was attending religious services to Egyptian gods, and fully embrace the Greek pantheon.

There were hybrid Greek-Egyptian gods like Serapis invented for the purpose of bridging the two cultures together, and like Kyriakos said they obviously established equivalents of the Greek pantheon with the major Egyptian deities (e.g., Zeus = Amun Ra), same as they did for Roman, Celtic, Semitic, and Persian deities. However, the Ptolemies maintained different temples and religious services for the ethnic Greek minority and Egyptian majority communities. The differences were stark enough for that. Cleopatra and previous queens of the Ptolemaic dynasty considered themselves to be the living incarnation of goddess Isis, much like queens of earlier native dynasties who subscribed to the Osiris myth. However, Cleopatra equated Isis with the Greek goddess Aphrodite, whose symbolic imagery she adopted for her minted coinage and in her lavish clothing when she formally met Mark Antony at Tarsos in Anatolia. Cleopatra likewise had herself depicted as Venus, the Italic Roman equivalent of Aphrodite when Julius Caesar presented her statue to the Roman people at the Temple of Venus Genetrix (Venus the Mother) in the Forum of Caesar, a subtle nod to Cleo's status as mother of Caesar's child produced out of wedlock.

In other words, the Ptolemies were master propagandists who pandered and promoted themselves in different ways to different audiences. They were quite cynical, even if they also genuinely believed that being on the good side of Egyptian deities would bring them earthly benefits in their mortal lives.

It was common for regional gods to be identified as "the same" as their counterparts in other pantheons. It's why Alexander was called "son of Amun Ra" by the Egyptian oracle, which meant he was son of Zeus.

Alexander the Great must have felt quite relieved when the Egyptian oracle at the Siwa Oasis in Egypt (near modern Libya) told him he was the son of someone else rather than the son of Philip II of Macedon. Even better, he was the son of Zeus, Amun Ra!

[Kyriakos]

I vote for Ally too ^^

While Gadot would, to some degree, be ok looks-wise, certainly her past as an israeli soldier wasn't very helpful (not that arabs are ancient Egyptian either, but who cares )

[Roma_Victrix]

I vote for Ally too ^^

While Gadot would, to some degree, be ok looks-wise, certainly her past as an israeli soldier wasn't very helpful (not that arabs are ancient Egyptian either, but who cares )

Ally Ioannides is pretty hot, also a decent actress. She kind of looks like the old timey actress Theda Bara, who ironically played Cleopatra in 1917.

Bassem Yousef in the video I shared above talks about Gadot, saying he is opposed to her casting as well since she was part of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), although to be fair to her she didn't see any actual combat or shoot some little Palestinian kid in the face. She was just a physical trainer and combat instructor. She has played a fictional Greek character before (Wonder Woman), and she is Ashkenazi Jewish so at least one of her distant ancestors was a Semitic West Asian. I'm only opposed to her getting the role because I think her acting is wooden, overrated and mediocre. She'd probably make Cleopatra some innocent dove who saves children and cats in her spare time or something.


As for the Ancient Egyptians, they would probably approve of measures to bring the land of Canaan under control of the pharaoh by any means necessary, and to sacrifice any rebellious malcontents there in battle to the warlike gods Montu and Horus.

[Kyriakos]

Ally Ioannides is pretty hot, also a decent actress. She kind of looks like the old timey actress Theda Bara, who ironically played Cleopatra in 1917.

Bassem Yousef in the video I shared above talks about Gadot, saying he is opposed to her casting as well since she was part of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), although to be fair to her she didn't see any actual combat or shoot some little Palestinian kid in the face. She was just a physical trainer and combat instructor. She has played a fictional Greek character before (Wonder Woman), and she is Ashkenazi Jewish so at least one of her distant ancestors was a Semitic West Asian. I'm only opposed to her getting the role because I think her acting is wooden, overrated and mediocre. She'd probably make Cleopatra some innocent dove who saves children and cats in her spare time or something.


As for the Ancient Egyptians, they would probably approve of measures to bring the land of Canaan under control of the pharaoh by any means necessary, and to sacrifice any rebellious malcontents there in battle to the warlike gods Montu and Horus.

She has a bit of the Eliza Dushku vibe

[conon394]

So after all this over the preview. Is anyone willing to try to watch it to see if the show is as expected or even worse and report on it?

[Pinarius]

The Destiny of Rome (2011) with Laëtitia Eïdo as Cleopatra had a decent cast. This actress has a quite a prominent nose unlike others, who played Cleopatra.

[Pinarius]

New portrait of Cleopatra by the digital artist Joan Francesc Oliveras (NSFW):
https://twitter.com/JoanFrancescOl1/...80680535474178

[Roma_Victrix]

New portrait of Cleopatra by the digital artist Joan Francesc Oliveras (NSFW):
https://twitter.com/JoanFrancescOl1/...80680535474178

Wow! That looks pretty good actually. I was a bit skeptical about the revealing dress showing nipples, as it is not a standard Hellenistic Greek chiton for women, but the artist apparently did their homework. She based the dress on a sculpture of Cleopatra's Ptolemaic ancestor Queen Arsinoe II. Interesting job with the diadem, not sure it would have had a geometric pattern like that instead of just being plain white or even gold (as seen in some paintings, like the one from Pompeii where Cleopatra is depicted as Venus Genetrix).

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

Isn't it a simple headband not a diadem?

A headband could even have different colours like darkred, redviolett, purpure from the purpure snails?

I would expect some extravaganza from Ptolemies.

[conon394]

Ptolemy the first guy is depicted the same way. They did the fancy stuff for the locals but the hand band seems to be sufficient and likely a crap ton more comfortable for daily wear.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

Why did they race swap Cleopatra? Couldn't they have just created a new character that was Black?

[conon394]

Wow! That looks pretty good actually. I was a bit skeptical about the revealing dress showing nipples, as it is not a standard Hellenistic Greek chiton for women, but the artist apparently did their homework. She based the dress on a sculpture of Cleopatra's Ptolemaic ancestor Queen Arsinoe II. Interesting job with the diadem, not sure it would have had a geometric pattern like that instead of just being plain white or even gold (as seen in some paintings, like the one from Pompeii where Cleopatra is depicted as Venus Genetrix).

Its an interesting take. But I wonder if Arsinoe II would have actually ever worn the gown. The statute is in the Egyption impossible forward step and rigid arm style. The Classical/Hellenistic wet look is an interesting add to what would often be a topples female statute. Obviously for consumption of the Egyption population and not flaunting the otherness of the Greek ruling class. But I am thinking regalia that might only ever have been used at some important religious occasions for the Egyptians if ever.

[conon394]

Why did they race swap Cleopatra? Couldn't they have just created a new character that was Black?

In a documentary well I suppose you toss in a supporting composite character or something. But no not the point is to appeal to American Afro-centric-ism

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

Here's another good take on the situation by another Youtuber:

Funny thing actually. I went on a business trip to Egypt last year and I learned a lot about Egyptian people. Most of them are fairly dark and look consistent with many North African peoples. That is to mean a lot of the people in Libya, Algeria, and Morocco. Which was actually slightly different than what I expected, since I believed Egyptians to be more "Arab looking".

The guy in that video looks more consistent with Levantine populations such as people from Lebanon or Syria. He actually doesn't look like a lot of the Egyptians I saw. Which probably indicates that this guy is DIRECTLY descended from Levantine people that came at some point between the Arab invasions and the 1800's. There was also a large influx of Turks and Circassians throughout the Middle Ages.

Sure there was also large influx from the Levant in Ancient times, even in Prehistoric times. But the chances that his family retained that look for millennia is basically zero. So I assume that despite being a Muslim and of the Arab culture, he is not really the same as the "Egyptian race" either. That doesn't mean he doesn't have Egyptian ancestry, but his look isn't really consistent with the distinctly North African looking people that I encountered. He is quite likely descended from Levantines.

[Spitfire -WONDERBOLT!]

disgusting,, there are black pharohs, nefffititti was probably mixed race, cleo isnt one.

This is racist against blacks, lie claiming Jim Crow never happened.