Cleopatra of African Descent?

[jr76x]

http://books.google.com/books?id=KSo...esult#PPA13,M1

She was from Egypt and it is possible she could have had some Nubian ancestry. This book says her mother was unknown.

The "Nubian" presence in Egypt has been grossly exaggerated. I don't know where the article was, but the DNA of modern Egyptians has been proven to be exactly the same as the Ancient Egyptians, and that was only one line of rulers, of many.

Oh, and given that the DNA is the same, take a look at the current Miss Egypt, Yara Naoum, and make your own call on it:

http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/9421/2633957333b3b287975ab45.jpg

http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/3818/20081029y14392508.jpg

http://igaveupforaday.blogspot.com/2008/12/2008-yara-naoum-miss-egypt-foxy.html

Alicia Keys? I don't think so.

I will say that Egyptians definitely don't look like Elizabeth Taylor (who's got a clear English look), but then I never got the big deal over her. She's been a dinosaur my entire life, and someone my grandmother's age selling some perfume named 'diamonds' makes absolutely no sense to me.

[Kaiser]

..... but the DNA of modern Egyptians has been proven to be exactly the same as the Ancient Egyptians, and that was only one line of rulers, of many.

jr76x: Where did you get that bit about DNA of Ancient Egyptians having been proven to be the same as that of modern Egpytians? So far there have been no DNA tests on the mummies as far as I know. At least no results published yet.

[jr76x]

jr76x: Where did you get that bit about DNA of Ancient Egyptians having been proven to be the same as that of modern Egpytians? So far there have been no DNA tests on the mummies as far as I know. At least no results published yet.

Ok, I think I may have not been 100% correct in the phrasing of that. What was done is an analysis of contemporary DNA versus neighboring groups and regions, along side progression of Haplogroups, etc - and that concluded that their DNA has mainly been in that area for a rather long time. I had remembered reading it years ago, but didn't re-read the article before posting it:

http://mathildasanthropologyblog.wordpress.com/2008/07/16/egyptian-y-chromosome-study-shows-a-complicated-ancestry/

This sort of thing is fairly important to Egyptians, since there's a sociocultural pressure or belief that there "might" be a substantial Arab influence, which really seems more an Islamic influence, being almost entirely nongenetic.

But, tell me what you think.

[rainbow]

The "Nubian" presence in Egypt has been grossly exaggerated. I don't know where the article was, but the DNA of modern Egyptians has been proven to be exactly the same as the Ancient Egyptians, and that was only one line of rulers, of many.

Oh, and given that the DNA is the same, take a look at the current Miss Egypt, Yara Naoum, and make your own call on it:

http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/9421/2633957333b3b287975ab45.jpg

http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/3818/20081029y14392508.jpg

http://igaveupforaday.blogspot.com/2008/12/2008-yara-naoum-miss-egypt-foxy.html

Alicia Keys? I don't think so.

I will say that Egyptians definitely don't look like Elizabeth Taylor (who's got a clear English look), but then I never got the big deal over her. She's been a dinosaur my entire life, and someone my grandmother's age selling some perfume named 'diamonds' makes absolutely no sense to me.

I think E.T. looks Italian.
Elizabeth Taylor, in her younger days, looked a lot like how my mom looked when my mom was younger.
I had a friend whose mother looked like my mom and she was Italian.

Personally, I don't like Cleopatra. She was a home-wrecker.
I'm a descendant of Octavia.

[jr76x]

I think E.T. looks Italian.
Elizabeth Taylor, in her younger days, looked a lot like how my mom looked when my mom was younger.
I had a friend whose mother looked like my mom and she was Italian.

Personally, I don't like Cleopatra. She was a home-wrecker.
I'm a descendant of Octavia.

I am Italian and am just going to have to agree to disagree. Her nose shape, jawline, etc - are not Italian, and especially her skin tone. It's only the hair color. To me, she resembles Liz Hurley in some superficial ways, also a Brit.

This is not challenging you, but a question: How did you derive a descendancy from Octavia? Is there a surname of Cladius or Antonius in your family? And given that virtually all roman census records were burned when the city was sacked, how did you draw a connection that far back?

[Deirwha]

oh dear

I am Italian and am just going to have to agree to disagree. Her nose shape, jawline, etc - are not Italian, and especially her skin tone. It's only the hair color. To me, she resembles Liz Hurley in some superficial ways, also a Brit.

This is not challenging you, but a question: How did you derive a descendancy from Octavia? Is there a surname of Cladius or Antonius in your family? And given that virtually all roman census records were burned when the city was sacked, how did you draw a connection that far back?

I clearly did not deal with this subject with the seriousness with which it was due. I mentioned Elizabeth Taylor because she played the part in the movie of the same name.

I have no idea what Cleopatra looked like and I don't think any of us do. A coin hardly conveys the human being whose sparkling personality more than her looks was the talk of the town, so to speak. Certainly she would have been, like all of us, a composite. But of whom? No data. We know her paternal line was Macedonian. Do we even know if she was blonde or brunette?

I do find the second question challenging and I am not the recipient. It would seem to me off topic, anyway, given the topic is Cleopatra not Rainbow or Octavia, or genealogical methodology. However speculative the thread may be it seems to me Rainbow's lineage is a distraction at best. I understand why you went there. I just don't see why we should continue down that track.

[Kaiser]

This sort of thing is fairly important to Egyptians, since there's a sociocultural pressure or belief that there "might" be a substantial Arab influence, which really seems more an Islamic influence, being almost entirely nongenetic.

But, tell me what you think.

jr76x: The Egyptians in general are quite comfortable with their non-Arab heritage, for the most part. Of course Arab infusion has been on a large scale and the Pharaonic/Ancient Egyptian heritage has been turned into some kind of a ghoulash in the melting pot that is Egypt today. There is a good chance that a strain of Ancient Egyptian DNA might be picked up amongst the modern Copts. I say this because their language retains vestiges of the old, as seen in late Dynasty (25-30th) period. One cannot be sure, though, unless you DNA-analyse a mummy.

As of now, Egyptian teams are working on some mummies, but the government has not taken any decision as to whether the results will be made public or not. The apprehension always has been that the West may give a 'slant' to the findings if research is left entirely to them.

By the way, the doyen of Egyptology, flamboyant Hawass, has announced that he is sure that a tomb his team is working on these days, belongs to Cleopatra. How he says that, beats me, but archaeologists have always worked on a hunch!

[rainbow]

I hope that if it is the tomb of cleopatra that they will do dna testing. Probably just for mtdna. Would be nice to see what her admixture and dnatribes autosomal would be. I'd rather know what the mtdna of the amazon was. Pbs didnt include that in their tv show. As for my octavia, that info came from genealogy books associated with magnacharta.org. Thousands of people are hereditary members, myself included. It is from one of my oldest known lines from england.

[CWF]

The "Nubian" presence in Egypt has been grossly exaggerated. I don't know where the article was, but the DNA of modern Egyptians has been proven to be exactly the same as the Ancient Egyptians, and that was only one line of rulers, of many.

Oh, and given that the DNA is the same, take a look at the current Miss Egypt, Yara Naoum, and make your own call on it:

http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/9421/2633957333b3b287975ab45.jpg

http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/3818/20081029y14392508.jpg

http://igaveupforaday.blogspot.com/2008/12/2008-yara-naoum-miss-egypt-foxy.html

Alicia Keys? I don't think so.

I will say that Egyptians definitely don't look like Elizabeth Taylor (who's got a clear English look), but then I never got the big deal over her. She's been a dinosaur my entire life, and someone my grandmother's age selling some perfume named 'diamonds' makes absolutely no sense to me.

I don't understand the basis for this statement and it seems reckless. The "Nubian" presence in Egypt has been grossly overstated how? Are you talking race politics? The Nubian presence in Egypt certainly wasn't insignificant nor unsubstantial. It was what it was.

I don't know what Cleo's admixture was in addition to her Greek heritage but it would certainly be interesting to find out. I doubt she looked like the young Elizabeth Taylor too. I recall reading that she was actually average looking but was brilliant and politically savvy.

[jr76x]

I don't understand the basis for this statement and it seems reckless. The "Nubian" presence in Egypt has been grossly overstated how? Are you talking race politics? The Nubian presence in Egypt certainly wasn't insignificant nor unsubstantial. It was what it was.

I don't know what Cleo's admixture was in addition to her Greek heritage but it would certainly be interesting to find out. I doubt she looked like the young Elizabeth Taylor too. I recall reading that she was actually average looking but was brilliant and politically savvy.

That is exactly what I was saying. I agree with you completely. I was saying people politicize things (and both ways) when they should let the science tell the truth. It was what it was.