Following her family marriage history most peeps agree it's a mix of Greek and likely Iranian given her family intermarried with the Seleucid Dynasty. So she prolly looks similar to all the realistic depictions of Jesus being olive/darker skinned as people believe he was partially Greek. She was prolly pale as all heck though being she wasn't out and about without umbrellas and staff/serfs and kind of weird looking due to the inbreeding of the Ptolemies having been going on for several hundred years.
The reason for the Iranian connection is due to Nicator's descendants intermarrying post Persian conquest and partial integration of remnant Persian nobles into the eventual Seleucid dynastic system. Would it make her part Iranian in the modern sense of today? No, but from the perspective of her own time you had a lot of intermarrying between the post Alexandrian successor states to reinforce their "legitimacy" by inserting themselves into previous noble lines. Either way though Cleopatra is mainly just an inbred Greek putting on Egyptian airs.
Cleopatra can either be seen as the first one with enough respect for her subjects to learn the language, or the first one desperate enough to try.
Very Catherin the Great in that sense
So just to clear the air, there is a tiny, tiny bit of non-Greek heritage if you squint. But it’s mainly Greek and then more Greek.
True on that (though the Sogdians are considered Iranian or at least proto-Iranian given it's actually a blanket term for any of the many ethnic and culture groups around the former Persian Empire and especially on the Iranian Peninsula). Overall though yeah it's similar to a white person claiming some form of minority ancestry because they're 1/16th something or other.
Cleopatra can either be seen as the first one with enough respect for her subjects to learn the language, or the first one desperate enough to try.
Honestly I think that is the most interesting aspect of discussion on Cleopatra and whether or not her and the Ptolemy Dynasty constitute cultural appropriation.
Following her family marriage history most peeps agree it's a mix of Greek and likely Iranian given her family intermarried with the Seleucid Dynasty. So she prolly looks similar to all the realistic depictions of Jesus being olive/darker skinned as people believe he was partially Greek. She was prolly pale as all heck though being she wasn't out and about without umbrellas and staff/serfs and kind of weird looking due to the inbreeding of the Ptolemies having been going on for several hundred years.
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The reason for the Iranian connection is due to Nicator's descendants intermarrying post Persian conquest and partial integration of remnant Persian nobles into the eventual Seleucid dynastic system. Would it make her part Iranian in the modern sense of today? No, but from the perspective of her own time you had a lot of intermarrying between the post Alexandrian successor states to reinforce their "legitimacy" by inserting themselves into previous noble lines. Either way though Cleopatra is mainly just an inbred Greek putting on Egyptian airs.
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True on that (though the Sogdians are considered Iranian or at least proto-Iranian given it's actually a blanket term for any of the many ethnic and culture groups around the former Persian Empire and especially on the Iranian Peninsula). Overall though yeah it's similar to a white person claiming some form of minority ancestry because they're 1/16th something or other.
Honestly I think that is the most interesting aspect of discussion on Cleopatra and whether or not her and the Ptolemy Dynasty constitute cultural appropriation.