I do understand that Cleopatera's people were GREEK but they had been in Egypt for quite some time - so anyone with pale white skin would certainly be at a disatvantage ...
PS All my helenic friends, male and female, are all very olive complected...for which they are greatly envied by many.
rs
PPS: Is anyone here watching the HBO series ROME? Rather an interesting Cleo in that one!
Greek people are both, olive and blonde complected, since they have many different provinces. As well as in America, were there is rosy-skin people, black people and olie-skin people. There is the same in Italy, Spain , Argentina, etc...Generally, in Greece and Italy, the people who lives in North provinces are blonde (or reddish-haired) and the others who lived in the South are black haired, blck-eyed. This is not a general rule, however...Cleopatra 's family came from Macedonia, in te North of Greece, where people could have red hair and blue eyes. This was the case of the famous Mehmet Alí, the man who ruled Egypt in the XIX Century and modernized it. He was actually a Macedonian, with blonde hair and blue eyes.
And yes, the Ptolomés were in Egypt since many, many years,but they married between them, as noblepeople usually does, so they couldn't have so many "local blood" in their bodies. Besides, Egyptians that didn't belonged to the Imperial Family but were socialy well positioned, wanted to be light-skinned, as their rulers. You may easily notice it seeing the paintings that the Egyptians udes to put over the mummies (portraits of the dead)...In the paintings, there is light-skinned people...But if an anthropologic expert perform a test on the dead bodies, they discoveres that these people were really classical Egyptians, with African features.
RealAnastasia.
