A recent Netflix documentary called Queen Cleopatra has drawn criticism for “blackwashing” one of Egypt’s most famous historical figures, Cleopatra. The trailer for the documentary makes a clear reference to Cleopatra’s skin colour, where one commentator explicitly says, “I don’t care what they tell you in school. Cleopatra was black.” Cleopatra VII Philopathor was the last active ruler of Egypt prior to Roman rule. She is widely known as a Ptolemaic ruler, as a descendant of Ptolemy I Soter, a Macedonian Greek general, who ruled over Egypt when it was part of Alexander the Great’s empire. Cleopatra’s well-attested Greek Macedonian background lies at the heart of the controversy which claims ancestry elsewhere. A petition has been widely circulating online, by two Egyptians; it criticizes Afrocentrism, calls for a cancellation of the documentary’s release, and to “save Egyptian history.” “This is in no way against black people, and is simply a wake up call to preserve the history and the integrity of the Egyptians and the Greeks,” the petition stated. One Twitter user who commented on the controversy saying, “Cleopatra was Macedonian Greek and the Greeks weren’t black. Portraying her as…
