“Blackwashing” Cleopatra, you say? A case of moral panic?

 The psychologist Stanley Cohen described moral panic as “a condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests.” (Cohen, 1972, p. 1). The casting of a bi-racial actor in the role of Cleopatra for a Netflix docu-series has prompted accusations of “blackwashing” history and arguably a state of moral panic, which the media has (largely) endorsed.

This isn’t the first time that such a response occurred. In 2008 I was involved in a project to digitally reconstruct Cleopatra. The process (described here) prompted an unfavourable response from some groups because the reconstruction showed a young woman with a darker complexion and African-type hair. It used to surprise me that so many people with no formal training in either classical archaeology/art history or Egyptology felt that their opinion was a reality. Fifteen years later and some people are responding in exactly the same way. Of course nobody can know for certain what Cleopatra looked like. We have representations of the ruler from during her lifetime, but the extent to which these reflected her true appearance remains uncertain. However, the point of contention for many has really been her perceived ancestry.

The same people who criticize the presentation of Cleopatra as “Black” (I will be deconstructing this later in the post) insist that she was”light skinned” and “white”. It isn’t helpful to apply modern racialized terms of “Black” and “white”, especially when they were meaningless to ancient people. Cleopatra was descended from Macedonian Greeks who were immigrants to Egypt. This much is clear. However, it is possible that her mother and grandmother were Egyptian (their identity is unknown). Leaving those modern racialized terms aside, if we look at depictions of ancient people from the Nile Valley their hair is black in colour and coily/curly and their complexions range from light brown to dark brown.

Userhat_Tomb_barbering
A barbering scene from the tomb of Userhat

Ancient people from Greece and Rome showed the people from the Nile Valley in the same way the Egyptians had depicted themselves for thousands of years. Paintings from the Temple of Isis in Pompeii show Egyptian priests with a darker complexion (see below); their hair shaved for the purpose of purification during rituals. The priestesses and members of the cult who were depicted on the walls of the Roman temple are shown with a range of complexions. Italy under the Romans and Egypt in the Ptolemaic and Roman periods were multicultural societies and were not bound by modern concepts of racist hierarchies.

Roman wall painting from Pompeii showing an Egyptian priest
Roman wall painting from Pompeii showing an Egyptian priest

Ethnicity vs “race”

Cleopatra was bi-cultural (Egyptian and Greek). However, she chose to present herself exclusively according to Egyptian culture in her homeland. Her Greek-style royal imagery was preserved for coinage (an international currency). It was this style of representation that was adopted for contemporary and posthumous portraits of the queen in Italy.

The Ptolemies, who were ethnically Greek had ruled Egypt for over 250 years at the time of her birth. For their first century of rule they had balanced their presentations separately as Greek kings/queens and as the Egyptian royal family. This was doubtless to muster political and religious kudos among the indigenous priesthood, who were a powerful and educated class. Adopting the Egyptian concept of kingship awarded the rulers a deified status that had hitherto been reserved for deceased mortals in Greece. By the reign of Ptolemy V many Egyptian-style representations of the king borrowed from Greek-style portraits of the rulers. Temple reliefs continued to be decorated with purely Egyptian style images of the rulers; their names translated in hieroglyphs.

Ethnicity is a cultural identity. Many recent commentators are confusing this with the modern concept of racialized identities. It is possible to be multi-ethnic (multi-cultural) and indeed this was recognised in Ptolemaic Egypt where Greeks and Egyptians married and had families. Any research on Ptolemaic society shows this to be the case. However, unlike her predecessors we only have evidence of Cleopatra depicting herself in Egypt as an Egyptian. As noted, her presentation overseas catered to a European audience and was essentially different.

Taking account of the possibility that Cleopatra’s mother and grandmother were Egyptian people, it seems plausible to present her as someone who is part European and part Egyptian (African). In modern racialized terms- as bi-racial. It is therefore notable that those who object to this premise claim that Cleopatra could not have been “Black”. The argument that she was descended and culturally Greek are irrelevant to her racialized identity. Moreover, it is the same people who have decided that a bi-racial Cleopatra is “Black”, perpetuating the so-called ‘one-drop rule’ used historically in the US. By recognising that Cleopatra may have had an Egyptian mother and/or grandmother it places the ruler more directly within an Egyptian historical context rather than removing her, as has been claimed.

For those who state that the Ptolemies married their siblings- this is true until the time of Ptolemy XII (Cleopatra’s father). He was illegitimate and refereed to as a “bastard” (nothos). Why then is it so far stretched that Cleopatra could be part Egyptian? A more pertinent question should perhaps be- why do people need Cleopatra to be racialized as “white”? I will consider this from a psychological standpoint in my next post.

The truth about Roman ‘portraits’ of Cleopatra

A Roman painted portrait claimed to represent Cleopatra VII has been circulating the news and social media over the past week. The fragment (Figure 1) dates to the first century CE and was found at Herculaneum. There is no inscription to identify the subject. It seems strange, therefore, that the image is being shared as a certain depiction of Cleopatra. Its appeal is doubtless the pale skin and red hair, which supports later European ideals and impressions of the ruler. In fact it has been suggested (Herbig, 1962) that the pale skin against a dark background was taken from a cameo, used for the model.

Inconsistencies

The identification of the painting as a portrait of Cleopatra stems from the suggested diadem (crown) and through comparison with coin images (Walker and Higgs, 2001). However, the image of the painting below shows that the fragment is damaged around the nape of the neck. A second painting from Pompeii shows that the “diadem” is in fact a head cloth that is tied around the bun to complete the hairstyle (Figure 2). This feature differs from two marble portraits of Cleopatra from Rome and also the coins (Figure 3).

Depiction of a woman found at Herculaneum
Figure 1 Fragment of a wall painting found at Herculaneum. Naples National Museo Nazionale Archeologica 90778

As noted, the Herculaneum fragment can be compared to similar depictions found in the so-called House of the Orchard at Pompeii (one example illustrated below; ). And this gives a further explanation as to why the two images have been associated with Cleopatra. House of the Orchard contains some Egyptianizing motifs (Room 5) alongside classical Greek iconography and Roman bucolic scenes. For this reason it has been suggested that the bust (Figure 2) might represent Cleopatra. This is in spite of the subject wearing a band around her head rather than the royal diadem (crown; see Walker and Higgs, 2001 for discussion).

Pompeian wall painting showing a female bust
Figure 2 Wall painting from the House of the Orchard Pompeii

Aside from the missing royal iconography, there is the dating of the wall paintings. The style of wall paintings at the House of the Orchard has been dated to 69-79 CE on account of the style of the wall paintings; so 100 years after the birth of Cleopatra. It is not a contemporary piece even if it were to represent the ruler (there is no definitive evidence to suggest that it does).

Furthermore, the Egyptianizing reliefs at the House of the Orchard are uniform in style (see Figure 4) and are substantially different from the style of the unidentified female bust. The biggest problem in identifying these images as Cleopatra remains the hair band. It’s style is completely different to the royal diadem or fillet found on coins and statues of Cleopatra (see Figure 3 for the Vatican portrait).

African_queens_Vatican_Cleopatra
Figure 3 Detail of a sculpture representing . Vatican Museums, Pius-Clementine Museum.

Identifying ancient portraits

There are a number of ways to identify an ancient Roman portrait. This is not an exact science and the process requires knowledge of the period as well as the provenance (find spot).

  1. Inscription- not always as straight forward as it might first appear because the inscription could have been added later, or someone could have re-used part or all of a statue/sculpture.
  2. Location- if a particular sculpture was found in a location that was only used for a set period of time, it might be possible to associated a representation with a particular donor or ruler. The problem with this method is that statues were often reused for building material.
  3. Comparison with coin portraits- coins typically have the name of the ruler inscribed around their image and have been used for many years in Classical archaeology and art history to identify representations. The main issue with this method is that coin portraits are small, they are stamped on the metal of the coin using a die, which can become worn or distorted. Nevertheless this has been the main method of identifying royal and imperial portraits.
  4. Iconography- coins can also be useful when it comes to linking specific symbols with a particular ruler. This is particularly true in regards to Hellenistic rulers (including the Ptolemies).
Egyptianizing wall painting.
Figure 4 House of the Orchard, Pompeii. Egyptianizing wall painting.

It’s not always that simple…

The problem is that wealthy Romans who commissioned portraits of themselves were often shown with a likeness of the Emperor and his family. This is why it is essential not to use one of the aforementioned methods of identification but to consider them all. Crucially, royal or imperial status carried specific iconographic features. Hence, the problem with identifying the “portraits” at the start of this post with Cleopatra.

The fundamental issue remains the fact that these images are from private houses and were made after the death of Cleopatra in a foreign country. Over the past week they have been used by some emotively and politically to support the belief that Cleopatra had a pale complexion. Neither of the wall paintings has the appropriate iconography to represent a Hellenistic royal.

There are two motivations to associate these paintings with Cleopatra. The first is to counteract the suggestion that Cleopatra may have been partly of Egyptian ancestry (her mother/grandmother). The second is rooted in the belief that the Ancient Nile Valley population were not indigenous African people. I have written about such responses in a previous post cognitive dissonance. Over the next few blog posts I will be adopting a critical approach to review representations that have been identified as Cleopatra.

References

Herbig, R. (1962). Nugae Pompeianorum: unbekannte Wandmalereien des dritten pompejanischen Stils (Vol. 1). Ernst Wasmuth.

Pugliese Carratelli G. & Baldassarre I. (1990). Pompei : pitture e mosaici. Istituto della enciclopedia italiana.

Walker S. & Higgs P. (2001). Cleopatra of Egypt : from history to myth. British Museum; Princeton University Press.

Gatekeeping Virtual Kemet

Background to the project

Screenshot of the virtual gallery site

In 2016 I wrote a blog post sharing a resource that I had worked on during my time as a museum curator at the Fitzwilliam Museum, which is part of the University of Cambridge. The idea for the virtual version of the Egyptian galleries came from a project that was based in English prisons. With the support of the Museum I applied for funding to provide resources for the public and for those who were incarcerated (the final version was saved in a format that could also be shared with prison education departments).

Virtual Kemet was the first of a number of African centred digital projects that I worked on during my 13 years at the museum. Others included photographic exhibitions on Nubian culture, temples in Egypt and Nubia, and the Origins of the Afro Comb project. Over the years many community members have contacted me to say how they found these resources useful for family learning, teaching, and (for some of those who were incarcerated) self-reflection. I was therefore surprised when people started contacting me saying that they could not longer access materials. Initially this related to the Origins of the Afro Comb Project web pages, which had be transferred from an external site to the museum’s pages. When members of the public tweeted to inform the museum, it responded by salvaging as much of the site as possible, this included museum objects but excluded all of the community stories that were meant to be archived as part of the project’s legacy. A search (below) on the website shows that none of the pages can be found.

Screenshot of a search result accessed 27/06/2022

Who controls access to knowledge and culture?

The longevity of digital cultural materials has long been recognised as a problem within museum and archive research. Funding often only covers the initial site and content formation and so subsequent maintenance relies on institutions to either apply for further external funding or to use core funds to finance continued access. There are, however, additional factors that need to be considered in regard to the allocation of funds to past projects. First, if the original curator is no longer at the institution it is less likely to receive the same attention or focus as work that is supported by a current member of staff. That is unless the institution is invested in the research and work. Directors, curators, and researchers alike will be more invested in their own research and exhibitions. Second, in institutions where the relevant community’s voice is unrepresented, culturally specific projects are less likely to be prioritised. Whereas there is little that can be done to change the outcome of the first point because it relates to the psychology of individuals. The second observation can the extent to which an institution is willing to decolonise the presentation of its collections. Both positions award cultural institutions a degree of power and control.

The case of virtual Kemet

When I realised that all of the resources were missing I contacted the museum. As noted, part of the Origins of the Afro comb site had been retrieved and made accessible. I was told that the Virtual Kemet site was no longer compatible and so it had been removed. Regarding the community comb stories and the other project sites, their content has apparently been lost. Fortunately, I retained copies and I have offered them to the museum. However, I was told that this could not be processed internally and would require a commitment of funding. My enquiry was immediately acknowledged by the member of the senior management team who I approached, but was ignored by the relevant second Deputy Director. Several months on from this conversation, the material remains inaccessible. The research for these resources was funded from external sources such as The Heritage Lottery, The British Academy, Arts Council England, Arts and Humanities Research Council, The Lankelly Chase Trust, The J.P. Getty Trust. It is fair to say that the focus on community engagement and outreach to vulnerable communities that I successfully undertook between 2003 and 2015 (with the support of the museum’s education team) brought kudos to the museum and University, as recognised by their promotion of my research at the time. The case of virtual Kemet raises important questions relating to how communities access their cultural heritage and whether museums actively and comprehensively decolonise the presentation of their collections.

In 2020 University of Cambridge Museums publicly declared their commitment to decolonising their collections writing:

“We stand in solidarity with Black Lives Matter, with our Black friends, colleagues and visitors. As museums, we haven’t always been there. We should provide respectful spaces for everyone to be heard, share learning, and enjoy. But our collections were founded on and exist within unequal power structures. Without addressing this, we will continue to entrench that inequality.”

The declaration notes that “there is a long way for us to go. We are absolutely committed to going the distance”.

So this raises the question of whether Kemet is not viewed as a valid part of this process. The progress of decolonising this particular part of their collections was well under way long before 2020. It seems not only to have stalled but, for the most part, now been lost. Tackling colonial legacies and institutional racism takes more than a statement. It requires long term commitment and strategies to ensure that people can access their cultural heritage on their own terms and with the broadest possible scope.

Framing Cleopatra

The announcement in mid-October that Gal Gadot would play the last Cleopatra in a new film provoked responses of whitewashing and reports of a ‘backlash’ in both social and the mainstream media. There were those who commended the casting and those who found it inappropriate for two key reasons. The first objection related to Gadot’s nationality. Social media commentators felt that it was insensitive to cast as Israeli national as the ruler of an Arab nation (I will come back to this in due course). Second, was the question of Cleopatra’s racialized identity and the possibility that her mother and grandmother were indigenous Egyptians rather than Greeks. 

The issues with the casting therefore relate to Cleopatra’s ethnicized and racialized identities. I was interested to see if the responses (academic and general) could be categorised into frameworks in order to see which approach offered the most appropriate and inclusive response. 

Response categories 

Classical

The Classicist (used here to describe the adopted approach irrespective of training) responds by describing Cleopatra as a Macedonian Greek. This effectively restricts both identities to European and Hellenistic Greek. 

Historical

The Historian (used here to describe the adopted approach irrespective of training) uses texts to effectively remain impartial whilst acknowledging that there are questions relating to the identities of her mother/grandmother. The typical response is that we will likely never know what she looked like (or her racialised identity). This approach does not consider Cleopatra’s ethnicized identity. 

Egyptological

The Egyptologist (used here to describe the adopted approach irrespective of training) can situate the evidence of Egyptian material culture within a traditional framework. However, given the wider debate around the racialized identity of the people of ancient Kemet, the approach is largely concerned with Cleopatra’s ethicized identity. The Egyptological approach is essential because without understanding how Cleopatra was presented in her home country, it is impossible to fully understand her image overseas.   

Archaeological

The Archaeologist (used here to describe the adopted approach irrespective of training) has the ability to expand upon both identities through studying the material culture from Egypt and overseas. This approach can include the identification of human remains, which could answer the question of Cleopatra’s racialized identity. We do not know where the ruler was buried. However, the remains of (what is assumed to be) her sister in a tomb at Ephesus have supported that some members of the family were of mixed African and European ancestry. 

Model showing a hierarchy of approaches

Critical approaches

Two dominant critical approaches have also emerged from the recent responses to the announcement of the new film. The first seeks to decolonize more generally and it has been suggested that an actor of Arab descent should play the role of Cleopatra. A fundamental issue with this association of course is, as I have noted, that Cleopatra ruled in Egypt long before the Arab settlement in North Africa. If the maternal side of her family were indigenous women this should be reflected in any contemporary representations of Cleopatra. This brings me to the second approach, which is to consider the ethnicity of Cleopatra within an African centred context. The evidence from Egyptian archaeology and material culture supports this as a valid option; Cleopatra was only presented according to Egyptian (Kemite) traditions. This included her representation at the Temple of Isis in Alexandria (seen as a Hellenistic city), where she and her son are depicted in Egyptian-style statues.  

And the film?

Cleopatra (VII’s) father was referred to as nothos (illegitimate) and the identity of her mother has been questioned by historians. It has been suggested that both women may have been Egyptian and so African. With this in mind, at the very least, the film makers should have considered an actor of mixed ancestry to play the role of Cleopatra, and that this would have been a valid choice. Many institutions and industries are finally recognising the importance of correctly acknowledging the presence and achievements of people of African heritage. This would have been a perfect opportunity for the Film Industry to promote Cleopatra’s position as an African ruler of dual ancestry.  

Guest Post by Dr Vanessa Davies: Egyptology and Africana studies

Dr Vanessa Davies is the founding organizer of a new initiative named The Nile Valley Collective , here she shares her research and thoughts on the divide between Egyptology and Africana Studies.

There needs to be a marriage between Egyptology and Africana studies

In the US, there is a divide within the university system between white Egyptology and Africana studies. By white Egyptology, I mean the Egyptology programs in the US, which are largely staffed by white people, whose research questions and interests trickle into mainstream popular culture via television shows. I use this phrase “white Egyptology” out of respect for the people who work on Egypt and Nubia through the lens of Africana studies. In the US, most scholars of Egyptology are white. Most scholars of Africana studies are Black. This racial and scholarly divide reflects unstated or understated racisms that have underpinned white Egyptology since its inception in the US as part of the university curriculum. This divide must be bridged.Egyptology as a research discipline was established by white European, and later American, scholars to address the questions and perspectives that interested white audiences, scholarly and popular. The two earliest professors of Egyptology in the US, both white men, received their appointments at the turn of the twentieth century. Their graduate education in Germany and in the US was rooted in Semitic languages and cultures and followed Eurocentric interests of that time in looking for connections between ancient Egypt and the stories in the Bible. They separated Egypt from Africa.

As time went on, scholars of African descent studied Egyptology and engaged with white Egyptologists: W. E. B. Du Bois, Leo Hansberry, Cheikh Anta Diop, and Theophile Obenga, just to name a few. These scholars brought new perspectives and new research questions to white Egyptology. But they were ignored or pushed away from it. 

Spurred by the civil rights movement, universities in the US began establishing departments in the 1960s and ‘70s that were dedicated to the history and culture of Africa and the African diaspora. The establishment of those departments was vital to correct the false and dehumanizing claim prevalent in the US that Africa had no history and that by extension African-Americans and Africans elsewhere in the world did not share in the human experience of history.

With a few exceptions, as Africana studies grew and flourished, it did so largely without contact with white Egyptology. White Egyptology, as it moved from solely a graduate program to being a small part of the undergraduate curriculum, did so largely without contact with Africana studies.

This unfortunate divide reflects the longstanding and incorrect separation of ancient Egyptian culture, and to a lesser extent ancient Nubian culture, from its African context. White Egyptology programs in the US are typically found in departments centered on the Near East (the term denoting the ancient cultures of Mesopotamia, the Levant, and related zones).

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, most white Egyptologists had no knowledge of the other ancient cultures in Africa. Their ignorance about the wider cultural context of Africa and about connections between Nile Valley and other African cultures has largely been perpetuated with each subsequent generation of Egyptologists.

I received my Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. Besides one class on ancient Nubia and one on art historical theory, all my coursework was focused on Egypt. For language study, one could take Egyptian and Near Eastern languages, such as Akkadian or Sumerian, or Arabic, but there were no offerings on other ancient languages of Africa, such as Berber or Meroitic.

Imagine the fruitful work that white and Black Egyptologists could do if they were placed within Africana studies departments. Imagine the dialogue that could take place about ancient African cultures, the explorations of the widespread reception of ancient Egypt and Nubia in myriad cultural expressions over the decades.

W. E. B. Du Bois understood the race divide in academic pursuits (Davies, 2020). He wrote the histories of African people because he knew that to omit them is “scientifically unsound and also dangerous for logical social conclusions.”(Du Bois, 1946: vii):  Yet, despite the fact that he read widely on Egyptology and published on Nile River Valley history, he wrote this disclaimer in his 1939 preface to Black Folk, Then and Now, “I am no Egyptologist. That goes without saying.” He then proceeded to describe exactly what ideas and which Egyptologists he disputes. A few years later, when he published The World and Africa, his description of the Egyptologists he engages with reads like a who’s who of the field at that time. At what point does Du Bois “get” to become an Egyptologist? The same question must be asked about Leo Hansberry, the African-American professor never recognized by white Egyptology, whom Du Bois described as “the one modern scholar who has tried to study the Negro in Egypt and Ethiopia [i.e., Sudan]”(Du Bois, 1946: x).

The divide between white Egyptology and Africana studies must be bridged to open up Egyptology and to make it more inclusive. Going forward, Egyptologists must be better versed in other ancient cultures of Africa, must dialogue with communities of color, must understand the questions and viewpoints that abound in Africana studies, and must respect the reception of these ancient cultures by people of African descent today.

The divide between white Egyptology and Africana studies perpetuates the separation of Egypt from the rest of Africa. It privileges the people in Egyptology programs as “qualified” to speak about Egypt and, from the perspective of Egyptology, confers the opposite on people in Africana studies. That divide separated Du Bois, Hansberry, and other scholars from white Egyptology. We must not maintain that racist, divisive system.


References

Davies, Vanessa. “Egyptological Conversations on Race and Science.” Rockefeller Archive Center Research Reports, 2018. https://rockarch.issuelab.org/resource/egyptological-conversations-about-race-and-science.html. 

Davies, Vanessa. “W. E. B. Du Bois, a new voice in Egyptology’s disciplinary history / W. E. B. Du Bois, une nouvelle voix dans l’histoire de l’égyptologie.” ANKH: Revue d’égyptologie et des civilisations africaines 28/29: 2020.

Du Bois, W. E. B. The World and Africa. [1946] 2015.

Du Bois, W. E. B. The World and Africa. [1946] 2015.

Time for Egyptology to stop deciding who’s Black and who’s not

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