What did Cleopatra Look Like? Facial Reconstructions Revealed, with History.

Hey everyone and welcome back to Royalty Now Studios where I reimagine famous figures from the past as modern day people. Today's question is what did Cleopatra look like? Now this is the subject of much debate mostly because of her reputation for being so beguiling a character in history. I want to walk through what we know and we don't know about Cleopatra's appearance as well as of course show some of my modern day recreations of one of her statues. So if you guys have been following me for a while you know that I have two versions of Cleopatra already but I did make a third that is a new version so I'm excited to show that one. I'm crediting my research sources in the description below so if you want to access those for further reading you can go ahead. Also make sure to follow me on instagram at royalty underscore now underscore where I post these images along with their history. So let's start with what we do know about Cleopatra. First of all Cleopatra was mesmerizing. She was someone that could charm absolutely anyone. She threw amazing parties. She knew how to dress to impress and spoke several languages. Her intelligence was really off the charts and this was said to be the most intriguing thing about her. So there is one account by Plutarch saying that her beauty in itself was not altogether incomparable nor such as to strike those who saw her. So that's a really common refrain about her and that's I think why people believe that maybe her physical beauty was not unparalleled but her charm was really immense. But Plutarch also goes on to say and some of these are a little paraphrased. He also said she had already seen for herself the power of her beauty to enchant Julius Caesar and that she was a woman who was conscious of her personal beauty and intensely proud of it. So he is then kind of contradicting himself saying that she did have this immense physical beauty as well. And Dio says for she was a woman of surpassing beauty and at the time when she was in the prime of her youth she was most striking. She also possessed most charming voice and a knowledge of how to make herself agreeable to everyone. So she just had such social and emotional intelligence. What we also know is we know about her basic facial structure and luckily we have a lot of sources. There's a lot of images of Cleopatra that still exist for us today. So Cleopatra had many coins minted in her image that still survive today and they all bear the profile of a woman with a strong aquiline nose, full lips, and a small sloping forehead. They all have this consistency in the way that she's portrayed. Luckily for us Cleopatra visited Rome several times and her likeness was captured by the Roman sculptors. Of course there are many depictions of Cleopatra as well in Egyptian art but Egyptian art really is more symbolic than meant to represent the specific person. However during the late republic when Cleopatra was alive and visiting there when she was with Julius Caesar the Romans liked realistic portraiture. I also mentioned that in my video about the appearance of Octavian Augustus and my other one about Livia his wife. So their statues tried to capture the individual characteristics of a person more like a modern photograph. So even small things like wrinkles and asymmetries were captured and I do believe they're a pretty reliable indicator of Also Cleopatra lived two years in Rome where she was in a relationship with Julius Caesar so her presence was really real there and many people became fascinated by Egyptian culture as a result of her residency. Also she was a very visible public figure and there were many statues of her erected throughout Rome including an alleged giant statue of Cleopatra that Julius Caesar placed in a Roman temple which caused quite the scandal. Cleopatra aligned herself strongly with the goddess Isis so she would even dress as Isis in public at public parties in Rome and Isis is essentially the Egyptian equivalent to the Roman goddess Venus and so there were Roman statues showing her dressed as Venus with a cherub on her shoulder and that was possibly meant to represent her son with Julius Caesar's cesarean. Some other images we have of her are three possible although unconfirmed frescoes of her that are found at Pompeii and they're supposed to be Cleopatra because of the Hellenistic royal diadem that's shown she's wearing this kind of crown that was characteristic of her dynasty as well as this melon hairstyle that she wears in nearly every depiction of her. So two of them also include a baby on her shoulder or a boy standing over her which as I just mentioned could be that cherub or cesarean figure on her shoulder kind of reflecting that Venus imagery that she had in Rome proper. So there are a couple things that we don't know for sure about Cleopatra's appearance and that is her exact ethnic background. Now we do have some pretty good guesses and likelihoods. Cleopatra is from a really solid Macedonian Greek family so basically a bunch of Greeks ruled Egypt for a while during what's known as the Ptolemaic dynasty and they're descended from Ptolemy who was a general and friend of Alexander the Great and they were both Greek. Over the years the Ptolemies became quite inbred and that's because they mostly chose to marry other Macedonian noblewomen and men and as soon as they ran out of those outside Macedonian noblewomen they kind of started marrying their siblings to keep the royal blood in the family. There are also some Persian and Middle Eastern blood in her line as well. The Ptolemies kept pretty clear records of who they married and their children and that's because they were ruling royals so they they tried to record everything that was going on in their dynasty and so most of their ancestry is pretty easily verifiable but there are two blank spaces in Cleopatra's family tree and that's her grandmother and her mother and so these aren't necessarily like the biggest mystery or anything we there are some very strong likelihoods and guesses but it's more just like we've never found the exact record saying this woman was Cleopatra's grandmother and this woman was her mother. Cleopatra's grandmother was allegedly a concubine so her ancestry is unrecorded it's likely that she was Greek just because the Ptolemies loved everything Greek and kept everything really close-knit Greek around them but this is the first blank in her lineage so that could have been anyone that could have been a native Egyptian that could have been a Sub-Saharan African woman that could have been a European woman it's totally unknown and the second blank is Cleopatra's mother. Cleopatra's mother was most likely Queen Cleopatra V Triphaena and that's the recorded queen of Ptolemy who was Cleopatra's father at the time of Cleopatra's birth but as I said there's just no record of it anywhere. Now it would be kind of a big deal if Cleopatra was illegitimate it probably would have been made note of somewhere. Most Romans didn't like Cleopatra at all and they were also not shy when it came to calling people bastards so they probably would have mentioned it so I do think she was probably a legitimate queen of Egypt at that time the daughter of the reigning king and queen. To boil it down only 25% of Cleopatra's ethnic makeup is totally certain and that puts her squarely as a quarter European and some Middle Eastern and I would also consider 50% of her makeup through her presumed mother Cleopatra V to be fairly certain as well just because it makes I just think that the historical likelihood is kind of on the side of that so that would make her 75% European and some Middle Eastern. Now the other 25% is totally unknown as of now and that's from her grandmother who was a concubine. So do we know anything about her hair or eye color? So I'm going to work off the assumption that Cleopatra was 75% Greek and Middle Eastern so based on that it's easy to assume that she had the skin tone of a Greek or Middle Eastern woman and I would say dark hair and eyes but there's actually some evidence to the contrary. So I've made a few depictions of her with dark hair and let's check those out. Something that throws a wrench in our assumptions about Greek women Middle Eastern women having dark hair is that there are a couple of depictions of her with red hair that were made during her lifetime. There's many Greeks that have lighter hair. Alexander the Great himself a very famous Greek had blonder reddish hair and many Mediterranean folks do too. So those three frescoes from Pompeii show Cleopatra with reddish or brownish reddish hair and there's also a small cameo image showing Cleopatra with red hair. So here is my redheaded version. So what did you guys think about these possible versions of Cleopatra? What do you think she was likely to look like? I just think this is such a fascinating mystery and I would love I would be obsessed if they were ever to find her body and able to DNA test it. Thank you guys so much for watching. Please follow me on Instagram at royalty underscore now underscore and I'll see you for the next subject.