{"id":34082,"date":"2023-06-10T23:58:00","date_gmt":"2023-06-10T23:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=34082"},"modified":"2023-07-02T07:57:12","modified_gmt":"2023-07-02T07:57:12","slug":"never-mind-cleopatra-what-about-the-forgotten-queens-of-ancient-nubia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/never-mind-cleopatra-what-about-the-forgotten-queens-of-ancient-nubia\/","title":{"rendered":"Never mind Cleopatra \u2013 what about the forgotten queens of ancient\u00a0Nubia?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Yasmin Moll<\/a>, University of Michigan<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jada Pinkett Smith\u2019s new Netflix documentary series on Cleopatra<\/a> aims to spotlight powerful African queens. \u201cWe don\u2019t often get to see or hear stories about Black queens, and that was really important for me, as well as for my daughter, and just for my community to be able to know those stories because there are tons of them,\u201d the Hollywood star and producer told a Netflix interviewer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The show casts a biracial Black British actress as the famed queen, whose race has stirred debate for decades<\/a>. Cleopatra descended from an ancient Greek-Macedonian ruling dynasty known as the Ptolemies, but some speculate that her mother may have been an Indigenous Egyptian. In the trailer, Black classics scholar Shelley Haley<\/a> recalls her grandmother telling her, \u201cI don\u2019t care what they tell you in school, Cleopatra was Black<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These ideas provoked commentary and even outrage in Egypt, Cleopatra\u2019s birthplace. Some of the reactions have been unabashedly racist, mocking the actress\u2019s curly hair and skin color.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Egyptian archaeologists like Monica Hanna<\/a> have criticized this racism. Yet they also caution that projecting modern American racial categories onto Egypt\u2019s ancient past is inaccurate<\/a>. At worst, critics argue, U.S. discussions about Cleopatra\u2019s identity overlook Egyptians entirely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Western media, she is commonly depicted as white \u2013 most famously, perhaps, by screen icon Elizabeth Taylor. Yet claims by American Afrocentrists<\/a> that current-day Egyptians are descendants of \u201cArab invaders\u201d also ignore the complicated histories that characterize this diverse part of the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/a>
A relief depicting the Nubian Kandake Amanitore in the Egyptian Museum in Berlin. Sven-Steffen Arndt\/Wikimedia Commons<\/a>, CC BY-SA<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Some U.S. scholars counter that ultimately what matters is to \u201crecognize Cleopatra as culturally Black<\/a>,\u201d representing a long history of oppressing Black women. Portraying Cleopatra with a Black actress was a \u201cpolitical act,\u201d as the show\u2019s director put it<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ironically, however, the show misses an opportunity to educate both American and Egyptian audiences about the unambiguously Black queens of ancient Nubia, a civilization whose history is intertwined with Egypt\u2019s. As an anthropologist of Egypt who has Nubian heritage<\/a>, I research how the stories of these queens continue to inspire Nubians, who creatively retell them<\/a> for new generations today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The one-eyed queen<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Nubians in modern Egypt once lived mainly along the Nile but lost their villages when the Aswan High Dam was built in the 1960s<\/a>. Today, members of the minority group live alongside other Egyptians all over the country, as well as in a resettlement district<\/a> near the southern city of Aswan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Growing up in Cairo\u2019s Nubian community, we children didn\u2019t hear about Cleopatra, but about Amanirenas: a warrior queen<\/a> who ruled the Kingdom of Kush during the first century B.C.E. Queens in that ancient kingdom, encompassing what is now southern Egypt and northern Sudan, were referred to as \u201ckandake\u201d \u2013 the root of the English name \u201cCandace<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/a>
A comic inspired by the story of Amanirenas. Chris Walker, Creative Director, Lymari Media\/Wikimedia Commons<\/a>, CC BY-SA<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Like Cleopatra<\/a>, Amanirenas knew Roman generals up close. But while Cleopatra romanced them \u2013 strategically \u2013 Amanirenas fought them. She led an army up the Nile about 25 B.C.E. to wage battle against Roman conquerors<\/a> encroaching on her kingdom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My own favorite part of this story of Indigenous struggle against foreign imperialism involves what can only be characterized as a power move. After beating back the invading Romans, Queen Amanirenas brought back the bronze head<\/a> of a statue of the emperor Augustus and had it buried under a temple doorway. Each time they entered the temple, her people could literally walk over a symbol of Roman power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That colorful tidbit illustrates those queens\u2019 determination to defend their autonomy and territory. Amanirenas personally engaged in combat and earned the moniker \u201cthe one-eyed queen<\/a>,\u201d according to an ancient chronicler of the Roman Empire named Strabo. The kandakes were also spiritual leaders and patrons of the arts<\/a>, and they supported the construction of grand monuments and temples, including pyramids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/a>
A pyramid of Kandake Amanitore amid the Nubian pyramids of Meroe. mtcurado\/iStock via Getty Images Plus<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Interwoven cultures and histories<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

When people today say \u201cNubia,\u201d they are often referring to the Kingdom of Kush, one of several empires that emerged in ancient Nubia. Archaeologists have recently started to bring Kush to broader public attention<\/a>, arguing that its achievements deserve as much attention as ancient Egypt\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, those two civilizations are entwined<\/a>. Kushite royals adapted many Egyptian cultural and religious practices to their own ends. What\u2019s more, a Kushite dynasty ruled Egypt itself for close to a century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Contemporary Nubian heritage reflects that historical complexity and richness. While their traditions and languages remain distinctive<\/a>, Nubians have been intermarrying with other communities in Egypt for generations. Nubians like my mother are proudly Egyptian, yet hurtful stereotypes persist<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Two<\/a>
Hafsa Amberkab, right, and Fatma Addar, Nubian Egyptian women who compiled a dictionary, show off a Nubian lexical chart near Aswan in upper Egypt. Khaled Desouki\/AFP via Getty Images<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Today, some Black Americans embrace Cleopatra as a powerful symbol of Black pride. But the idea of ancient Nubia as a powerful African civilization also plays a symbolic role in contemporary Black culture, inspiring images in everything from cosmetics<\/a> to comics<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Egyptian voices<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Researchers do argue about Cleopatra\u2019s heritage. U.S. conversations about her, however, sometimes reveal more about Western racial politics than about Egyptian history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 19th century, for example, Western interest in ancient Egypt took off amid colonization<\/a> \u2013 a fascination called \u201cEgyptomania.\u201d Americans\u2019 fixation with the ancient civilization reflected their own culture\u2019s anxieties about race in the decades after slavery was abolished<\/a>, as scholar Scott Trafton<\/a> has argued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A century later, a 1990s advertisement for a pale-colored doll of queen Nefertiti sparked debate in the U.S. about how to represent<\/a> her race.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nefertiti\u2019s bust \u2013 one of the most famous artifacts from ancient Egypt \u2013 is on display at a German museum<\/a>. Egypt has called for the artifact\u2019s return<\/a> for close to a hundred years, to no avail. Even Hitler took a personal interest in the bust<\/a>, declaring that he \u201cwill not renounce the queen\u2019s head,\u201d according to archaeologist Joyce Tyldesley<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/a>
The famed and fought-over bust of Queen Nefertiti. Francis G. Mayer\/Corbis\/VCG via Getty Images<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Even today, contemporary Egyptian perspectives are almost absent in Western depictions of ancient Egypt. Only one Egyptian scholar is interviewed in the new Netflix series\u2019 four episodes, as he himself notes<\/a>, and he is employed not by an Egyptian university, but by a British one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For many Egyptians, this lack of representation rehashes troubling colonial dynamics about who is considered an \u201cexpert\u201d about their past. The Netflix series \u201cwas made and produced without the involvement of the owners of this history,\u201d argues the Egyptian journalist Sara Khorshed in a review of the series<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be sure, there is anti-Black bias in Egyptian culture<\/a>, and some of the social media reaction has been slur-filled and racist. Educating people about the stories of Nubian queens like Amarinenas<\/a> might be a way to encourage a more inclusive understanding of who is Egyptian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet I believe Egyptians\u2019 frustrations about portrayals of Cleopatra also reflect long-standing concerns that their own understandings of their past are not taken seriously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That includes Black Egyptians, like my mother. When I asked her if she planned to see the Cleopatra series, she shrugged. She already knows that queen\u2019s story well from its many portrayals on screen, whether in Hollywood films<\/a> or Egyptian ones<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI will wait for the series on Amanirenas,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yasmin Moll<\/a>, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, University of Michigan<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yasmin Moll, University of Michigan Jada Pinkett Smith\u2019s new Netflix documentary series on Cleopatra aims to spotlight powerful African queens. \u201cWe don\u2019t often get to see or hear stories about Black queens, and that was really important for me, as well as for my daughter, and just for my community to be able to know […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":34083,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[293,8025],"tags":[1198,2346,14204,7218,3386,308,14203,587,498,14205,6610,536],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34082"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34082"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34082\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34310,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34082\/revisions\/34310"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}