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Endlosschleife Part 2: Mazedonier vs. Griechen

Das ist wie wenn ich sowas posten würde :

Cleopatra was black, Alexander the Great was black and only black people could survive in Ancient Egypt - it's too hot!​

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In my day job I work on some history magazines, and one of my many pleasures is having to "explain" why we "got things wrong" to Holocaust deniers, Irish slavery enthusiasts, Lost Causers, and now Afrocentricists. What we did was illustrate Cleopatra for the cover, but some people weren't happy, because we'd chosen to depict Cleopatra as white. (TBH I'd have preferred her more tanned to head off some of the milder criticism, but whatever - high status Greek women would have stayed out of the sun anyway)
Presented for you enjoyment are the highlights of this whole awful exchange from Facebook, subtly edited for the sake of your attention span.
Why is Cleopatra depicted as a white person?
Great question - thank you for asking. There's a great deal of debate about Cleopatra's heritage, and it's definitely plausible that she could have had some Semitic or sub-Saharan ancestry but that's speculation and we wanted to stick as closely as we could to what we know. The Ptolemiac dynasty were Macedonian (in the Ancient Greek sense, rather than the modern sense) and notoriously insular (and incestuous) interlopers who held themselves apart from their Egyptian subjects. Cleopatra was the first Ptolemiac ruler who could actually speak Egyptian, they were that haughty and aloof!
Contemporary sources aren't hugely helpful in arguing either case. Roman writers saw things in terms of culture rather than race, so even if she had appeared fully Hellenic (and therefore incredibly familiar in language, manners, values etc) they would have happily othered her as an exotic outsider. Contemporary Egyptian art doesn't depict the Ptolemiac Pharaohs in a distinct way from earlier kings - which could be seen as evidence that they were Semitic, but the Ptolemies, for all their superiority, took care to present themselves in the correct manner and ensure that they were seen as "authentically Pharaonic". A good comparison would be Egyptian depictions of Alexander the Great, whose conquest of Egypt put the dynasty in place (Ptolemy was one of his bodyguard).
The extent to which the Ptolemies were a Hellenic culture at the heart of Ancient Egypt is a fascinating one. Essentially Cleopatra was almost certainly of majority Macedonian descent and so we chose to depict her with strong Mediterranean features.
Your problem is that you assume that the Macedonians and Semitics were WHITE WHEN THEY WERE NOT! The evidence is in actual pictures and murals BY THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS OF THEM, DEPICTING THE SEMITES AS A BLACK/BROWN PEOPLE! There is no such thing "Mediterranean features" because modern Mediterranean peoples ARE NOT THE SAME GENETIC PEOPLE AS THE ONES FROM THE TIME PERIOD OF THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS!
It turns out that first question wasn't actually a question in any sense that we would recognise, it was a portal to a dimension of fringe history madness. Anyway:
I didn’t describe Cleopatra as being Semitic, I said there was is a case to be made that she was part-Semitic or part-Sub-Saharan African, but that’s not something we know for certain. We chose to depict Cleopatra with a “Mediterranean” look precisely because of that ambiguity.
The Macedonians WERE NOT WHITE PEOPLE! If you don't believe me, LOOK AT AUTHENTIC PORTRAITS AND MURALS OF THEM! Even REAL PORTRAITS OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT, DEPICT SOMEONE THAT IS BROWN SKINNED AND NON-WHITE! "
I’m assuming the portraits of Alexander the Great you’re referring to are the Alexander mural in Pompeii as that’s dark haired and tanned, although I wouldn’t say that was compelling evidence that he was non-white. If you’re thinking of something else, let me know.
If you can think of any other depictions that could be helping support the "Alexander was a Brother black" narrative, let me know (Edit: Was inappropriate, I'm genuinely sorry for my poor judgement. This is a fraught enough subject without me using the tools of the racist. Thanks to u/probablyaname for calling me out on it.)
Funnily enough, Plutarch (who we go to for much of our knowledge of Alexander) criticised some depictions of him as "too dark and swarthy. Whereas he was of a fair colour, as they say, and his fairness passed into ruddiness on his breast particularly, and in his face.”
Other depictions of Alexander are much paler, including these two Hellenic examples:
The fairness/redness of his hair is interesting too, as Pseudo-Callisthenes identifies him as blonde or tawny ("For he had the hair of a lion”) and Aelian describes him as blonde ("his Hair curled naturally, and was yellow").
Ultimately, I’d like to add a gentle reminder that whiteness and non-whiteness is a modern concept and not something that Alexander the Great or Cleopatra, or any of the chroniclers who wrote about them, would have recognised or been particularly concerned about.
There is no evidence that someone of her complexion could survive the high temperature and high sunlight environment of Ancient Egypt, ergo by that logic SHE HAD TO BE BLACK OR EXTREMELY DARK SKINNED OR NON-WHITE!
I had to re-read this several times, because each time I finished I became instantly convinced I had imagined it. The news that white people cannot survive high temperature and high sunlight environments will be fantastic news for the Indigenous Australians of 1787. Just hang in there guys, they'll be dead in days!
I mean is Egypt some sort of Star Wars like lava-world? Did Napoleon have to wear a special suit? I didn't even know where to start with this one. It's very difficult responding to something that stupid without appearing condescending. Luckily I'm among friends here, right?
If you people are going to make false asinine and fraudulent portraits and pictures depicting A FALSE DUPLICITOUS VERSION OF HISTORY, PLEASE MAKE THAT CLEAR! Because idiocy such as "Mediterranean features" has to BE BACKED BY PHYSICAL GENETIC AND SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE!
Depictions of historical characters don’t “have” to be backed by genetic evidence, because in the vast majority of cases this evidence does not exist. Instead we have to make do with primary and secondary sources, and from that build the best possible interpretation mindful of biases and context.
I didn't add anything about the reconstruction of (what might be) Arsinoe, because my hope of hope is that they'll bring it up later and I can devote a whole reply to saying, effectively:
a) Cleopatra and Arsinoe were half-sisters, so relying on her for Cleopatra's skin colour is flawed b) We don't know for certain that it is Arsinoe, so relying on her for Cleopatra's skin colour is flawed
Let me know if I've erred anywhere, ancient history is not my comfort zone.
 
Lube mode on

MAKEDONEN WAREN SCHWARZ!!!!

Beweis ich hab euch Slawen erwischt, da ihr weiß seid, könnt ihr keine richtigen Makedonen sein

MUCXAXAXAX

Lube modus off
 
Alles nur geklaut!

Man kann dir nicht genug danken,wie engagiert du an die Sache rangehst ist vorbildlich.
Vor allem verwändest du auch die neusten Studien die das alte Wissen komplett widerlegen
Du verteidigst das Erbe Alexanders,als wärst du sein Schild.
Macedonien ist stolz auf Dich

PS
Ignoriere bitte den User Paok, mit dem stimmt irgendetwas nicht :lol:
 
Man kann dir nicht genug danken,wie engagiert du an die Sache rangehst ist vorbildlich.
Vor allem verwändest du auch die neusten Studien die das alte Wissen komplett widerlegen
Du verteidigst das Erbe Alexanders,als wärst du sein Schild.
Macedonien ist stolz auf Dich

PS
Ignoriere bitte den User Paok, mit dem stimmt irgendetwas nicht :lol:


Der merkt des net mal, unterstütze sein Wahn nicht, sonst denkt er Wirklich er wäre eine Mazo-Tempelritter der eine heilige Mission hat.
 
Eure Lügenkonstrukte fallen in sich zusammen. Des wird halt immer mehr Menschen auf der Welt klar.


Das ist die Wahrheit


Die slawischen Mazedonier (mazedonisch Македонци, transl. Makedonci) sind eine südslawische Ethnie. Sie bilden die Mehrheitsbevölkerung und die Titularnation Nordmazedoniens.[2] Die slawischen Mazedonier sind nicht mit den antiken Makedonen zu verwechseln. Teilweise beanspruchten sie eine Verwandtschaft mit ihnen – durch das Prespa-Abkommen wurden, zumindest aus rechtlicher Sicht, derartige Ansprüche aufgegeben –, dies ist aber weder wissenschaftlich belegbar noch aus ethnologischer Sicht nachvollziehbar.[
 
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