I’ve been resisting doing Cleopatra for some time, simply because there aren’t many reliable depictions of her, and most descriptions of her by historians were made after her death. However, I’ve gotten so many requests for her, I wanted to give you all what you’ve been asking for 🥰.
The closest thing we have are Roman busts from the first century BCE, around the time that Cleopatra would have been visiting Rome. I chose to base my recreation off of the Berlin Bust of Cleopatra, which was thought to have been created around 46-44 BCE. I chose this bust because most of the depictions of her include common features - a strong nose, full lips, and small chin. It’s also hard to tell what her skin & hair colors were - most descriptions describe her as dark haired and “honey-skinned”, but some even say she was a redhead. Consider this my “Artist’s Rendition” of a way that she could have possibly looked. Bottom line, Cleopatra was an amazing woman. She was intelligent, witty, spoke several languages, and was incredibly skilled in diplomacy. I really enjoyed learning more about her during research for this recreation! Further Research & Reading about her looks:
Encyclopedia Britannica article on what Cleopatra looked like:
https://www.britannica.com/story/what-did-cleopatra-look-like.Some other reconstructions of Cleopatra:https://mysticalraven.com/art/11764/scientists-reveal-what-cleopatra-really-looked-like.Ancient Egyptian Mummy Genome
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5459999/
Wikipedia entry on the Egyptian Race Controversy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_race_controversy
