What? How can you say that? Well, let’s just say that she was Egyptian because she was born in Egypt but her culture, her parents and her first language came from somewhere else.
Let’s proceed with order.
Source: www.worldatlas.com
Firtst of all, the name Cleopatra was not a common Egyptian name at the time. The name of the most famous woman in ancient history came from another country: Greece.
The name Cleopatra (in Greek: Κλεοπάτρα) has a specific meaning, in fact, it means “glory of the father”. Specifically, the name is a combination of two words: the word kleos (in Greek: κλέος) which means glory and the word patir (in Greek: πατήρ) which means father.
However, since the meaning of the name is glory of the father we need to use the genitive form of πατήρ which is patros (in Greek: πατρός). So “kleos” and “patros” combined gives birth to one of the most famous names in the history of the world.
Source: www.aljazeera.com
Cleopatra, however, was not a new name, at least at the time, because it was quite common for the Ptolemaic dynasty which used to called Cleopatra the queens of Egypt coming from their own family. There have been a few Cleopatras in the world and they all belong to the Ptolemaic dynasty but the ones that became incredibly famous for her extraordinary life was Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator.
Cleopatra was born between 60-70 B.C. and died in 30 B.C. (on the 10th of August) and was queen on the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt from 51 to 30 B.C. As previously mentioned she belonged to the Ptolemaic dynasty, which was a royal family from the Macedonia region of Greece (northeastern Greece).
Ptolemy, the founder of the dynasty, was one of the bodyguards of Alexander the Great and was appointed as “satrap” (which literally translates to “protector of the province”) of Egypt in 323 B.C. after Alexander’s death. Ptolemy appointed himself Pharaoh Ptolemy I in 305 B.C. and despite the Ptolemaic family adopted Egyptian culture, iconography, titles and traditions they preserved the Greek language and culture.
In other words, the people who served the Pharaohs and lived in the great pyramids had to speak Greek and this was the case for several decades because the Ptolemaic was the longest dynasty of ancient Egypt ranging from 30 B.C. until 30 B.C. meaning that Greek culture as well as Greek language remained well-ingrained in Egypt for 275 years.
Source: www.worldhistory.org
Although Cleopatra was ethnically Greek, she embraced many customs of her country and she was also the first of the Ptolemaic dynasty to actually learn the Egyptian language.
Another reason why historians are certain that Cleopatra was Greek from a DNA perspective is that the Ptolemaic dynasty very often married within the family because they wanted to preserve the purity of their blood line (very common practice among royal families at that time). In fact, it’s likely that her parents were brother and sister and the same Cleopatra married both of her brothers.
Source: www.nationalgeographic.com
The most beautiful woman in the ancient world was not just beautiful. Cleopatra was particularly gifted also from an intellectual standpoint, in fact, she spoke 9 languages and studied mathematics, philosophy, astronomy and oratory but there is something else that almost nobody knows…Cleopatra loved to drink, in fact, when she was with Marc Anthony she founded with him probably the first drinking club to exist and called it the “Inimitable Livers”.
The drinking club organized several night parties and wine binges but it also organized probably the first drinking games in the world to which its participants took part. Another popular activity of the “Inimitable Livers” club was to get drunk, wander through the streets of Alexandria and play pranks on random citizens.
Cleopatra certainly knew how to have fun!