There is probably no greater recognition than to have fossils named after you. Two fossil primates have been given this honor: Kamoyapithecus hamiltoni and Cercopithecoides kimeui. Today, it is still relatively rare to find paleontologists who live in the field. Of course, Louis and Mary Leakey were examples of two people who introduced Kimeu to this life, and now Meave and Louise Leakey carry on that tradition.
Kamoya Kimeu (right), partner of Richard Leakey (left) for two decades, turns up facial bones of a fossil Homo erectus under a thorn tree on the western shore of Kenya’s Lake Turkana. Photo by David L. Brill 1985, National Geographic Society, From The Leakey Foundation Archive
Kamoya Kimeu, is one of the world’s most successful fossil collectors who, together with paleontologists Meave Leakey and Richard Leakey, is responsible for some of the most significant paleoanthropological discoveries. Kimeu found a Homo habilis skull known as KNM-ER 1813, an almost complete Homo erectus skeleton named KNM-WT 15000 or Turkana Boy (also known as Nariokotome boy), and in 1964 the jaw of a Paranthropus boisei skull known as the Peninj Mandible.
Kimeu began to work in paleoanthropology as a laborer for Louis Leakey and Mary Leakey in the 1950s. In 1963, he joined with Richard Leakey’s expeditions, accompanying him to the Omo River and Lake Rudolf (now Lake Turkana) in 1967. He quickly became Richard Leakey’s right-hand man, assuming control of field operations in Leakey’s absence. In 1977 he became the National Museums of Kenya’s curator for all prehistoric sites in Kenya. Kimeu was presented the National Geographic Society’s LaGorce Medal by the U.S. President Ronald Reagan in a ceremony at the White House
Turkana Boy, also called Nariokotome Boy, is the name given to fossil KNM-WT 15000,a nearly complete skeleton of a Homo ergaster (alternatively referred to as African Homo erectus) youth who lived at c. 1.5 to 1.6 million years ago. This specimen is the most complete early human skeleton ever found. It was discovered in 1984 by Kamoya Kimeu on the bank of the Nariokotome River near Lake Turkana in Kenya. Estimates of the individual’s age at death range from 7 to 11 years old. Kamoya Kimeu, is one of the world’s most successful fossil collectors who, together with paleontologists Meave Leakey and Richard Leakey, is responsible for some of the most significant paleoanthropological discoveries.
The ‘Turkana Boy’ skeleton has allowed scientists to find out a lot of information about body size, body shape, and growth rates of Homo erectus. This skeleton is 40% complete, based on the principle that bones from one side of the body can tell what the same bone from the other side looked like even if it’s missing. His pelvis shows he was male. His second molars had erupted, but not his third (the wisdom teeth), indicating he was not an adult. The microscopic structure of his teeth tells us how quickly his teeth grew – and thus his age: eight or nine years old. He was 1.6 m (5 ft 3 in) tall and weighed 48 kg (106 lb) when he died; if he had reached adulthood, he might have grown only a little bit taller. Turkana Boy’s cranial capacity at death was 880 cubic centimeters, but scientists estimate it would have reached 909 cubic centimeters if he had grown into adulthood.
His vertebrae, which form the spine, were diseased, causing a subtle curvature and probably slow movement. This may have contributed to the his death, although his cause of death at such a young age is unknown. Although he had a disability which hindered his movement, his body shows long legs and narrow shoulders typical of humans who live in hot, dry climate today. These long legs helped Homo erectus walk and possibly run long distances. Homo erectus is the first known species to spread widely within Africa and throughout Asia.
The Turkana Boy’s species made and used stone tools. The tools known from 1.6 million years ago in the Turkana Basin included simple stone cores and flakes but also large cutting tools such as hand axes.
Timbuktu is a city in the Western African country of Mali, historically important as a trading post on the trans-Saharan caravan route and as a center of Islamic culture (c. 1400–1600). It is located on the southern edge of the Sahara, about 8 miles (13 km) north of the Niger River. The city was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1988. In 2012, in response to armed conflict in the region, Timbuktu was added to the UNESCO List of World Heritage in Danger.
The Great Mosque of Djenné in Timbuktu
Timbuktu was founded about 1100 CE as a seasonal camp by Tuareg nomads. There are several stories concerning the derivation of the city’s name. According to one tradition, Timbuktu was named for an old woman left to oversee the camp while the Tuareg roamed the Sahara. Her name (variously given as Tomboutou, Timbuktu, or Buctoo) meant “mother with a large navel,” possibly describing an umbilical hernia or other such physical malady. Timbuktu’s location at the meeting point of desert and water made it an ideal trading centre. In the late 13th or early 14th century it was incorporated into the Mali empire.
After his return from Mecca, Mansa Musa began to revitalize cities in his kingdom. He built mosques and large public buildings in cities like Gao and, most famously, Timbuktu. Timbuktu became a major Islamic university center during the 14th century due to Mansa Musa’s developments. Mansa Musa brought architects and scholars from across the Islamic world into his kingdom, and the reputation of the Mali kingdom grew. The kingdom of Mali reached its greatest extent around the same time, a bustling, wealthy kingdom thanks to Mansa Musa’s expansion and administration.
Mansa Musa
The wealth and very existence of Timbuktu depended on its position as the southern terminus of an important trans-Saharan trade route; nowadays, the only goods that are routinely transported across the desert are slabs of rock salt brought from the Taoudenni Mining Centre in the central Sahara 664 km (413 mi) north of Timbuktu. Until the second half of the 20th century most of the slabs were transported by large salt caravans or azalai, one leaving Timbuktu in early November and the other in late March.
Azalai Caravans
The caravans of several thousand camels took three weeks each way, transporting food to the miners and returning with each camel loaded with four or five 30 kg (66 lb) slabs of salt. The salt transport was largely controlled by the desert nomads of the Arabic-speaking Berabich (or Barabish) tribe. Although there are no roads, the slabs of salt are now usually transported from Taoudenni by truck. From Timbuktu the salt is transported by boat to other towns in Mali. Between the 12th and 14th centuries, Timbuktu’s population grew immensely due to an influx of Bono, Tuaregs, Fulanis, and Songhais seeking trade, security, or to study. By 1300, the population increased to 10,000 and continued increasing until it reached about 50,000 in the 1500s.
Taoudenni Salt mine
The University of Timbuktu was unlike the modern university in that there was no central organization or formal course of study. Instead, there were several independent schools, each having its own principal instructor. Students chose their teachers, and instruction took place in mosque courtyards or private residences. The primary focus was on study of the Quran and Islamic subjects, but academic subjects were also taught, such as “medicine and surgery, anatomy, botany, evolution, physiology and zoology, astronomy, anthropology, cartography, geodesy, geology, mathematics, physics, chemistry, philosophy, language and linguistics, geography, history, as well as art. Teachers associated with the Sankore mosque and the mosque itself were especially respected for learning. It boasted up to 25,000 students out of a total city population of 100,000. Noted scholars associated with the institution include:
Mohammed Bagayogo (1523-1593), associated with the Sankore masajid
Ahmad Baba al Massufi (1556-1627), a student of Mohammed Bagayogo and the author of more than 40 books; deported to Morocco in 1594
The University of Timbuktu
Timbuktu remains a pillar in Ancient African studies and it’s mistique and heritage keeps it’s flag flying high.
The founding of Mombasa is associated with two rulers: Mwana Mkisi and Shehe Mvita. According to legend, Mwana Mkisi is the original ancestor of Mombasa’s oldest lineages within Thenashara Taifa (or Twelve Nations). Families associated with the Twelve Nations are still considered the original inhabitants of the city. Mwana Mkisi was a queen from the pre-Islamic era, who founded Kongowea, the original urban settlement on Mombasa Island. Importantly, both of these names have linguistic and spiritual connections with Central Africa. “Mkisi” is considered the personification of “ukisi” which means “the holy” in kiKongo.
Below is a video of this forgotten Queen and her role in establishing Mombasa.
That Cleopatra was an African queen is certain—Egypt is, after all, in Africa—but was Cleopatra black?
Cleopatra VII is usually just known as Cleopatra, though she was the seventh royal Egyptian ruler to bear the name Cleopatra. She was the last of the Ptolemy dynasty to rule Egypt. She, like many other Ptolemy rulers, first married one brother and then, on his death, another. When her third husband, Julius Caesar, took Cleopatra back to Rome with him, she certainly caused a sensation. But did the color of her skin have anything to do with the controversy? There’s no record of any reaction to the color of her skin. In what’s called the “argument from silence,” many conclude from that silence that she did not have dark-colored skin. But an “argument from silence” only indicates possibility, not certainty, especially because we have little record of the motivation for those reactions.
Sample image of what Queen Cleopatra could have looked like
Depictions of Cleopatra in Popular Culture
Shakespeare uses the word “tawny” about Cleopatra—but Shakespeare wasn’t exactly an eyewitness, missing meeting Egypt’s last Pharaoh by more than a millennium. In some Renaissance art, Cleopatra is portrayed as dark-skinned, a “negress” in the terminology of that time. But those artists were also not eyewitnesses, and their artistic interpretation may have been based on trying to depict Cleopatra’s “otherness,” or their own assumptions or conclusions about Africa and Egypt.
Side by side comparisons of different skin hues of the Egyptian Queen.
In modern depictions, Cleopatra has been played by white actresses including Vivien Leigh, Claudette Colbert, and Elizabeth Taylor. But the writers of those movies were, of course, also not eyewitnesses, nor are these casting decisions in any sense credible evidence. However, seeing these actresses in these roles may subtly influence what assumptions people have about what Cleopatra really looked like.
Elizabeth Taylor playing Cleopatra
Are Egyptians Black?
Europeans and Americans became quite focused on the racial classification of Egyptians in the 19th century. While scientists and most scholars have by now concluded that race is not the static biological category that 19th century thinkers assumed, many of the theories around whether the Egyptians were a “black race” assume race is a biological category, not a social construction. It is during the 19th century that attempts to classify the Egyptians into what were assumed to be the key races were common. Whether other people of nearby lands—Jews and Arabs, for example—were “white” or “Caucasians” rather than “Negroid” was also part of this argument. Some argued for a separate “brown race” or “Mediterranean race.”
Face Sketches of Cleopatra
Some scholars (notably Cheikh Anta Diop, a Pan-Africanist from Senegal) have argued for a sub-Saharan black African heritage of the Egyptians. Their conclusions are based on such arguments as the Biblical name Ham and the naming of Egypt as “kmt” or “the black land.” Other scholars point out that the association of the Biblical figure of Ham with dark-skinned sub-Saharan Africans, or a black race, is relatively recent in history, and that “the black land” name for Egypt has long been held to be about the black soil that is part of the phenomenon of Nile flooding.
Cheikh Anta Diop, a Pan-Africanist from Senegal
The most commonly accepted theory, outside the Black Egyptian theory of Diop and others, is what’s known as the Dynastic Race Theory, developed out of research in the 20th century. In this theory, the indigenous people of Egypt, Badarian people, were invaded and overrun by Mesopotamian people, early in Egypt’s history. The Mesopotamian people became the rulers of the state, for most of the dynasties of Egypt.
Was Cleopatra Egyptian?
If Cleopatra was Egyptian in heritage, if she was descended from native Egyptians, then the heritage of Egyptians in general is relevant to the question of whether Cleopatra was black. If Cleopatra’s heritage was not Egyptian, then the arguments about whether Egyptians were black are irrelevant to her own blackness.
What Do We Know About Cleopatra’s Ancestry?
The Ptolemy dynasty, of which Cleopatra was the last ruler, was descended from a Greek Macedonian named Ptolemy Soter. That first Ptolemy was established as ruler of Egypt by Alexander the Great’s conquest of Egypt in 305 B.C.E. In other words, the Ptolemies were imperialist outsiders, Greeks, who ruled over native Egyptians. Many of the Ptolemy ruling family marriages were incestuous, with brothers marrying sisters, but not all the children born in the Ptolemy line and who are ancestors of Cleopatra VII are known to have had both father and mother who were Ptolemies.
Ptolemy Soter
Here is the key evidence in this argument: We are not certain of the heritage of Cleopatra’s mother or her paternal grandmother. We just don’t know for sure who those women were. Historical records are not conclusive of what their ancestry is or what land they come from. That leaves 50% to 75% of Cleopatra’s ancestry and genetic heritage unknown—and ripe for speculation.
Is there any evidence that either her mother or paternal grandmother was a black African? No.
Is there any evidence that either of those women were not black Africans? No, again.
There are theories and speculation, based on sparse evidence, but no certainty where either of these women came from or what might be, in nineteenth century terms, their racial heritage.
Who Was Cleopatra’s Father?
The father of Cleopatra VII was Ptolemy XII Auletes, son of Ptolemy IX. Through his male line, Cleopatra VII was of Macedonian Greek descent. But we know that heritage is also from mothers. Who was his mother and who was the mother of his daughter Cleopatra VII, the last Pharaoh of Egypt?
Ptolemy XII Auletes,
Standard Genealogy of Cleopatra VII
In one standard genealogy of Cleopatra VII, questioned by some scholars, Cleopatra VII’s parents are Ptolemy XII and Cleopatra V, both children of Ptolemy IX. Ptolemy XII’s mother is Cleopatra IV and Cleopatra V’s mother is Cleopatra Selene I, both full sisters of their husband, Ptolemy IX. In this scenario, Cleopatra VII’s great-grandparents are Ptolemy VIII and Cleopatra III. Those two are full siblings, children of Ptolemy VI of Egypt and Cleopatra II, who are also full siblings—with still more intermarriages of full siblings back to the first Ptolemy. In this scenario, Cleopatra VII has Macedonian Greek heritage, with little contribution from any other heritage for generations. (The numbers are an addition from later scholars, not present in the lifetimes of these rulers, and may obscure some ambiguities in the records.)
Ptolemy XII at the Temple of Kom Ombo
In another standard genealogy, Ptolemy XII’s mother is a Greek concubine and Cleopatra V’s mother is Cleopatra IV, not Cleopatra Selene I. Cleopatra VI’s parents are Ptolemy VI and Cleopatra II rather than Ptolemy VIII and Cleopatra III. The ancestry, in other words, is open to interpretation based on how one views the available evidence.
Cleopatra II of Egypt
Cleopatra’s Paternal Grandmother
Some scholars conclude that Cleopatra’s paternal grandmother, mother of Ptolemy XII, was not Cleopatra IV, but was a concubine. That woman’s background has been assumed to be either Alexandrian or Nubian. She may have been ethnically Egyptian, or she may have had a heritage which we’d today call “black.”
Cleopatra IV | Ancient Egyptian art, Cairo
Cleopatra’s Mother Cleopatra V
Cleopatra VII’s mother is usually identified as her father’s sister, Cleopatra V, a royal wife. Mention of Cleopatra Tryphaena, or Cleopatra V, disappear from the record around the time that Cleopatra VII was born. Cleopatra V, while often identified as a younger daughter of Ptolemy VIII and Cleopatra III, may not have been the daughter of a royal wife. If this scenario is accurate, Cleopatra VII’s maternal grandmother may be another Ptolemy relative or someone unknown, perhaps of a concubine of Egyptian or Semitic African or black African background. Cleopatra V, if she died before Cleopatra VII was born, would not be her mother. In that case, Cleopatra VII’s mother would likely have been either a Ptolemy relative, or, again, someone unknown, who might have been of Egyptian, Semitic African, or black African heritage. The record is simply not conclusive as to the ancestry of either Cleopatra VII’s mother or maternal grandmother. The women may have been Ptolemies, or they may have been of either black African or Semitic African heritage.
Cleopatra V
Race: What Is It and What Was It in Antiquity?
Complicating such discussions is the fact that race itself is a complex issue, with unclear definitions. Race is a social construct, rather than a biological reality. In the classical world, difference was more about one’s national heritage and homeland, rather than something we’d today call race. There’s certainly evidence that Egyptians defined as “other” and “less” those who were not Egyptians. Did skin color play a part in identifying “other” at the time, or did Egyptians believe in the heritability of an “otherness” of skin color? There’s little evidence that skin color was more than a marker of difference, that skin color was conceived of in the way that 18th and 19th century Europeans came to conceive of race.
Cleopatra Spoke Egyptian
We do have early evidence that Cleopatra was the first ruler in her family to actually speak the native Egyptian language, rather than the Greek of the Ptolemies. Such could be evidence for an Egyptian ancestry, and could possibly but not necessarily include black African ancestry. The language she spoke doesn’t add or subtract any real weight from an argument about black African ancestry. She might have learned the language for political reasons or just from exposure to servants and an ability to pick up language.
Evidence Against a Black Cleopatra: Incomplete
Perhaps the strongest evidence cited against Cleopatra having black ancestry is that the Ptolemy family was quite xenophobic—against “outsiders” including the native Egyptians they ruled for about 300 years. This was more as a continuation of Egyptian custom among rulers than it was racial prejudice—if daughters married within the family, then loyalty was not divided. But it’s not likely that those 300 years passed with only “pure” heritage—and, in fact, we can be skeptical that either Cleopatra’s mother and father had mothers who were of “pure” Macedonian Greek ancestry.
Xenophobia could also account for active cover-up or simply omitting mention of any other ancestry than Macedonian Greek.
Evidence for a Black Cleopatra: Flawed
Unfortunately, the modern proponents of the “Black Cleopatra” theory—starting with J. A. Rogers in World’s Great Men of Color in the 1940s—have made other obvious errors in defending the thesis (Rogers is confused about who Cleopatra’s father was, for instance). They make other claims (like that Cleopatra’s brother, whom Rogers thinks is her father, had obvious black features) without evidence. Such errors and unsubstantiated claims don’t add strength to their argument.
J. A. Rogers
A BBC documentary, Cleopatra: Portrait of a Killer, looks at a skull which might be from a sister of Cleopatra—or rather, the documentary looks at the reconstruction of a skull, since no actual skull was found in the tomb—to show features which have similarities to both Semitic and Bantu skulls. Their conclusion was that Cleopatra could have had black African ancestry—but that is not conclusive evidence that she did have such ancestry.
Conclusions: More Questions Than Answers
Was Cleopatra black? It’s a complicated question, with no sure answer. It is likely that Cleopatra had ancestry other than pure Macedonian Greek. Was it black African? We don’t know. Can we say for sure it was not? No. Was her skin color very dark? Probably not
Original Article by Lewis, Jone Johnson. “Weighing the Evidence: Was Cleopatra Black?” ThoughtCo, Aug. 27, 2020, thoughtco.com/was-cleopatra-black-biography-3528680.
African Explorer Magazine 