Cleopatra, queen of Egypt in the years 51-30 BC, is back in the news thanks to a controversial docudrama series on Netflix called Queen Cleopatra. Much debate has raged about her ethnicity. The queen was of Greek ancestry. In the Netflix series she’s played by a black actress. The fuss has provided an opportunity to look at her role in history and how she has been portrayed over time. Historian Toby Wilkinson is an Egyptologist and author of the award-winning book The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt: the History of a Civilisation from 3000 BC to Cleopatra. We asked him to shed some light on the past.
