The Japablackadonian Queen

 Curriculum was always my strong point when I was working.  About 30 years or so ago a beer company put out some materials on Black Queens of Africa. They included Cleopatra.  When a teacher used the materials in their lessons and a parent protested that Cleopatra was not Black, our Assistant  Superintendent of curriculum discussed it with me.

 I told her that Cleopatra was the last of the Ptolemaic dynasty which began with General Ptolemy seizing  Egypt after his King (Alexander the Great) died. 

In the end our she decided that teaching the issue as a controversy was an acceptable option. Problem solved.

By the way, in all the current controversy as to whether Cleopatra was Black or Macedonian or something else, I have discovered that Cleopatra was actually Japanese.  I can prove this. China and Japan definitely had trade relations at that time. Japan was heavily dependent upon silk from China (then a Chinese monopoly).  Therefore, it is possible that a Japanese man may have been in China as either a trader or on a diplomatic mission.  

He might have brought along his family. That family might have included a preteen daughter. 

We know that the Silk Road was functioning in that era with Rome importing, among other things, silk.

It is further possible that, for some reason, he might have done a reverse Marco Polo, traveling said Silk Road to Rome. 

Theoretically, he might have taken along his young daughter. (Maybe babysitters were hard to find for  years long expeditions.) It is possible that having arrived in Rome, although nobody wrote it down for some unusual reason, he heard about Egypt and decided to pay a visit. It is also possible that his now marriageable age daughter (traveling on the Silk Road was not rapid as very heavy traffic and poor road conditions were the norm) accompanied him to Egypt where a pharaoh (Ptolemy IX ) fell in love with her, took her as a concubine, and she produced a daughter. Said daughter was the mother of Cleopatra VII. (A.k.a., Our Cleopatra.)

Thus it is possible that this was the racially unclear grandmother of Cleopatra.  Since I like this idea, it is true unless you can disprove it, and you can't. Therefore it is true.

(That's logic, that is! And if you deny it you are a racist who hates Japanese people. So there!) 

Further by the way, Cleopatra's grandfather was Ptolemy IX and her father was Ptolemy XII.  What happened the other Ptolemys?

This is known as the Riddle of the Sphinx which terrified Greek people for some reason.