Netflix launched the trailer for its documentary film “Queen Cleopatra”, directed by Jada Pinkett Smith, wife of the famous US star Will Smith, depicting Queen Cleopatra as a black woman, which former Egyptian Antiquities Minister Zahi Hawass described as “falsifying facts.”
The trailer was released by Netflix on Thursday.
The film will start showing on the platform officially on May 10, where actress Adele James will play the role of the Queen.
Queen Cleopatra, the last ruler of the Ptolemaic dynasty, was born in 69 BC and died in 30 BC in Alexandria.
Hawass commented on the movie, which sparked public criticism in Egypt for portraying the Ptolemaic Queen as black-skinned, saying: “This is completely fake.
Cleopatra was Greek, meaning that she was blonde, not black.”
Hawass added that in recent years a trend emerged, led by black Americans and blacks in South America, claiming that the Egyptian civilization is of black origin.
He stressed that such claims were completely false.
The black civilization has no connection with the Egyptian civilization, Hawass said, pointing out that the black civilization did not rule Egypt except in the twenty-fifth dynasty during the era of the Kingdom of Kush, i.e. at the end of the ancient Egyptian civilization.
Hawass pointed out that Egyptian temples contain drawings of Egyptian kings. These sketches are depictions of men striking their enemies.
The enemies are depicted as either African, Nubian, Libyan or Asian, and all of them look very different in nationality from the Egyptian kings.
“Netflix is trying to stir up confusion to spread false information that the origin of Egyptian civilization is black,” Hawass continued.
Hawass is calling to take a stand against Netflix platform.
