Egypt’s Cleopatra, the last pharaoh, and her hairstyles

This 2014 video is called Cleopatra Full Movie HQ. One of various films in which Cleopatra was played by a non-African actress, controversially, as she was mixed European-African.

From the Google cache of Dear Kitty ModBlog.

Where entries turn up in random order, and where I “save” them, by copying them to Blogsome here [and to WordPress later]:

Egypt: Cleopatra, last pharaoh, and her hairstyles Linking: 7

Date: 3/16/06 at 9:50PM

Mood: Looking Playing: Walk like an Egyptian, by the Bangles

From Discovery Channel:

Cleopatra Worked Her Power Hair

By Jennifer Viegas

March 17, 2006— Egyptian queen Cleopatra used her hairstyles in calculated ways to enhance her power and fame, according to a book published recently by a Yale art history and classics professor.

Statues, coins and other existing depictions of the queen suggest Cleopatra (69-30 B.C.) wore at least three hairstyles, according to Diana Kleiner.

The first, a “traveling” do that mimicked the hair of a Macedonian Greek queen, involved sectioning the hair into curls, which were then often pulled away from the face and gathered into a bun at the back.

The next was a coiffure resembling a melon, and the third was the regal Cleopatra in her royal Egyptian headdress, complete with a rearing cobra made of precious metal.

Cleopatra did not invent any of these styles, but she used them to her advantage, Kleiner indicated in her book “Cleopatra and Rome.”

“From the time of (Egyptian King) Ptolemy I, the Ptolemaic queens wore the ‘melon hairstyle’ with its segmented sections resembling a melon or gourd,” Kleiner told Discovery News.

“When Cleopatra followed suit, she was more traditionalist than trendsetter.

These same Ptolemaic queens were also depicted in art with the usual Egyptian wigged headdress that had its origins in Pharaonic times.

Cleopatra did as well, so again she followed tradition and did not innovate when it came to hair.”

“But,” Kleiner added, “Cleopatra appears to have worn different coiffures in different circumstances, playing to her audience, so to speak, in life and in art.”

Antiquities of Fayoum in Egypt: here.

Egyptian cobra watches over expensive shoes: here.

Related articles

• The Many Hairstyles of Cleopatra

• Maybe Cleopatra Didn’t Commit Suicide (blogs.smithsonianmag.com)
• Murder of the queen (thehindu.com)
• Fashion Philosophy: Cleopatra (collegefashion.net)
• 100 bästa operona – 71 Giulio Cesare av Händel (operakullan.wordpress.com)
• Sunken Egyptian city reveals 1,200-year-old secrets (mannaismayaadventure.com)
• Dendera Zodiac (fionadeal.com)
• Cleopatra’s Bag of Tricks: The Love and sweetness Secrets of Antiquity’s girls (lawjury87.wordpress.com)
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