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What's The Most Outrageous Conspiracy Theory You Have Heard?

Xanatic* said:
Are there any contemporary accounts mentioning Cleopatra being beautiful? I got the impression that was just a later invention.
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Suspect if you’re running the country then it doesn’t matter what you actually look like, you will be considered to be pretty damn irresistible?
 
Modern historians called Cleopatra as less than pretty, but agreed Cleopatra was the master of masters in the art of female seduction and love.

I don’t know how, but same historians said she was probably 5 feet with flaming red hair.

Red hair ?
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
The Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt, which was the longest and best-documented ancient Egyptian dynasty and included the iconic Cleopatra, was basically Greek.
The statue of Ptolemy II, with its nose intact, looks decidedly Mediterranean.

View attachment 55721

As for Cleo herself, this "woman of unsurpassed beauty" would probably have had classic Greek looks too, although her depiction on Roman coins, usually depict her with quite an elongated beaky (Roman?) nose and not quite the Elizabeth Tayloresque stunner we have come to accept as the architype:

View attachment 55722
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Yes, the latter Pharoahs were Greeks.

The earlier ones were a mixture.

Here is Huni who reigned four and half thousand years ago.
Very non-Caucasian features.


Huni.jpeg


Here is Mohammed Elneny, who plays for the Egyptian National team and Arsenal.

elneny.jpeg


The modern Egyptians are a mix of Arab, Bantu, Nubian, and Horn of Africa peoples.

We have to remember that 2600 years ago, there was a tremendous mixing of peoples during the turbulence of Sennacherib's military campaigns.
 
Xanatic* said:
Are there any contemporary accounts mentioning Cleopatra being beautiful? I got the impression that was just a later invention.
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A few minutes’ Googling haven’t revealed any contemporary descriptions of Cleopatra. There are coins, statues and wall carvings made during her lifetime, but Egyptian artistic conventions, and the tiny scale of the coins, render them very suspect.

The tales of her beauty all date from Roman historians’ accounts, written decades or even centuries after her death. Cassius Dio describes her, for example, as being of “surpassing beauty”, but she’d been dead for over 180 years before he was born.

maximus otter
 
maximus otter said:
A few minutes’ Googling haven’t revealed any contemporary descriptions of Cleopatra. There are coins, statues and wall carvings made during her lifetime, but Egyptian artistic conventions, and the tiny scale of the coins, render them very suspect.

The tales of her beauty all date from Roman historians’ accounts, written decades or even centuries after her death. Cassius Dio describes her, for example, as being of “surpassing beauty”, but she’d been dead for over 180 years before he was born.

maximus otter
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Well Mark Antony who, with his celebrity status could probably have any woman he wanted, didn't kick her out of bed, so she must have had something.
 
maximus otter said:
A few minutes’ Googling haven’t revealed any contemporary descriptions of Cleopatra. There are coins, statues and wall carvings made during her lifetime, but Egyptian artistic conventions, and the tiny scale of the coins, render them very suspect.

The tales of her beauty all date from Roman historians’ accounts, written decades or even centuries after her death. Cassius Dio describes her, for example, as being of “surpassing beauty”, but she’d been dead for over 180 years before he was born.

maximus otter
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I tend to use Carry on Cleo for all my facts about that era, and it usually stands me in good stead. And here is their interpretation of what Cleo looked like. I suspect it's at least 100% accurate...

Screenshot 2022-06-02 at 09.01.45.png
 
Victory said:
Yes, the latter Pharoahs were Greeks.

The earlier ones were a mixture.

Here is Huni who reigned four and half thousand years ago.
Very non-Caucasian features.


View attachment 55744

Here is Mohammed Elneny, who plays for the Egyptian National team and Arsenal.

View attachment 55745

The modern Egyptians are a mix of Arab, Bantu, Nubian, and Horn of Africa peoples.

We have to remember that 2600 years ago, there was a tremendous mixing of peoples during the turbulence of Sennacherib's military campaigns.
Click to expand...

Must admit I hadn't heard of Huni, so had to look him up.
According to Wiki, next to nothing is known about him and there are only two contemporary objects with his name.
Can't really tell much from the carved head (with the damaged nose), which is only a "possible" depiction anyway.

huni.png


Probably the best preserved royal mummy is that of Ramesses II, which is sufficiently intact to allow for facial reconstruction to be done with a fair degree of certainly:

mummy1.png
mummy2.png


But the absolute nail in the coffin sarcophagus for the afrocentric conspiracists who want the ancient Egyptians to be black Africans, is the DNA evidence.
Whilst the DNA in the preserved flesh of mummies is scarce and denatured, teeth and bones provide ample DNA. This research into 151 mummies revealed that ancient Egyptians closely resembled ancient and modern Near Eastern populations, especially those in the Levant.
So, in modern terms, we're talking Eastern Mediterranean, Turkish, Lebanese and Syrian heritage.
The report also states "Although the mummies contain almost no DNA from sub-Saharan Africa, some 15% to 20% of modern Egyptians' mitochondrial DNA reflects sub-Saharan ancestry. It's really unexpected that we see this very late shift, Krause says. He suspects increased trade along the Nile—including the slave trade—or the spread of Islam in the Middle Ages may have intensified contact between Northern and sub-Saharan Africa."
So the family of the footballer mentioned in your post would almost certainly have been comparative latecomers to Egypt's long and illustrious history.

https://www.science.org/content/art...mies-didn-t-have-any-dna-left-they-were-wrong
 
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Problem with reconstructions is that they are usually (albeit subconsciously) striving for a pre-conceived image. It was remarkable how closely a reconstruction of a skeleton under a car park resembled about the only known portrait of Richard III. Ditto it is difficult for Cleopatra not to morph into Elizabeth Taylor and in one of the threads is a fascinating piece on the evolution of Neanderthal portrayals.

Cleo on coinage and a Youtube clip of how she looked - FACT.

Cleopatra-coin-2-7923d73.jpg

 
blessmycottonsocks said:
But the absolute nail in the coffin sarcophagus for the afrocentric conspiracists who want the ancient Egyptians to be black Africans, is the DNA evidence.
Whilst the DNA in the preserved flesh of mummies is scarce and denatured, teeth and bones provide ample DNA. This research into 151 mummies revealed that ancient Egyptians closely resembled ancient and modern Near Eastern populations, especially those in the Levant.


https://www.science.org/content/art...mies-didn-t-have-any-dna-left-they-were-wrong
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Except all that study proves is that 151 mummies from the DNA sampled were of a genetic similarity to modern Levantine populations.

There is no "nail in the coffin."

I quote from that report:

"The samples recovered from Middle Egypt span around 1,300 years of ancient Egyptian history from the New Kingdom to the Roman Period. "

So that is not a definitive piece of research.

It is commonly known that some of the latter Pharoahs were Greek, and would have interacted with the Romans.

But Egyptian history and Pharoahs go back a lot further than that, and the Upper Egyptians come from places where the people are definitely not European looking.


The report also states, which you quoted: "Although the mummies contain almost no DNA from sub-Saharan Africa, some 15% to 20% of modern Egyptians' mitochondrial DNA reflects sub-Saharan ancestry. It's really unexpected that we see this very late shift" Krause says. He suspects the slave trade—or the spread of Islam in the Middle Ages may have intensified contact between Northern and sub-Saharan Africa."

His theory could well have weight, because we know that Muslim slave traders shipped Black slaves to Iraq and Saudi Arabia.

But earlier than that, Sennacherib caused havoc with his wars, mixing up what were previously more clear cut genetic tribes and nations.
 
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blessmycottonsocks said:
But the absolute nail in the coffin sarcophagus for the afrocentric conspiracists who want the ancient Egyptians to be black Africans, is the DNA evidence.
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er... it's a perfectly respectable academic theory. If that comes as a blow then I'm sorry.
 
Frideswide said:
er... it's a perfectly respectable academic theory. If that comes as a blow then I'm sorry.
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Nothing to be sorry about.
if DNA evidence is ever discovered to support the afrocentrist claims about ancient Egyptians then more academics would obviously accept that view.
The barminess comes from the claim that Europeans vandalised priceless ancient statues to disguise their appearance. If you Google Egyptian statues noses, you'll find hundreds of results - most discussing the issue rationally, but a few peddling this conspiracy as fact.
 
The first dynasty was created by a ruler who came out of the upper Nile and conquered the land of the lower Nile, and for the next 3000 years there were incursions back and forth, so it is to be expected that the gene pool of the rulers of Egypt and its resulting statuary would have been diverse. Also, Alexander the Great installed a Macedonian as Pharaoh and from then until Egypt became a province of Rome the royal family was not only Hellenic but downright Greek and preferred intermarriage, so one would expect the features in the statuary to look exactly like Greek and Roman of the same period.
 
Have we mentioned the Tartarian Empire mythology on here yet?

This brand of pseudo-archeology (and its a stretch to even dignify it with that title) is particularly popular i n countries which were colonies of England at one time: Australia, New Zealand and - to a lesser extent - the U.S.

It consists of admiring and endorsing architecture from the late Nineteenth Century and imagining that such impressive constructions could not have been created by one's own ancestors. Hence the `Tartarian Empire` - a globe spanning culture which ruled over a peaceful world before being enveloped in a mud slide somewhere in the late 1800s! Their existence erased by a false history since that time, they were a race of giants with high technology (but were not resourceful enough to foresee the oncoming mud apocalypse apparently).

We're not talking Atlantis or Hyperborea or Mu here- that is ancient civilisations conveniently tucked away in the distant past - but a culture from last century! Their sparse evidence for this consists off maps which make tell of `Tartaria` (which was a catch all term for the Eastern world in days gone by), photographs from the last century where everything looks muddy, old photos from the same period of people exhibiting giganticism, and buildings with high ceilings.. But, hey, who needs evidence when you have a yearning for times more noble and full of grandeur than your own?

Type Tartaria into Youtube and prepare to be tickled, aghast and dumbfounded as perfectly pleasant well-spoken Aussies and Kiwis take you on a tour of their local area pointing out the relics of Tartaria to you (i.e buildings in an ornate Georgian or Romanic style - the real and recent histories of which are no doubt itemised in the local reference library).

These advocates are particularly fond of finding partially obscured basement windows - these indicate that a large part of the building has been submerged during the mud slide.

It's a bit like some kind of ghastly poetic revenge against Von Danikenism. Us Western white guys were incapable of erecting all those splendid impressive old buildings. No - it was all done for us by some lost race of Mongolians!

It has over 8,000 adherents.
 
Zeke Newbold said:
Have we mentioned the Tartarian Empire mythology on here yet? ...
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Just a note for the record ... As far as I can tell there's no connection between the older / broader Tartaria (Asian region) mythos / lore and the tablets and other archaeological discoveries at the site named Tărtăria in Romania. These Romanian discoveries are the source / focus of an unrelated controversy concerning a Neolithic Danubian cultural complex and the earliest known evidence of writing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tărtăria_tablets

See Also:
Lepenski Vir / Iron Gates Culture
https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/lepenski-vir-iron-gates-culture.67864/
 
Have mentioned it before on other threads, but a man popped up in London some 20 years ago, claiming to be an Egyptian Copt.
He said that his people, who were about 0.5% of the modern Egyptian population, held the traditions of Ancient Egypt.

He taught some martial arts, and esoteric teachings.
He has authored a number of books on these subjects.

I met him, and he looked like the majority of the Egyptian population.

His martial art has been dissected in depth on martial arts forums.
He has also taught in in the USA.
To modern experts, it is a mixture of Karate with some groundwork wrestling thrown in, not unlike a bit of MMA.
The physical training is arduous, a lot of low stance work, crawling, and emphasis on generating power from the thighs, hips and lats.
None of the martial artists who have studied it believed it was an ancient system, but have said it is effective for martial arts competitions simply because it develops a lot of core strength in addition to lower body strength.

His esoteric teachings had an element of 'magic" and a focus on regular colonic irrigation.

I met him twice, discussed his methods, and did not, I repeat not, undergo any type of colonic!

More on him here

"Dr. Ramses Seleem"

http://www.siaacademy.com/

download.jpg
 
JaneD said:
Suspect if you’re running the country then it doesn’t matter what you actually look like, you will be considered to be pretty damn irresistible?
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You maybe right - although King John and Henry (II) look like they were taken by surprise in the Photo booth, whilst Richard was face-planted on the photocopier.

Henry II SC03a.jpgJohn SC02a.jpgRichard_I_SC_a.jpg
 
Victory said:
Have mentioned it before on other threads, but a man popped up in London some 20 years ago, claiming to be an Egyptian Copt.
He said that his people, who were about 0.5% of the modern Egyptian population, held the traditions of Ancient Egypt.

He taught some martial arts, and esoteric teachings.
He has authored a number of books on these subjects.

I met him, and he looked like the majority of the Egyptian population.

His martial art has been dissected in depth on martial arts forums.
He has also taught in in the USA.
To modern experts, it is a mixture of Karate with some groundwork wrestling thrown in, not unlike a bit of MMA.
The physical training is arduous, a lot of low stance work, crawling, and emphasis on generating power from the thighs, hips and lats.
None of the martial artists who have studied it believed it was an ancient system, but have said it is effective for martial arts competitions simply because it develops a lot of core strength in addition to lower body strength.

His esoteric teachings had an element of 'magic" and a focus on regular colonic irrigation.

I met him twice, discussed his methods, and did not, I repeat not, undergo any type of colonic!

More on him here

"Dr. Ramses Seleem"

http://www.siaacademy.com/

View attachment 55785
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I'm not very positive on the costume, but there is a Coptic church in Egypt with a reasonable per centage of the population; since it is a Christian sect, I don't think it involves many traditions of ancient (dynastic) Egypt .
 
Lb8535 said:
I'm not very positive on the costume, but there is a Coptic church in Egypt with a reasonable per centage of the population; since it is a Christian sect, I don't think it involves many traditions of ancient (dynastic) Egypt .
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The costume is very "I am an extra in a Pat Benatar video".

Master Seleem's line was "I am from a Copt family, in a remote rural part of Egypt, and only 0.5% of the Egyptian population is aware of the ancient traditions and keep them alive."

It was his sale pitch.
 
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