The much-hyped Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass, who always wears a hat similar to the one worn by the main character of the Indiana Jones film franchise, announced Wednesday that a documentary about Cleopatra will be released on the same day that Netflix is ​​streaming a similar film. , but which caused the anger of Egyptians, AFP and Agerpres report.

The one-and-a-half-hour documentary is described on its director Curtis Ryan Woodside’s YouTube channel as a production that tells the story of the “real Cleopatra” in the context of Netflix’s choice of a black actress to play the famous Egyptian queen, sparking a backlash in Egypt for weeks.

“Was Cleopatra black? First of all, I have nothing against black people, but I am stating the facts: look at these Macedonian queens, none of them were black,” Zahi Hawass said in the documentary.

The Egyptian Minister of Antiquities also spoke in this case, who assured that Queen Cleopatra had “white skin and Hellenistic features.”

Social networks and the Egyptian media erupted immediately after the release of the trailer for the movie “Queen Cleopatra”, which Jada Pinkett Smith produced for Netflix and presented as a production “based on reconstructions and expert testimony”.

An online petition titled “Stop Neflix’s Historical Spoofing of Cleopatra Documentary” has already garnered more than 40,000 signatures.

And in a country where some voices are calling for Netflix to be banned for streaming content deemed offensive to Egypt or its “family values,” lawmaker Sabour al-Sayed has again appealed to Cairo’s parliament to ban the streaming platform.

In Egypt, internet users and commentators regularly condemn certain campaigns, mainly initiated by African-American groups and associations, which claim the black and African origins of the Pharaonic civilization.

Cleopatra belonged to the Macedonian Lagid dynasty, descended from the general Ptolemy I, who became king of Egypt after the division of Alexander the Great’s empire.

Although legend has it that the queen, who was born around 69 BC, was extremely beautiful, her appearance and the color of her skin remain largely open to interpretation.

In 2009, a BBC documentary claimed that the famous Egyptian queen had African blood, but this production did not cause such violent passions.