Cup of the Ptolemies understanding, also referred to as "un-naming", seems to have been a way for pagan artifacts to be reused for Christian purposes. The cup was probably made in Alexandria, Egypt. It was once thought to date back to the Hellenistic period, c. 250 BC, but is now regarded as dating to the 1st century AD. Its supposed connection with the Ptolemies dates back to 1644, when the historian Jean Tristan de Saint-Amant argued that the vase was made for the funeral processions of Ptolemy II Philadelphus, who ruled the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt from 285 until 246 BC. Later, the scholar
Ancient Egyptian race controversy was presented in some statuary in the idealized Egyptian style, she was unlikely to have dressed like this outside of performing certain rites; instead Cleopatra "wore the headband and robes of a Greek monarch." Stacy Schiff concurs, Cleopatra was not dark-skinned, that "the Ptolemies were in fact Macedonian Greek, which makes Cleopatra approximately as Egyptian as Elizabeth Taylor", that her Ptolemaic relatives were described as "honey skinned", that she was part Persian, and that "an Egyptian mistress is a rarity among the Ptolemies." (Additionally, it interesting to note that Cleopatra's son with Mark Antony, Alexander Helios, was engaged to a