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The difference between how historical people were described and how they were later portrayed. That includes skin complexion, hair texture, facial features, and the possibility that later artwork reflected the artist’s culture rather than the subject’s actual appearance.
2500 BCE through the Renaissance, with some later leads to investigate.
PART I — MESOPOTAMIA
Approximately 2500–500 BCE
1. Gudea, ruler of Lagash
Lived: Approximately 2144–2124 BCE
Gudea, Prince of Lagash - World History En...
Gudea is an excellent starting point because sculptures made during his lifetime survive.
The British Museum documents numerous statues of Gudea carved from dark stone.
Interestingly, the museum explains that the dark material carried religious and symbolic meaning.
What to investigate: Compare his surviving ancient sculptures with modern illustrations.
We cannot conclude his actual skin color from the stone itself. Nor have I established an ancient text describing him as swarthy.
Original artifact: British Museum — Gudea statue.
2. Sumerian and Akkadian rulers
Period: Approximately 2500–2000 BCE
Research these names:
Sargon of Akkad
Naram-Sin
Ur-Nammu
Gudea
Look for original statues, reliefs, and inscriptions before examining modern illustrations.
Research status: Ancient visual evidence exists, but verified complexion descriptions still need to be established.
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PART II — ANCIENT EGYPT AND NUBIA
Approximately 2500–300 BCE
This section deserves particularly close examination.
3. Queen Ahmose-Nefertari
Lived: Approximately 16th–15th century BCE
Ancient Egyptian artwork sometimes portrays this queen with black skin.
The Metropolitan Museum explains that her black coloration in posthumous religious imagery was associated with regeneration and her deified status.
That gives us an important distinction.
The artwork is genuinely ancient, but its color may be symbolic rather than a literal portrait of her complexion.
Examine the original artwork and museum explanation
4. Taharqa
Lived: Approximately 690–664 BCE
Taharqa was a Kushite ruler of Egypt’s Twenty-Fifth Dynasty.
He provides an opportunity to examine how a ruler from Nubia was represented in Egyptian sculpture compared with later reconstructions.
Look especially at his surviving statues.
5. Egyptians and Colchians
Written description: Herodotus, approximately 440 BCE.
This is one of our strongest ancient textual leads.
Herodotus described the Colchians as having dark complexions and woolly hair, and he associated them with Egyptians.
The original Greek includes:
μελάγχροες — melánchroes
He also acknowledged that appearance alone did not establish ancestry.
Read Herodotus, Histories 2.104
What I want you to compare: Egyptian paintings made during antiquity versus later European paintings representing ancient Egyptians.
The Metropolitan Museum explains that Egyptian artists commonly painted men reddish-brown and women yellow-tan. These were artistic conventions, not straightforward records of each individual’s appearance.
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PART III — THE BIBLICAL WORLD
Approximately 1000 BCE–100 CE
6. The Queen of Sheba
Sources: 1 Kings 10 and 2 Chronicles 9.
She is particularly interesting because her identity became part of several cultural traditions.
In Ethiopian tradition, she is associated with Makeda.
In Arabian traditions, she is associated with Bilqis.
Later European artwork often portrayed her according to European artistic conventions.
Research question: How did Ethiopian, Arabian, and European artists portray the same queen?
We must distinguish historical evidence from later religious and literary traditions. Her actual appearance is not established by the biblical account.
7. The woman in Song of Songs
Source: Song of Songs 1:5–6.
The Hebrew word shechorah describes the speaker as black or dark.
This is worth comparing with medieval and Renaissance illustrations of the biblical text.
However, the woman is a literary speaker, not an independently identifiable historical individual.
8. Jesus of Nazareth
Jesus lived in first-century Roman Judea.
The canonical Gospels do not provide a detailed physical description of his skin tone, hair texture, or facial features.
Nevertheless, artists across different cultures created distinct representations of him.
One especially useful artifact is an early image of Christ as a miracle worker, dated approximately 300–500 CE.
Metropolitan Museum — Early image of Christ
Research question: How did representations of Jesus change from late Roman Christianity through Byzantine and Renaissance art?
This is a strong example of changing artistic traditions, although we cannot compare them against a verified eyewitness physical description.
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PART IV — ANCIENT GREECE AND ROME
Approximately 800 BCE–500 CE
9. Eurybates
Source: Homer’s Odyssey, Book 19.
The text describes Eurybates with dark skin and curly hair.
This gives us an unusually specific literary description.
Compare later illustrations of Eurybates with the original passage.
Remember that he is a literary figure, so those illustrations are interpretations rather than portraits.
10. Virgil
Lived: 70–19 BCE
Now here’s an especially interesting one.
The ancient biographical tradition describes the Roman poet Virgil as having a dark complexion.
A translation preserved through Suetonius’s collection states that Virgil was tall and dark-complexioned.
Read the ancient biographical description of Virgil
What to investigate: Compare this description with Renaissance and later portraits of Virgil.
This is a promising case, although the surviving biography is not a contemporary eyewitness record.
11. Emperor Augustus
Lived: 63 BCE–14 CE
Suetonius described Augustus as having a complexion between brown and fair in one English translation.
He also described his hair and other facial characteristics.
Read Suetonius's description
Compare the written account with Roman marble busts and later paintings.
Important: Marble’s whiteness is not evidence that the person portrayed had white skin. Ancient sculpture could originally have been painted.
12. Attila the Hun
Lived: Approximately 406–453 CE
This is one of the clearest entries involving the actual word swarthy.
Jordanes described Attila as:
Short
Broad-chested
Large-headed
Small-eyed
Flat-nosed
Swarthy-complexioned
Original historical account — Jordanes, Getica
Later European paintings vary considerably in their portrayals.
Research priority: HIGH.
However, Jordanes wrote after Attila’s death, and no securely authenticated contemporary portrait of Attila is known.
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PART V — EARLY CHRISTIANITY AND THE BYZANTINE WORLD
Approximately 200–1200 CE
13. Saint Maurice
Traditionally lived: Third century CE.
This is one of the most fascinating examples of changing historical representation.
Maurice was traditionally associated with a Roman military unit from the Egyptian region.
The Metropolitan Museum explains that he began appearing as a Black saint in thirteenth-century German artwork.
Earlier representations followed different artistic conventions.
By approximately 1520–1525, Lucas Cranach’s workshop depicted him as a Black military commander.
Examine Cranach's Saint Maurice
What changed?
His artistic representation evolved over time.
But we must be careful: no verified contemporary portrait or physical description establishes precisely what Maurice looked like.
This case demonstrates changing iconography, not a proven alteration of an eyewitness portrait.
14. Byzantine emperors
Add these figures to your investigation:
Justinian I
Theodora
Manuel I Komnenos
Heraclius
Manuel I is particularly worth investigating because later descriptions discuss his complexion.
For the others, we should first establish whether a reliable written description exists before claiming a mismatch.
Byzantine art often emphasized imperial status, religious symbolism, and authority rather than realistic portraiture.
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PART VI — MEDIEVAL EUROPE AND AFRICA
Approximately 1000–1500 CE
15. Mansa Musa
Ruled: Approximately 1312–1337.
Mansa Musa was the ruler of the Mali Empire.
One of his most famous representations appears in the 1375 Catalan Atlas.
This image was created decades after his death.
It is valuable evidence of how a medieval European cartographer represented an African ruler, but it is not an authenticated likeness.
16. African figures in European religious art
The Metropolitan Museum has an Adoration of the Magi dating to approximately 1340–1343.
The painting includes figures identified as Africans.
The museum discusses the possibility that these figures reflected knowledge of Ethiopian visitors to Europe.
Examine the medieval painting
This is an excellent example of why we need to examine the date, location, and cultural context of an image.
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PART VII — RENAISSANCE AND EARLY MODERN HISTORY
Approximately 1400–1800 CE
For this period, I would add several particularly useful research subjects.
Person Period What to investigate
Alessandro de’ Medici 1510–1537 Contemporary portraits, ancestry, and later interpretations
Juan Latino c. 1518–1590s Written accounts of an African scholar in Renaissance Spain
Saint Maurice Renaissance portrayals Differences between early medieval and Renaissance imagery
Samuel Fraunces c. 1722–1795 Later descriptions of his complexion and disputed ancestry
European royal families 1400–1800 Original descriptions compared with authenticated portraits
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YOUR RESEARCH INDEX
Here is the order I recommend examining the evidence.
# Subject Period Evidence to compare
1 Sumerian rulers 2500–2000 BCE Original sculpture vs. modern imagery
2 Gudea 2144–2124 BCE Ancient statues vs. reconstructions
3 Egyptian rulers 2000–300 BCE Tomb paintings vs. later artwork
4 Ahmose-Nefertari 1500s BCE Black religious imagery and symbolism
5 Queen of Sheba Ancient traditions Ethiopian, Arabian, European imagery
6 Song of Songs Ancient Hebrew literature Original text vs. illustrations
7 Eurybates Homeric literature Written description vs. illustrations
8 Egyptians and Colchians 440 BCE Herodotus vs. ancient visual evidence
9 Taharqa 690–664 BCE Contemporary sculpture vs. modern imagery
10 Augustus 63 BCE–14 CE Suetonius vs. portraits
11 Virgil 70–19 BCE Dark complexion vs. later paintings
12 Jesus 1st century CE Early Christian vs. later representations
13 Saint Maurice 3rd century tradition Changing medieval and Renaissance images
14 Attila 406–453 CE Swarthy description vs. later portraits
15 Byzantine emperors 500–1200 CE Written descriptions vs. imperial imagery
16 Mansa Musa 1300s Historical accounts vs. Catalan Atlas
17 Alessandro de’ Medici 1500s Contemporary vs. later portraits
18 Juan Latino 1500s Historical writings vs. later imagery
19 Samuel Fraunces 1700s Later physical descriptions vs. portraits
Three findings already worth examining closely
First: Herodotus used specific Greek words to describe complexion and hair texture. Those original words matter more than modern assumptions about what he meant.
Second: Virgil’s ancient biographical tradition describes a dark complexion. This gives us a specific physical characteristic to compare against later portraits.
Third: Saint Maurice’s artistic appearance changed significantly across centuries. The Metropolitan Museum documents this transformation, making it a particularly useful case study.
When examining historical images, distinguish these three possibilities:
1. The artist never knew the person. The image was imagined centuries later.
2. The artist deliberately used symbolism. Skin color, clothing, and facial features sometimes communicated religious or political meaning.
3. A later portrayal genuinely conflicts with a reliable historical description. This is the strongest kind of discrepancy for your investigation.
We should not automatically interpret every difference as deliberate concealment. But neither should we assume a familiar painting is historically accurate.
My suggestion is to keep two parallel collections: one containing the original written descriptions and another containing dated historical images.
That way, you can look at the evidence yourself, notice patterns, and decide which questions deserve deeper investigation.
And I would keep the original Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Egyptian, and other relevant terms alongside their translations.
Because sometimes the most revealing question isn’t what a modern image shows.
It’s what the earliest surviving source actually says.