CAIRO: A television series about ancient Egypt’s Queen Cleopatra, broadcast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, has sparked the ire of the country’s antiquities supremo for being "unrealistic."
"The series does not depict historical reality, and the events described have nothing to do with those that marked the time of Cleopatra in Egypt," Zahi Hawass, head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, told AFP.
The first Arab-produced series to focus on the legendary queen had been highly awaited, with the title role played by Syrian actress Sulaf Fawakherji.
"The way of life depicted in the series does not correspond with that in Egypt after it merged with the Greco-Ptolemaic civilization," Hawass added, criticizing the costumes and sets in the production.
Egypt’s Tarek Siam, who produced the series, has said he had no intention of making a historically accurate depiction of ancient Egypt in Cleopatra’s time, but meant to focus on the queen’s personality.
This has not mollified the critics, however.
One of Egypt’s best-known cinema critics, Tarek Al-Shennawi, slammed the production as "an offence against art."
Cleopatra, famously portrayed by Elizabeth Taylor in the 1963 Hollywood blockbuster "Cleopatra" in which her Roman lover Mark Antony was played by Richard Burton, reigned in Egypt more than 2,000 years ago.
The lovers committed suicide after their joint forces were routed by the Roman Emperor Octavian in the sea battle of Actium.
Each year Ramadan in the Middle East is marked by television specials broadcast during the hours of darkness when Muslims gather at home with family to break their fast with the iftar meal and to socialize.
