Much has been written about the whitewashing of blacks from art and history during the past few centuries.
This is true of the ancient Nubian queens, like Queen Tiye (pronounced Ti-yeah). She was probably the most powerful woman on earth and achieved God-like status during her 40-year reign with her husband Pharoah Amenhotep III, during the most peaceful and prosperous period of Egyptian history.
Queen Cleopatra has held the spotlight of all Egyptian queens, although she was not Egyptian but probably of Macedonian or Greek descent and did not even speak Egyptian. So her portrayal by film star Elizabeth Taylor was not so farfetched.
Queen Nefertiti as portrayed by Iman and Rihana is historically correct as she is of Nubian ancestry. However, many powerful Egyptian queens and queen mothers like Queen Tiye, who held the titles of Queen of the North and the South and Queen of two Worlds, among others, have not had their share of publicity.
Nubians from the southern reaches of the Nile ruled Egypt for about a century. The darker peoples of the old Nubian Kingdom of Kush, from where the powerful Queen Candances came from, intermarried with the northern Egyptians for centuries.
Queen Tiye was the Great Royal Wife of the all-powerful Pharoah Amenhotep III, the mother of Akhenaten, whose Great Royal Wife was Queen Nefertiti, and the grandmother of the most renowned of all Pharaohs, King Tutankhamun or “King Tut”.
From Black Beauty through the Ages by Alan Donovan