[jimtorr]

Actually, Macedonian armies (who were Greek) under Alexander the Great conquered Egypt around 320 B.C. Alex was crowned Pharaoh, and thus began the last, Greek, dynasty.

[Unassuaged]

Thanks, I appreciate the correction. I unclearly meant that the dynasty ended around 0BC (more like 30BC) with the main point being that the pyramids were built 1000s of years earlier, not by Greeks.

[Verginius Rufus]

Alexander's conquest of Egypt was a little earlier--he died in 323. Ptolemy, one of his generals, began the Ptolemaic dynasty, of which Cleopatra was the last ruler.

Duane Roller in his biography of Cleopatra says that the identity of her mother is unknown, but he thinks she was a member of the Egyptian religious belief. That may be why she learned the Egyptian language, the first Ptolemy to do so. Her paternal grandmother's identity is also unknown.