Ivan the Terrible More Resembled Greeks than Tartars
Reported on July 10, 2014 (Source: http://www.archae.ru)
It has long been a perception that Ivan the Terrible was outwardly similar to a Tartar, because his mother Glinskikh, was accounted a descendant of the famous Khan Mamai. Meanwhile, anthropological studies have shown that this is not entirely true. In his guise the autocrate [Ivan] is dominated by Mediterranean features, conveyed to him by his grandmother, the Greek Princess Sophia Palaeologus. So it probably can be said that it was not a Tartar on the Russian throne, but a Greek. According to the structure of the skull it is close to the Dinaric type characteristic of the western Slavs, his ancestors on his mother’s side.
