Philadelphia exhibit attempts to unravel the mystery of Cleopatra

From USA Today: Philadelphia exhibit attempts to unravel the mystery of Cleopatra

By Maria Puente, USA TODAY
It's one of those ironies of history that Cleopatra, the last pharaoh queen of Egypt, is still the most famous 2,000 years later, even though she wasn't actually Egyptian nor even a legitimate ruler.
Depicted in history as cunning, seductive, ruthless, powerful and power-hungry, Cleopatra remains a compelling yet mysterious figure to this day.

So it won't be a surprise if the new exhibit, Cleopatra: The Search for the Last Queen of Egypt, opening at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia June 5, packs them in, despite ticket prices as high as $30.

The exhibit presenters, who also organized the two recent King Tut exhibits now winding down a U.S. tour, promise an "experiential" show featuring the latest in high-tech, high-def, high-drama exhibit presentation. For instance, in one of the galleries, a glass floor will allow visitors to seemingly walk over the ocean floor where archaeologists are at work.

"We know little about Cleopatra — she was beautiful and powerful, but what else?" says Mark Lach, an exhibit designer and a vice president of Arts and Exhibitions International, one of the organizers along with National Geographic and the European Institute for Underwater Archaeology.

And yet, "Cleopatra was always a star," says Sharon Simpson, a writer and historian for the exhibit.

The Romans were fascinated with her, Simpson says, even as they tried to destroy all evidence of her existence. Over the centuries she has been alternately worshipped or condemned throughout the West and the Middle East, a permanent cultural icon and the subject of innumerable paintings, books, plays, movies.

"Of course, part of her staying power is that she was associated with two of the most powerful men of her day, Julius Caesar and Mark Antony," Simpson says. "Something (about her) attracted these guys."

But what? We don't even know if she was actually beautiful (few authentic likenesses survive, mostly on coins, and they aren't too impressive). The exhibit will attempt to shed more light on this enigmatic queen.

The show will feature more than 250 artifacts, from gold pieces and coins to colossal statues more than 15 feet tall, uncovered in recent years from the ongoing search for Cleopatra, whose grave or tomb has never been found. One set of archaeologists is looking for her last resting place at a desert site west of Alexandria, Egypt. Another group of underwater archaeologists is searching the waters off the Mediterranean coast near Alexandria; since 1996, they've found her royal palace along with two ancient cities that had been lost beneath the sea for centuries after a series of earthquakes and tidal waves.

"It's an opportunity to bring two archaeological pursuits together, a first of its kind," says Lach.

Cleopatra (c. 69 B.C.-30 B.C.) is so famous she is rarely referred to by her official title Cleopatra VII (she was the seventh queen of that name). But she wasn't Egyptian, she was Macedonian Greek, a descendant of one of Alexander the Great's generals, Ptolemy, who took power as pharaoh 300 years earlier.

The Greek pharaohs adopted Egypt's religion and customs, including the peculiar royal custom in which a pharaoh married his sister in order to rule. Cleopatra initially was co-ruler with her younger brother, but she eventually got rid of him and took power on her own, becoming one of the few female pharaohs in Egypt's long, long history.

Then, in an attempt to preserve Egypt's waning power in the ancient world, she took on Rome, first by seducing Caesar and producing children by him, and later by seducing Antony (producing twins) and enlisting him in her campaign to beat Rome. But it all came to tears: Defeated by Octavian, the future Roman Emperor Augustus, Cleopatra and Antony both committed suicide on Aug. 12, 30 B.C. (though not in the same place). She was briefly outlived by her son with Caesar, Caesarian, but Octavian had him killed, the 3,000-plus-year pharaonic system fell, and Egypt became a province under Roman rule.

The exhibit will continue at the Franklin Institute through Jan. 11, 2011. Ticket prices will range from $11 for children up to $29.50 for adults on weekends. These prices are higher than the typical museum entrance fee, but the cost to insure antiquities is high, plus Egypt will get the lion's share of the ticket sales to use for museum building.

The show is also expected to travel to other U.S. cities, as the King Tut exhibits did.

Information on tickets is available at 877-834-8497 or fi.edu