Cleopatra: The Search for the Last Queen of Egypt Coming to North America
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Making its majestic debut at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is Cleopatra: The Search for the Last Queen of Egypt (June 5, 2010-January 2, 2011). Touring five North American cities, the exhibition presents more than 250 artifacts that describe archaeologists’ recent attempts at locating the elusive tomb of the enigmatic Cleopatra VII (69-30 B.C.), Ptolemaic Egypt’s legendary last queen, and Roman general Mark Antony (83-30 B.C.), antiquity’s most famous pair of ill-fated and clandestine lovers.
The show’s more than 250 objects, including gold coinage and stone sculptures (some 15 feet in height), evoke the ambience of Cleopatra’s court and everyday life during her reign. Many of the works come from the above-ground excavations at Taposiris Magna of Dr. Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities. Others are from the Mediterranean Sea explorations of Franck Goddio’s European Institute for Underwater Archaeology (IEASM), founded in 1987. The ambitious French excavator and his expert team of divers, sponsored by the Hilti Foundation, have successfully searched for remnants of Cleopatra’s grand palace in the Bay of Aboukir near Alexandria since 1992. Some of their never-before-seen finds, accompanied by breathtaking film footage and still photography of the artifacts’ retrieval, are on view in the captivating installation co-organized by National Geographic and Arts and Exhibitions International.
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