Americans don’t really know much at all about Egyptian queen Cleopatra VII, and most of what we think we know is courtesy of Hollywood.
Philadelphia’s Franklin Institute is turning that image on its head — and brings out the truth behind the legend — with its most recent exhibit, “Cleopatra, the Search for the Last Queen of Egypt.”
“Cleopatra continues to capture the interest of Americas,” said Troy Collins, senior vice president for programs, marketing and business development at the Franklin Institute.
“We have the ability to tell her story from a historical standpoint, and we can do it in grand fashion with some priceless artifacts.”
Cleopatra’s story is brought to the Franklin by the triumvirate of the National Geographic Society, Arts and Exhibitions International, and Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities. They’re the same group that sponsored the King Tutankhamen exhibit three years ago, as well as underwater archaeologist Frank Goddio, whose exploration of submerged ruins outside the queen’s capital of Alexandria resulted in the discovery of many of the artifacts on display.
Chief among those discoveries are a pair of 16-foot-tall, 11-ton statues of a pharaoh and a queen, discovered at a temple in the ancient coastal city of Heracleion. All Egyptian kings and queens were crowned there.
Visitors to the exhibit will get a taste of the underwater archaeology field outside Alexandria by walking across a glass-paneled floor that simulates the seabed and some of the discoveries Goddio made there. Cleopatra’s palace and many other buildings fell into the sea due to earthquakes and other natural disasters, leaving behind not only royal relics but every day objects that show life in Egypt around the time of Christ.
These objects include a sphinx with a head that represents Cleopatra’s father and a statue of a high priest of the goddess Isis, both of which once stood in the queen’s private temple.
The queen, who lived from approximately 69 BC to 30 BC, is mostly known today for her liaisons with Roman dictator Julius Caesar and his successor Mark Antony. The two men were the fathers of her four children.
But she was much, much more, Collins said.
“She’s a compelling figure, and not just because she was literally the last queen of Egypt,” he said. “Even though she was descended from the Greeks, she was the first Greek pharaoh to speak Egyptian. And she was a female ruler, which was unusual at that time.”
