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splashy exhibit making its world premiere Saturday at The Franklin Institute makes a case for the latter, using recently discovered artifacts to illustrate two archaeologists' search for the truth
- and the tomb - of one of antiquity's most maligned figures.
"Cleopatra: The Search for the Last Queen of Egypt," features many never-before-seen artifacts from a pair of ongoing Egyptian archaeological expeditions. It remains in Philadelphia until January, when it begins a tour of five not-yet-announced American cities.
The show employs theatrical lighting and sound, 17 video screens documenting archaeologists uncovering some of the 150 artifacts on display, and a four-minute video providing an overview of Cleopatra's life and loves in a style that looks and sounds like a trailer for a slick action movie.
"We're using ancient objects to tell a modern-day story about the search for Cleopatra," said John Norman of Arts and Exhibitions International, the company that organized the show.
The first of the exhibit's two sections showcases the discoveries of French underwater archaeologist Franck Goddio, whose 20-year Egyptian expedition so far has uncovered Cleopatra's palace, two ancient cities near the coast of the ancient city of Alexandria, and 20,000 artifacts and counting.
"These are the most important, the most beautiful of what we found," Goddio said.
The artifacts range from tiny gold coins to a pair of towering eight-ton granite figures. All were raised by Goddio's team from submerged ruins near the coast of ancient Alexandria, where Cleopatra was born in 69 B.C. and where 39 years later, the legend claims, she chose a suicidal bite from an asp over capture by the conquering Romans.
Visitors will see, through a glass walkway under their feet, artifacts long hidden under the harbor's sediment after earthquakes and tsunamis submerged ancient Alexandria more than 1,500 years ago.
"We have found less than 1 percent of what is there," Goddio said. "I need three or four centuries to complete the entire excavation. I'm trying to stay in shape."
In the second portion are never-before-seen finds of Zahi Hawass, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities in Cairo. Hawass, whom visitors may recognize from his appearances on archaeological documentaries, describes in a brief video his quest for the lost tomb of Cleopatra and her lover, the Roman general Mark Antony.
