[“Death Of Cleopatra” by GUIDO CAGNACCI]
INQLINGS: Cleopatra, comin’ atcha. Next year, the Franklin Institute will be the first stop in a traveling exhibition about the enigmatic Egyptian queen. “Cleopatra: The Search for the Last Queen of Egypt,” opening June 5, follows the FI’s 2007 blockbuster “Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs,” which National Geographic, the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities, and the European Institute for Underwater Archaeology also had a hand in. Cleopatra (69-30 B.C.) was Egypt’s last pharaoh before the Romans stepped in to conquer. The Romans later tried to rewrite history and destroy all traces of her existence. Remnants from her rule will be woven into the story of the search for her history and tomb by archaeologists Zahi Hawass, who’s trying to find the tomb of lovers Cleopatra and Mark Antony, and Franck Goddio, who uncovered her palace and two ancient cities that had been lost beneath the Mediterranean after earthquakes and tidal waves. MORE