Signposts: Cleopatra
As a compelling exhibition at the British Museum opens a new window on the Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, History Today takes a broad view of Egypt’s history.
Books about Cleopatra (69–30 BC) – both scholarly histories and historical novels – tend to arrive like the apocryphal London buses: none for absolutely ages, then two or three slightly different versions at the same time. Given that there has been no substantial new evidence about Cleopatra for many years, it is a tribute to our ongoing fascination with Egypt’s last queen that publishers are prepared to keep printing, and readers are prepared to keep buying, these books. Hollywood shares this fascination: as I write, it has just been announced that the actress Angelina Jolie is considering accepting the title role in a new blockbuster, Cleopatra. This therefore seems the perfect time to consider how our perceptions of Cleopatra have been shaped by the media that has so assiduously promoted her.
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