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She hasn't even been officially confirmed as having the role, but Angelina Jolie is already receiving criticism over her possible portrayal of the legendary Queen of the Nile. Jolie, who turned 35 last week, is caught up in a racially charged debate over whether the role should have been played by a black woman Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1287505/Race-row-erupts-casting-Angelina-Jolie-Cleopatra.html#ixzz0rDMI1hT4

She hasn't even been officially confirmed as having the role, but Angelina Jolie is already receiving criticism over her possible portrayal of the legendary Queen of the Nile. Jolie, who turned 35 last week, is caught up in a racially charged debate over whether the role should of been played by a black woman. The Egyptian royal was most famously portrayed Elizabeth Taylor in 1963. The new film's producer, Scott Rudin, previously told USA Today the role is being developed with Angelina in mind as she has 'the perfect look'. But this statement has angered members of the African American...

She hasn't even been officially confirmed as having the role, but Angelina Jolie is already receiving criticism over her possible portrayal of the legendary Queen of the Nile. Jolie, who turned 35 last week, is caught up in a racially charged debate over whether the role should of been played by a black woman. The Egyptian royal was most famously portrayed Elizabeth Taylor in 1963. The new film's producer, Scott Rudin, previously told USA Today the role is being developed with Angelina in mind as she has 'the perfect look'. But this statement has angered members of the African American...

A single Greek word, ginesthoi, or "make it so," written at the bottom of a Ptolemaic papyrus may have been written by the Egyptian queen Cleopatra VII herself, says Dutch papyrologist Peter van Minnen of the University of Groningen. Received in Alexandria on Mecheir 26 (February 23, 33 B.C.), the papyrus text, recycled for use in the construction of a cartonnage mummy case found by a German expedition at Abusir in 1904, appears to be a royal ordinance granting tax exemption to one Publius Canidius, an associate of Mark Antony's who would command his land army during the Battle of...

The face of Cleopatra: Scientists recreate the first true image of the legendary beauty ...Cambridge University Egyptologist...believes the computer-generated 3D image is the best likeness of the legendary beauty... Pieced together from images on ancient artefacts, including a ring dating from Cleopatra's reign 2000 years ago, it is the culmination of more than a year of painstaking research. Likeness: The computer-generated 3D image has been pieced together from images on ancient artefacts The result is a strikingly beautiful young woman of mixed ethnicity... ...reflect the monarch's Greek heritage as well as her Egyptian upbringing. ...'She probably wasn’t just completely European....

Egypt: Tomb of Cleopatra and lover to be uncovered Cairo, 24 April(AKI) - Archaeologists have revealed plans to uncover the 2000 year-old tomb of ancient Egypt's most famous lovers, Cleopatra and the Roman general Mark Antony later this year. Zahi Hawass, prominent archaeologist and director of Egypt's superior council for antiquities announced a proposal to test the theory that the couple were buried together. He discussed the project in Cairo at a media conference about the ancient pharaohs. Hawass said that the remains of the legendary Egyptian queen and her Roman lover, Mark Antony, were inside a temple called Tabusiris...

Coin shows Cleopatra's ugly truth The images of Antony and Cleopatra are less than flattering Antony and Cleopatra, one of history's most romantic couples, were not the great beauties that Hollywood would have us believe, academics have said. A study of a 2,000-year-old silver coin found the Egyptian queen, famously portrayed by Elizabeth Taylor, had a pointed chin, thin lips and sharp nose. Her Roman lover, played by Richard Burton, had bulging eyes, thick neck and a hook nose. The tiny coin was studied by experts at Newcastle University. The size of a modern 5p piece (18mm or 0.7in), the...

LONG before Shakespeare portrayed her as history’s most exotic femme fatale, Cleopatra was revered throughout the Arab world — for her brain. Medieval Arab scholars never referred to the Egyptian queen’s appearance, and they made no mention of the dangerous sensuality which supposedly corrupted Julius Caesar and Mark Antony. Instead they marvelled at her intellectual accomplishments: from alchemy and medicine to philosophy, mathematics and town planning, a new book has claimed. Even Elizabeth Taylor, who famously played the title role in the 1963 epic Cleopatra, would have struggled to inject sex appeal into this queen. Arab writers depict Cleopatra’s court...

ARCHEOLOGISTS and forensic experts believe they have identified the skeleton of Cleopatra’s younger sister, murdered more than 2,000 years ago on the orders of the Egyptian queen. The remains of Princess Arsinöe, put to death in 41BC on the orders of Cleopatra and her Roman lover Mark Antony to eliminate her as a rival, are the first relics of the Ptolemaic dynasty to be identified. The breakthrough, by an Austrian team, has provided pointers to Cleopatra’s true ethnicity. Scholars have long debated whether she was Greek or Macedonian like her ancestor the original Ptolemy, a Macedonian general who was made...

Cleopatra and Mark Antony were immortalised as two of history’s greatest lovers, but their final resting place has always been a mystery. Now archaeologists in Egypt are about to start excavating a site that they believe could conceal their tombs. Zahi Hawass, director of Egypt’s Superior Council for Antiquities, said yesterday that there was evidence to suggest that Cleopatra and Mark Antony were buried together in the complex tunnel system underlying the Tabusiris Magna temple, 17 miles from the city of Alexandria. The dig, which begins next week, could reveal answers to the many myths surrounding the pair — including...

Franck Goddio shows off one of the sculptures he found (Markus Schreiber/AP) Cleopatra's gems rise from the deepBy Roger Boyes Hundreds of priceless finds will shed light on 1,500 years of Ancient Egyptian history THE lost world of Cleopatra’s palaces has been dug out of the muddy Mediterranean sea bed by a man dubbed the Underwater Indiana Jones. The results of Franck Goddio’s excavations, comprising 500 priceless finds that shed light on 1,500 years of ancient history, will be put on public view today for the first time. President Mubarak of Egypt will open the exhibition in Berlin, and...

We are in a Cleopatra moment. Three books featuring the notorious Egyptian queen have been published in the past few months of which Cleopatra: A Life by Pulitzer-Prize winning biographer Stacy Schiff is generating bombshell-size buzz. Michiko Kakutani gave Schiff's book a rave in The New York Times, the biography was fodder for Maureen Dowd's op-ed column (NYT), on NPR Tina Brown declared Schiff's book a "must-read" on the subject of women and power, Judith Thurman's round-up (The New Yorker) of the goddess' most recent chroniclers conferred upon Schiff's opus alone the honorific "a work of literature." But the mega-buzz...

Cleopatra may not have been ancient Egypt's only female pharaoh of the Ptolemaic dynasty -- Queen Arsinoë II, a woman who competed in and won Olympic events, came first, some 200 years earlier, according to a new study into a unique Egyptian crown. After analyzing details and symbols of the crown worn by Arsinoë and reinterpreting Egyptian reliefs, Swedish researchers... suggest that Queen Arsinoë II (316-270 B.C.) was the first female pharaoh belonging to Ptolemy's family -- the dynasty that ruled Egypt for some 300 years until the Roman conquest of 30 B.C. While researchers largely agree on Arsinoë's prominence...

No, this is not a blonde joke. If you want one of those, go to this week’s Humor File. Cleopatra was in fact a blonde. That’s because she was not Egyptian. She was a Macedonian Greek, with hair as blonde as Alexander’s. Alexander conquered Egypt in 332 BC, then went on to subdue all of the Middle East. When he died nine years later, his just-conquered empire was fought over and carved up by his generals. The one who ended up running Egypt was Ptolemy (367-283 BC). Declaring himself Pharaoh, he founded the Ptolemaic Dynasty, with twelve Ptolemies in succession,...

An archaeologist who claimed to have found the bones of Cleopatra's murdered half-sister says they are pinning their hopes on new forensic techniques to conclusively identify the remains. It was claimed that the remains of Princess Arsinöe IV, who was murdered more than 2,000 years ago on the orders of Egypt's queen Cleopatra, were the first relics of the Ptolemaic dynasty to be identified.

ALEXANDRIA, Egypt (AP) -- Plunging into the waters off Alexandria Tuesday, divers explored the submerged ruins of a palace and temple complex from which Cleopatra ruled, swimming over heaps of limestone blocks hammered into the sea by earthquakes and tsunamis more than 1,600 years ago. The international team is painstakingly excavating one of the richest underwater archaeological sites in the world and retrieving stunning artifacts from the last dynasty to rule over ancient Egypt before the Roman Empire annexed it in 30 B.C.