Immersive tech explores the legend of Cleopatra

She ruled Egypt for two decades, forged alliances with the most powerful men in the Roman world, and has captivated historians, artists and storytellers for two thousand years.

Now Cleopatra — Egypt's last queen — is the subject of a major new immersive experience opening in London, bringing her world to life through a combination of original artefacts and Virtual Reality technology.

Covering 3,000 square metres across nine interactive galleries, it is the UK debut of Cleopatra: The Experience that has already drawn more than 200,000 visitors since its launch in Madrid, and is set to appear in a further six countries after its London run.

An asp-framed mirror reflects Cleopatra back at visitors — one of several installations designed to blur the boundary between the present and the ancient world.

The experience unfolds across projection rooms, hologram presentations and interactive installations, developed in collaboration with historical curators and Egyptologists and endorsed by British Egyptologist Dr. Chris Naunton.

Curator Nacho Ares oversaw the development of the experience, and he is clear that the technology serves the history rather than replacing it.

"In this exhibition, we have two ways to enjoy the figure of Cleopatra. First one is the new technologies, the VR metaverse, you can walk with VR glasses. It's amazing because you can visit the palace of Cleopatra in Alexandria. We have a trip with VR glasses to the antiquity to visit the tomb of Cleopatra. It's one of the most incredible mysteries of her life."

The city of Alexandria — Cleopatra's capital and one of the great metropolises of the ancient world — is central to the experience.

Founded by Alexander the Great in 331 BCE, it was the seat of the Ptolemaic Dynasty that Cleopatra would eventually inherit, and the city whose fate would be bound up with her own.

And alongside the technology, Ares is keen to point out, there are objects from ancient Egypt.

"We have also real artefacts, original pieces that connect the present with the past."

The collection — presented in collaboration with the Felix Cervera Archaeology Gallery in Barcelona — includes more than 22 original artefacts from the Hellenistic and Late Egyptian periods.

Among them, an anonymous cartonnage from the first and second centuries AD, and a bronze figure of the goddess Isis — with whom Cleopatra herself heavily identified.

A projection traces Cleopatra's life from childhood to adulthood in the next room.

Visitors then step inside the VR metaverse — VR goggles transporting them to the palace of Cleopatra in Alexandria.

The renderings place visitors beside the queen as she gazes out over the Bay of Alexandria, the Lighthouse — one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World — visible in the distance, before entering the Temple of Alexandria itself.

A question on one of the exhibition walls stops visitors in their tracks: "She was the first woman to lead and determine the course of an empire — but who was she?"

It is a question the exhibition takes seriously. Dr. Chris Naunton is candid about the complexity of the historical record.

"Roman propaganda is a big and important source of information for Cleopatra's story, there's no question about that. They give us a very dramatic, almost scene-by-scene sort of story, which of course is perfect, perfect inspiration for Shakespeare and Hollywood," he says.

"We've got archaeological evidence and textual evidence from the time, Egyptian inscriptions, Egyptian texts, Greek texts as well, that complement those sources. So there's no question that she was a genuine historical individual. We can say when she reigned, we can say something about her family background, how she came to the throne. We know what the historic and political context of her times are."

The exhibition's portrayal of Cleopatra in the arts explores 2,000 years of representation — from Roman busts to Shakespeare to Hollywood.

Information on the subject of her tomb reminds visitors that despite centuries of searching, her burial place has never been found. A second VR sequence takes visitors on an underwater journey — past submerged sphinxes and the ruins of a drowned city — in search of what may lie beneath the sea.

Naunton explains that the proximity of water to where the tomb was likely to have been could mean that it was swept away centuries ago:

"The likelihood is, and again this is what the Roman sources tell us, that the tomb of Cleopatra, also the tomb of Alexander the Great, probably the tomb of the rest of the Ptolemies as well, were close enough that they would have been destroyed by, if not war, then a natural event like a tsunami."

The experience’s most spectacular feature — a vast 360-degree, eight-metre-high projection room in which visitors witness various scenes, not least Cleopatra floating upwards from her deathbed, an asp coiled nearby, before reliving the Battle of Actium — the naval confrontation with Rome that sealed her fate.

It is the exhibition's most arresting image: a woman who chose the manner of her own death rather than submit to Roman humiliation.

Outside on the Royal Docks waterfront, the Thames glitters beside the exhibition entrance and the wind howls.

The maritime grandeur of the docklands sit beyond the banners — Ancient Egypt, improbably but compellingly, has arrived in east London.

Cleopatra: The Experience open on March 26th at Immerse LDN on the Excel London Waterfront.