National Geographic has an interesting article about some recent findings in the search for the real Cleopatra.
[M]aybe finding her tomb would diminish what Shakespeare called “her infinite variety.” Disembodied, at large in the realm of myth, more context than text, Cleopatra is free to be of different character to different times, which may be the very wellspring of her vitality. No other figure from antiquity seems so versatile in her ambiguities, so modern in her contradictions.
(More: Cleopatra – Pictures, More From National Geographic Magazine)