Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra.

Cleopatra, Egypt’s  last autonomous pharaoh, is being unveiled through excavations of her mighty palaces and temples at “Cleopatra: The Search for the Last Queen of Egypt” now through Sept. 5 at Cincinnati Museum Center.

The show has nearly 150 artifacts, including statues, jewelry, coins and religious items that are all visiting the US for the first time. The marvel of the show is that “most of the artifacts were underwater five or six years ago,” Franck Goddio, director of European Institute for Underwater Archaeology.

Underwater archaeologist Franck Goddio and the Serapis head pulled from the waters of Canopus. Betsa Marsh photo

“These artifacts do not come from museums around the world, but they have been crafted, designed, to be together. It’s so good to see them here together.”

In just 20 years, Goddio and his team have discovered a cluster of three lost Egyptian cities: Heracleion, a strategic trading post; Canopus, a religious pilgrimage site; and the Portus Magnus of Alexandria.

The exhibit continues through Sept. 5 at Cincinnati Museum Center.

Just out! Cincinnati Essentials is my new app that covers the waterfront from Cincinnati’s Ghost Subway to flying pigs and frying goetta. Designed for travelers and residents alike, Cincinnati Essentials uncovers the best of the quirky Queen City.

The mobile guide for Apple iPhones, iPods and iPads is available for $2.99 on iTunes. All updates are free.

Greater Cincinnati’s major attractions and little secrets are revealed in more than 230 entries and 1,700 photos. You’ll learn how to eat Cincinnati chili five+ ways and where you’ll never get a shot of tequila at the bar, no matter how you plead.

Essential photos, GPS maps and easy searches help users:

* Cheer on the first professional team in baseball
* Track the stars on the oldest professional telescope in America
* Meet 700 dummies at the world’s only ventriloquism museum
* Try to follow Sarah the Cheetah, the world’s fastest land mammal
* Raise a stein at America’s largest Oktoberfest—and do the chicken dance.

The interactive app lists dozens of free and budget adventures, plus handy taxi maps to estimate fares.

Entries are sortable by name, distance, cost and neighborhood, as well as subjects such as art, attractions, Cincy eats, family fun, music, riverside revels, shopping and sports.

As many of you know, I covered the city on staff at The Cincinnati Enquirer. I’ve since written about Cincinnati for National Geographic Traveler, Hemispheres, Midwest Living and media across North America. I’ve reported from every continent, but still like landing at CVG.

A total history geek, I trained as a volunteer Cincinnati Heritage Programs history docent at the Cincinnati Museum Center, and you’ll see juicy tidbits from Cincinnati’s past in Cincinnati Essentials.

Horse and Rider, Turkey, 900-750 BCE. All Souls College

Some of the biggest showstoppers were included by chance: a silver mess kit, desert robes and a beautiful, gold, bejeweled dagger that belonged to T. E. Lawrence, the British army officer known for his role in the Arab Revolt and immortalized by Peter O’Toole in the 1962 movie “Lawrence of Arabia.”

With her brother on her back, a war-weary Korean girl tiredly trudges by a stalled M-26 tank at Haengju, Korea, June 9, 1951. Photo by Major R.V. Spencer, USAF

Friday marks the 60th anniversary of the start of the Korean War—a war that still has no end. President Harry S. Truman lived the sleepless nights of the conflict, a war that dragged his popularity with the American people to an all-time low. Now, the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum has an exhibit about this “Forgotten War”–join me to hear the curator’s take.

Four of the remaining members, including lead singer Mark Mothersbaugh, grew up in Akron and met while attending Kent State University.

Named for the band’s first album, Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are DEVO!, the exhibit includes a costume, with the iconic red hat or “Energy Dome,” t-shirts, vintage stickers and albums.

The group’s name is based on the idea that the human race is in a process of devolution, a concept that members first read about in the 1924 pamphlet “Jocko Homo Heavenbound.” Later editions (second through fifth) of this anti-Darwinism pamphlet were published in Ashtabula, Ohio, birthplace of Clarence Darrow. A copy of the fifth edition, in the collections of the Ohio Historical Society, is on display with the DEVO Collection.

Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are DEVO! can be seen 9 a.m.-9 p.m. Thursdays and 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturdays in the lobby of the Archives-Library on the third floor of the Ohio Historical Center.

Other acts:

• July 21, Free Energy, a Philadelphia rock band;

• Aug 11, Deer Tick, indie rockers;

• Aug. 18, Trans Am, a synth-rock band.

Ashley gears up for her gold mine tour. Betsa Marsh photo

Ashley the Traveling Teddy became a deep thinker on a recent tour of Wales–very deep, down 70 steps into a dark  shaft once worked by Romans 2,000 years ago.

Ashley travels for the third-grade class of Meredith Schroeder at St. Joseph Consolidated School in Hamilton, Ohio. The Traveling Teddy program is a geography outreach of the Society of American Travel Writers.

The Romans, who built a fort nearby at Pumsaint,  searched for gold at Dolaucothi using a drift mine into the hillside rather than a vertical shaft. They used fire and water to crack the quartz, and little children ages 10 to 14 would then sort out the quartz, looking for gold. It took a ton of quartz, according to Ray Miller of the National Trust, to yield an ounce of gold about the size of a peanut.

Archaeologists have found fragments of the Romans’ water wheels

Ray Miler of the National Trust teaches Ashley the ropes. Betsa Marsh photo

on the mining site. They’re now on display in the Cardiff Museum.

After the Romans, small-scale mining resumed in 1853 and grew until 1912, when, according to the BBC, the complex geology of the site brought an end to work there. Miners returned to Dolaucothi one last time between 1933 and 1938, after which the equipment was sold off.

Today, the National Trust has reconstructed the mineyard to the 1930s period. There’s a gold exhibit, a shop with rare Welsh gold and a tea room.

You can, of course, pan for gold there–Ashley tried her paws, but didn’t find enough to quit her day job as traveling ambassador for the students of St. Joseph.

Ray Miller of the National Trust welcomes Ashley and other travelers to the Long Adit, the Roman opening to Dolaucothi Gold Mine in Wales. Betsa Marsh photo

• A display will highlight Ohio Historical Society milestones from 1885 to 2010. Uncommon Ohio tours will feature Ohio’s Garden Path at noon and 2 p.m., and Echoes in Time Theatre will present “Saints Preserve Us! The Irish in America” at 1 p.m. and 3 p.m.

• In the galleries with the permanent exhibitions, Nature of Ohio and Ohio: Centuries of Change, you can meet people from the society’s past played by costumed interpreters. Shake hands with archaeologist William C. Mills, who discovered the Adena pipe in 1901, and U.S. Ambassador to Egypt J. Morton Howell, who donated the mummy known as Nasi-Khonsou-Pa-Khrodou, familiarly known as Nibit-Pi, meaning “the Mistress of the House,” and her sarcophagus to the Ohio Historical Society collections.

Today, the Ohio Historical Society has 58 historic sites and museums around the state, including the headquarters at the Ohio Historical Center in Columbus. Collections total more than 3 million items, and OHS has educational and historic preservation programs in all 88 counties.

The Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center in Fremont, Ohio, is leading a free workshop 1-4 p.m. April 25. The center uses RootsMagic to maintain the family history of 19th U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes.

Pre-registration is required: 419-332-2081 or by email to bhill@rbhayes.org.