Follow in the Footsteps of Egypt's Kings and Queens

I MEET, AT LONG LAST, CLEOPATRA.

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I had begun to wonder if she really existed-her brief but storied reign in the first century BCE was to me a watercolor plate in a history book, a verse from Shakespeare, a celluloid shimmer of a movie star.

But now, here I stand at her feet, her regal silhouette rising above me in stone carved in sunken relief by an anonymous artist some 2,000 years ago. Beneath an exterior wall of the Temple of Hathor on the West Bank of the Nile, I am borne to this ancient queen, to greet the contours of her existence.

This would be epiphany enough for any one journey. But revelations like this flow as steadily as the waters of the Nile from its origins in sub-Saharan Africa north to the Mediterranean Sea. A liquid ribbon of lapis lazuli, the river links the temples and tombs of Egypt's royal dynasties, including sites at Karnak, Esna, and Qena. It binds the lives of priests, soldiers, servants, and slaves, as well as legions of artists who created opulent monuments to their sovereigns and gods.