Egypt's mysteries have long been contained within puzzling Rubik's pyramids and Sudoku sphinxes. Today's deal unlocks some of the secrets: for $16, you get one adult admission to the exhibit Cleopatra: The Search for the Last Queen of Egypt at The Franklin Institute (up to a $36 value). One Fels Planetarium show is also included. This Groupon does not include admission to the Tuttleman IMAX Theater, the Franklin 3-D Theater, Adventure Flight 4D, Sky Bike, or the Flight Simulator.

Cleopatra: The Search for the Last Queen of Egypt features 30 tons of stunning artifacts that are nearly two millennia old. The ancient adventure (adult tickets $26.50 on weekdays and $29.50 on weekends, plus a $6.50 processing fee) begins with a short film detailing the work of researchers searching for remnants of Cleopatra's world within the sands of Egypt and the waters of the Mediterranean Sea. An audio tour then leads ears and attached humans on a journey through unearthed findings from the days of Cleopatra. See ruins and remnants from the ancient cities of Alexandria and Canopus, shudder in the shadow of two 16-foot tall statues depicting either a Ptolemaic king and queen or ancient supermodels, and stand nose-to-nose with a sphinx bearing a head that represents Cleopatra's papa. Other artifacts on display include a papyrus document containing what is to believed to be Cleopatra's handwriting and an alabaster head believed to represent Cleopatra's own alabaster head. The exhibit's final gallery showcases how this mysterious Queen of the Nile has been captured over the years through paintings, films, and various pyramid schemes.

This Groupon also grants visitors general admission to the rest of The Franklin Institute, a dynamic museum filled with interactive exhibits such as a Space Command center and the Sports Challenge. Take a walking tour of the giant heart, or reach for luminous balls of plasma during a show at the Fels Planetarium, which is included with the price of admission.

This Groupon can be used Mondays through Wednesdays from 9:30 a.m. until 3:30 p.m., and Thursdays through Sundays from 9:30 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. It can also be used Thursdays through Sundays from 5 p.m. until close (but does not include museum pass and last entry is 7 p.m.).

Reviews

Cleopatra: The Search for the Last Queen of Egypt has already garnered positive press from local and national outlets including the New York Times, National Geographic, the Washington Post, USA Today, the Philadelphia Daily News, the Courier-Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Dover Post, and the Daily Beast. Yelpers give The Franklin Institute an average of 3.5 stars, while Citysearchers award it an average of 4.5 stars. More than 5,000 Facebookers are fans of the institute:

• The exhibition is powerful. But that is not really because of Cleopatra; it is because a lost world is resurrected here. There are some 150 artifacts on display, and the vast majority were found buried in the silt and clay of the Bay of Aboukir, off the coast of Alexandria, Egypt…The sense of a lost and mythical world brought into the half-light would be irrelevant, though, if the resurrected objects didn’t live up to the promise — and they do. – Edward Rothstein, New York Times