More re search for Cleopatra

An Egyptian - Dominican archaeological mission has discovered new leads that could help in detecting the burial place of legendary Queen Cleopatra of Egypt and her Roman lover Mark Antony.

The mission has uncovered an alabaster head of the last Queen of Egypt in addition to 22 bronze coins bearing her face and a headless statue of the queen and another mask that could probably be that of Mark Antony, said Zahi Hawwas, the head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities.

The most important find made by the expedition was the discovery of a large graveyard outside a temple called Tabusiris Magna, which lies 30 kilometers from the port city of Alexandria in northern Egypt, he said.

So far 27 tombs have been unearthed in the area, besides burial chambers and 10 mummies, he added.

The place seems to have been a cemetery for nobility and senior employees during the Ptolemaic era in the history of ancient Egypt, he said.

The Dominican archaeologist Kathleen Martinez Wednesday affirmed to have found 27 tombs and 10 mummies, two of them wrapped in gold, during the excavation she conducts in Egypt in search of Cleopatra’s resting place.

Martinez, an official in the Dominican Embassy in Egypt, said she still doesn’t know if among the mummies is Cleopatra’s, but noted that she’s on the trail, as the latest findings have been unearthed since December.

She said the finding shows the real origin of the mummified bodies and confirms that the current ruins of the temple Taposiris Magna, located in the outskirts Alexandria, in Egypt, are where the pharaohs’ remains are buried.

Last year archaeologists at the temple unearthed a bronze statue of the goddess Aphrodite, the alabaster head of a Queen Cleopatra statue and a mask believed to belong to Mark Antony. The expedition also found 22 coins bearing Cleopatra’s image, which Dr Hawass said showed an attractive face — debunking recent speculation on the queen’s renowned beauty. “The finds from Tabusiris reflect a charm. . . and indicate that Cleopatra was in no way unattractive,” Dr Hawass said in a statement.

British scholars threw cold water on the celebrity of Cleopatra’s beauty in 2007. Academics at the University of Newcastle argued that Cleopatra was a pointy-nosed, thin-lipped woman with a jutting jaw line — an assessment based on a Roman coin.

For most, Cleopatra will for ever be imagined as the stunning seductress portrayed by Elizabeth Taylor opposite Richard Burton in the 1963 Hollywood classic Cleopatra.

Dr Hawass, who first suggested the temple as the possible burial site of the couple nearly three years ago, has called the possible discovery of Antony and Cleopatra’s tomb “bigger than that of King Tutankhamun’s tomb”, which was discovered in 1922.

Other experts are cautious, however. John Baines, Professor of Egyptology at the University of Oxford, doubted that Antony would be buried alongside Cleopatra. “It’s unlikely Mark Antony would have a tomb that anyone would be able to discover because he was the enemy at the time he died,” he told The Times last year.Dr Hawass remains defiant. “This is our theory. Others may disagree, but we are searching to see if we can prove it,” he said.

The excavation is hoped to unravel a number of questions that have lingered over the couple, including whether they were buried together, her reputed beauty and their suicide.

Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities said that the three sites were identified last month during a radar survey of the temple close to Alexandria.

It is located on Lake Abusir, once known as Lake Mariut, near the northern coastal city and was built during the reign of King Ptolemy II from 282 to 246 BC.

Teams from Egypt and the Dominican Republic have been excavating the temple for the last three years.

They have already discovered a number of deep shafts inside the holy site, three of which were possibly used for burials.

The leaders of the excavation believe it's possible Cleopatra and Mark Anthony could have been buried in a deep shaft similar to those already found.

The couple are widely believed to have committed suicide after their defeat in the battle of Actium in 31 BC.

Kathleen Martinez, an Egyptologist involved in the dig, said that Roman records suggested that the lovers were then buried together.