Tuesday, March 29, 2022

Where is Cleopatra’s Tomb?

 From Historical Eve:

The tomb of the last queen of Egypt, Cleopatra, has long been a mystery to archaeologists.

Despite the great fame of the legendary queen of ancient Egypt, immortalized for thousands of years as a beautiful seductress, her tomb is one of the great unsolved mysteries of archeology. Cleopatra was the greatest woman of an age and one of the most iconic figures in the ancient world.

Some believe that she was buried in Alexandria, where she was born and ruled from her royal palace, a city decimated by the 365 AD tsunami.

Others suggest that her final resting place could be some 50 kilometers away, in the ancient temple of Taposiris Magna, built by her Ptolemaic ancestors in the Nile Delta.

In 2020, two mummies of high-status individuals, who were contemporaries of Cleopatra, were discovered in Taposiris Magna, as they were originally completely covered with gold leaf, a luxury that could only be allow those who belonged to the highest echelons of society.

The mummies were radiographed, establishing that they were female and male. They could be priests who played a key role in maintaining the power of the pharaohs. One carries an image of a scarab, symbolizing rebirth, painted in gold leaf.

Although Cleopatra was the last of this dynasty to rule the Ptolemaic kingdom in Egypt for almost three centuries, not a single tomb of any Ptolemaic pharaoh has been found.

In the place of the altar of the temple (Taposiris Magna), where the priests would have made offerings to the gods, 200 coins with the name of Cleopatra and her face have been discovered.

This find directly links the queen of Egypt to Taposiris Magna and reveals a strong image of the queen on these coins, appearing with a prominent nose and double chin, not like the classic beauties about her that have been immortalized in movies. (Read more.)


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