Cleopatra - again
For the last three years a team of archaeologists headed by Dr Kathleen Martinez of the Dominical Republic has been excavating at Taposiris Magna, site of a Ptolemaic temple. The temple itself has disappeared, but the wall around the sacred precinct is still standing to its original height. Outside that wall the team has uncovered a small cemetery of 27 tombs, in which they discovered 10 mummies.
Last week, as part of their normal archaeological work, the team conducted a survey of the area inside the walls using ground-penetrating radar and among the features identified were three deep shafts, presumably leading down to tomb chambers. The fact that they are inside the courtyard may indicate that they belong to important people - though it is also possible that they are perfectly ordinary tombs which had been "lost" by the time Ptolemy II came to build his temple on the site, which has been inhabited since pre-Dynastic times.
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| Kathleen Martinez crawls into one of the 27 tombs discovered outside the temple of Taposiris Magna. |
Unfortunately, the attractive Ms Martinez has a problem. Archaeology is an expensive hobby and with the world's economic problems affecting even the Dominican Republic, money is harder than ever to come by; In the course of the excavations the team has uncovered a bust which could be that of Cleopatra as well as 22 coins bearing her image - hardly surprising finds in a Ptolemaic temple. They also found what is described as "a mask" that, with a bit of imagination, could be identified as depicting Mark Antony, Cleopatra's Roman lover. After doing a bit of creative thinking, Ms Martinez summoned the world's press and announced that she has discovered the tombs of Antony and Cleopatra.
Actually, I tell a lie. Zahi Hawass, the supreme self-publicist of Egypt's Council of Antiquities, shoehorns himself onto every dig that takes place in Egypt so that when anything is found, he can claim to be the finder. In his role as self-appointed co-director of the excavations, Zahi Hawass made the announcement, claiming that the discovery of Cleopatra's tomb would be even more important that that of the tomb of Tutankhamun.
Pull the other one, Zahi! One of the peculiarities of Taposiris Magna is that its position by the sea means that it is considerably damper than the Valley of the Kings. There is a very good chance that the tomb chambers will be flooded, but even if they are not, the soil will be so damp that anything organic inside them will have rotted away centuries ago.
Then there is the fact that Antony and Cleopatra were buried by a money-hungry conqueror and the chances that he allowed vast quantities of gold and treasure to be placed beyond his reach are pretty close to nil.
Finally, even if there is a lot of treasure, so what? Tutankhamun was relatively unknown and the discovery of his tomb not only gave us much information about his life and times, but also about the art and culture of the period. Cleopatra and Antony are well known and it is hard to think of anything new that might be learned by the discovery of their tombs.
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| Kathleen Martinez and the claimed bust of Cleopatra. |
One thing is certain, however, and that is that Dr Martinez's application for further funding has been greatly strengthened. What government could turn down the opportunity to go down in history as the funders of the discovery of the tomb of Cleopatra?
Unfortunately, this is not the first time Ms Martinez has played the Cleopatra card. Last year she announced that one of the ten mummies was that of the famous queen, a claim that has been allowed to quietly die due to a lack of any believable evidence to support it. It is just possible that the authorities in the Dominican Republic may feel that this particular wolf has been cried once too often.
© Kendall K. Down 2009
