Cleopatra's Tomb Site Discovered?

An alabaster carving of Cleopatra found last year is something like Exhibit A in a new claim that archaeologists are on the verge of discovering the tombs of the Egyptian queen and her Roman lover Mark Antony.

Yesterday, Zahi Hawass, the Egyptian government's top archaeologist, announced that the legendary duo were likely entombed in one of three sites at the third-century B.C. Taposiris Magna temple in what is now Abusir, Egypt. Among other claimed evidence: a mask said to represent Mark Anthony, 22 coins with Cleopatra's face, ten newfound noble tombs nearby, and a radar survey identifying three underground sites ripe for excavation.

Those digs should begin next week, said Hawass, also a National Geographic Society explorer-in-residence. (The National Geographic Society owns National Geographic News.)

Regardless of who is buried there, "the finds from Taposiris reflect a charm … and indicate that Cleopatra was in no way unattractive," said Hawass in a statement, referring to artifacts depicting Cleopatra as something less than a beauty queen.



Shadows of shutterbugs darken a long-decayed mummy near the Taposiris Magna temple in Egypt on April 19, 2009. The burial site is among ten apparently noble tombs found ringing the temple and dating back to about 30 B.C., when Cleopatra and Mark Antony are believed to have committed suicide after being defeated by Roman military leader Octavian in a battle for the Roman Empire.

"The discovery of the cemetery this week really convinced me that there is someone important buried inside this temple," Hawass told reporters on April 19, 2009, according to the Associated Press. "We saw that in the pharaonic days, [nobles] were always buried beside pyramids," which were the resting places of the pharaohs.


Is this one of archaeology's most important dimples? Holding a mask he believes to represent Cleopatra's husband, Egyptian official Zahi Hawass told the press on April 19, 2009: "Many believed he had this cleft on his chin, and that's why I thought this could be Mark Antony."

Found at the Taposiris Magna temple, the mask, Hawass said, is among the evidence that Antony and Cleopatra are buried in one of three spots under the temple, which will be excavated by Egyptian and Dominican archaeologists next week.

Not everyone is quite so sanguine. "I would have thought it very unlikely that Mark Antony was buried with her," University of Oxford classics professor Mary Beard told National Geographic News in 2008, when the mask was discovered.

Beard's fellow Oxonian John Baines, an Egyptologist, questioned why Octavian, who defeated Antony, would have chosen such a hallowed entombment site, the Associated Press reported on April 19.



Four coins discovered at Egypt's Taposiris Magna temple in 2008 are believed to depict first-century B.C. Queen Cleopatra. On April 19, 2009, Egyptian official Zahi Hawass cited 22 such coins as evidence that Cleopatra and her husband, Roman leader Mark Antony, may be buried under the temple site.

Radar surveys have identified three deep shafts, any one of which could be the Antony and Cleopatra's tomb, said Hawass, who will help coordinate an excavation beginning next week.



A headless statue dating back to Egypt's Ptolemaic period was also uncovered at the Taposiris Magna temple site, archaeologists announced April 19, 2009.

Begun by King Ptolemy I Soter, a native of Greece, in 305 B.C., Egypt's Ptolemaic dynasty ended in 30 B.C., when the last ruling descendant of Ptolemy--Cleopatra--committed suicide.



The ruins of the Taposiris Magna temple in what is now Abusir, Egypt, tower over an SUV convoy on April 19, 2009.

The site may be home to the tomb of doomed lovers Antony and Cleopatra, archaeologists announced the same day.

"This could be an important discovery," Egyptian archaeology official Zahi Hawass told National Geographic News in 2008, when some of the first evidence was uncovered, "bigger than that of King Tutankhamun's tomb."