Article at newobserver.com
Archaeologist: Bones found in Turkey are probably those of Cleopatra's half-sister
Published: February 24, 2013
Long-buried bones and a missing monarch. Add some historical notoriety and modern technology and you have a heck of a captivating, science-driven story.
Just this month, it was announced that bones found under a parking lot in Leicester, England, belonged to King Richard III. DNA evidence, according to the lead archaeologist at the excavation, proved this “beyond a reasonable doubt.”
For Hilke Thur, a Vienna-based archaeologist at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, a similar quest awaits empirical closure. The locale is more exotic – western Turkey – and the evidence is much more difficult to analyze: The bones in question are a bit more than 2,000 years old.
She will cover this and other aspects of her work in a March 1 lecture at the N.C. Museum of History in Raleigh.
The title: “Who Murdered Cleopatra’s Sister? And Other Tales from Ephesus.”
In a recent interview, Thur discussed…
What took her to Ephesus
“I’m an architect as well as an archaeologist, and Ephesus – a large and important city on the coast of Asia Minor centuries before it became part of the Roman Empire – has long been one of the biggest archaeological sites. It is the main excavation of the Austrian Archaeological Institute.
“I was a student when I started working there in 1975, and have based a great deal of my career around the site. From 1997 to 2005, I was assistant director of the Ephesus excavations.
“An English engineer directed the first archaeological digs there in 1869, but since 1895, only Austrian-led projects have permission to do that, though Turks sometimes have excavations. I’d like to add that it’s quite an international team there, with researchers from all over the world.
“My specialty is interpreting buildings and monuments. The excavations of one monument, The Octagon, began in 1904. In 1926, a grave chamber was found inside The Octagon. The skeleton inside it has been interpreted to be that of a young woman about age 20.”
What thickened the plot
“When I was working with the architecture of The Octagon and the building next to it, it wasn’t known whose skeleton was inside. Then I found some ancient writers telling us that in the year 41 B.C., Arsinoe IV – the half-sister of Cleopatra – was murdered in Ephesus by Cleopatra and her Roman lover, Marc Antony. Because the building is dated by its type and decoration to the second half of the first century B.C., this fits quite well.
“I put the pieces of the puzzle together.”
The eight-sided clues
“In antiquity, ordinary people were not buried within the city. That privilege was only for special people – those with an aristocratic background, or people who did special things for their city. So the body must have belonged to a special person. Also, the skeleton was of a woman.
“Then there is the shape of the building. While The Octagon exists only as ruins today, its pieces have been photographed. The images were digitized and ‘virtually rebuilt’ on a computer. The shape of the building, an imperial grave monument [how do we know it is an imperial grave monument?], resembles the famous Lighthouse of Alexandria, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The lighthouse, destroyed centuries ago, was built at Alexandria, on the Egyptian coast, by the Ptolemy dynasty from which Cleopatra and Arsinoe IV were descended.
“The center portion of the lighthouse tower was octagonal, which was quite unusual at the time.”
Forensic evidence
“The site of The Octagon has a grave chamber. It was opened in 1926, but the opening was very small, and no one entered it until later on.
“The skull had been removed for tests; it disappeared in Germany during World War II. But there are photos of the skull, and notes written down by those who examined it.
“In 1985, the back side of the chamber became accessible, and I re-found the skeleton – the bones were in two niches. The body was removed and examined. The bones were found to be those of a woman younger than 20 – 15 or 16, perhaps.
“The revised age was used for arguments against my theory of the body belonging to Arsinoe IV, but those arguments didn’t find anything to disprove my theory.
“This academic questioning is normal. It happens. It’s a kind of jealousy.”
What would prove her theory
“They tried to make a DNA test, but testing didn’t work well because the skeleton had been moved and the bones had been held by a lot of people. It didn’t bring the results we hoped to find. [What results did it bring?]
“I don’t know if there are possibilities to do more of this testing. Forensic material is not my field.
“One of my colleagues on the project told me two years ago there currently is no other method to really determine more. But he thinks there may be new methods developing. There is hope.”
Just this month, it was announced that bones found under a parking lot in Leicester, England, belonged to King Richard III. DNA evidence, according to the lead archaeologist at the excavation, proved this “beyond a reasonable doubt.”
For Hilke Thur, a Vienna-based archaeologist at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, a similar quest awaits empirical closure. The locale is more exotic – western Turkey – and the evidence is much more difficult to analyze: The bones in question are a bit more than 2,000 years old.
She will cover this and other aspects of her work in a March 1 lecture at the N.C. Museum of History in Raleigh.
The title: “Who Murdered Cleopatra’s Sister? And Other Tales from Ephesus.”
In a recent interview, Thur discussed…
What took her to Ephesus
“I’m an architect as well as an archaeologist, and Ephesus – a large and important city on the coast of Asia Minor centuries before it became part of the Roman Empire – has long been one of the biggest archaeological sites. It is the main excavation of the Austrian Archaeological Institute.
“I was a student when I started working there in 1975, and have based a great deal of my career around the site. From 1997 to 2005, I was assistant director of the Ephesus excavations.
“An English engineer directed the first archaeological digs there in 1869, but since 1895, only Austrian-led projects have permission to do that, though Turks sometimes have excavations. I’d like to add that it’s quite an international team there, with researchers from all over the world.
“My specialty is interpreting buildings and monuments. The excavations of one monument, The Octagon, began in 1904. In 1926, a grave chamber was found inside The Octagon. The skeleton inside it has been interpreted to be that of a young woman about age 20.”
What thickened the plot
“When I was working with the architecture of The Octagon and the building next to it, it wasn’t known whose skeleton was inside. Then I found some ancient writers telling us that in the year 41 B.C., Arsinoe IV – the half-sister of Cleopatra – was murdered in Ephesus by Cleopatra and her Roman lover, Marc Antony. Because the building is dated by its type and decoration to the second half of the first century B.C., this fits quite well.
“I put the pieces of the puzzle together.”
The eight-sided clues
“In antiquity, ordinary people were not buried within the city. That privilege was only for special people – those with an aristocratic background, or people who did special things for their city. So the body must have belonged to a special person. Also, the skeleton was of a woman.
“Then there is the shape of the building. While The Octagon exists only as ruins today, its pieces have been photographed. The images were digitized and ‘virtually rebuilt’ on a computer. The shape of the building, an imperial grave monument [how do we know it is an imperial grave monument?], resembles the famous Lighthouse of Alexandria, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The lighthouse, destroyed centuries ago, was built at Alexandria, on the Egyptian coast, by the Ptolemy dynasty from which Cleopatra and Arsinoe IV were descended.
“The center portion of the lighthouse tower was octagonal, which was quite unusual at the time.”
Forensic evidence
“The site of The Octagon has a grave chamber. It was opened in 1926, but the opening was very small, and no one entered it until later on.
“The skull had been removed for tests; it disappeared in Germany during World War II. But there are photos of the skull, and notes written down by those who examined it.
“In 1985, the back side of the chamber became accessible, and I re-found the skeleton – the bones were in two niches. The body was removed and examined. The bones were found to be those of a woman younger than 20 – 15 or 16, perhaps.
“The revised age was used for arguments against my theory of the body belonging to Arsinoe IV, but those arguments didn’t find anything to disprove my theory.
“This academic questioning is normal. It happens. It’s a kind of jealousy.”
What would prove her theory
“They tried to make a DNA test, but testing didn’t work well because the skeleton had been moved and the bones had been held by a lot of people. It didn’t bring the results we hoped to find. [What results did it bring?]
“I don’t know if there are possibilities to do more of this testing. Forensic material is not my field.
“One of my colleagues on the project told me two years ago there currently is no other method to really determine more. But he thinks there may be new methods developing. There is hope.”
**************************************************************************A fascinating story! Here is a little more about the Octogon at Ephesus and the Princess Arsinoe IV (lots of information online about this interesting tomb, but not much more about Arsinoe IV. Historians do not even know when she was born. Guess the Ptolemys did not keep good birth records): The Octogon, Tomb of the Ptolemaic Arsinoe IV (a site that appears to be a tourist promotion for the city of Ephesus). Note the last sentence at of this article: in 41 BC, at Cleopatra's instigation, Mark Antony ordered her executed on the
steps of the temple. She was given an honorable funeral and a modest tomb. I couldn't help but notice the contrast between the description of the tomb by the archaeologist who has spent so many years studying it (an imperial grave monument) and the description quoted above (a modest tomb). Of course, I suppose one does not necessarily refute the other; after all, the tomb could have been imperial but modest at the same time, right?
The photo above is of a reconstruction of the Octogon at Ephesus from the Ephesus Museum in Vienna, Austria, taken from Harvard University's library online service. And from Tynedalehouse.com, a long article discussing the pros and cons for views taken over the years that the remains in question are, or are not, those of Arsinoe IV, which also provides further background information on Arsinoe IV. Fascinating reading!
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