Dominican archaeologist Kathleen Martínez (College of Santo Domingo) has found a brand new tunnel could deliver her nearer to her aim, to seek out Cleopatra’s tomb. In “Tunnel found beneath temple could result in Cleopatra’s tomb, archaeologist says,” CNN’s Christian Edwards reviews:
Kathleen Martinez, an archaeologist on the College of Santo Domingo, has been looking for the misplaced tomb of Cleopatra for almost 20 years. Now she believes she’s made a pivotal breakthrough.
Martinez and her group uncovered a 1,305-meter (4,281-foot) tunnel, situated 13 meters (43 ft) underground, the Egyptian Ministry for Tourism and Antiquities lately introduced — an architectural design specialists known as an “engineering miracle.”
“The excavation revealed an enormous spiritual heart with three sanctuaries, a sacred lake, greater than 1,500 objects, busts, statues, golden items, an enormous assortment of cash portraying Alexander the Nice, Queen Cleopatra and the Ptolemies,” Martinez advised CNN. “Essentially the most attention-grabbing discovery is the complicated of tunnels resulting in the Mediterranean Sea and sunken buildings,” she added. Exploring these underwater buildings would be the subsequent stage of her seek for the Egyptian queen’s misplaced tomb — a journey that started in 2005.
[. . .] A collection of clues led Martinez to consider Cleopatra’s tomb may be situated within the Temple of Osiris within the ruined metropolis of Taposiris Magna, on Egypt’s northern coast, the place the Nile River meets the Mediterranean.
Chief amongst them was the title itself. In response to Martinez, Cleopatra was thought-about in her time to be “the human incarnation of the goddess Isis,” as Antony was thought-about to be that of the god Orisis, Isis’ husband. Martinez believes Cleopatra could have chosen to bury her husband within the temple to mirror this delusion. Of all of the 20 temples round Alexandria she has studied, Martinez mentioned, “no different place, construction or temple combines so many circumstances because the temple of Taposiris Magna.”
In 2004, Martinez took her principle to Zahi Hawass, an Egyptian archaeologist who was then Egypt’s minister for antiquities affairs. Her venture was accredited a yr later.
And after years of looking, Martinez feels she is getting shut. The excavations up to now have revealed that “the temple was devoted to Isis” — which Martinez believes is one other signal that the misplaced tomb lies close by — in addition to the tunnels under the ocean.
Now, Martinez mentioned, she is at “the start of a brand new journey” — underwater excavations.
In response to a press release issued by the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, the Egyptian shoreline has been battered by earthquakes over the centuries, inflicting components of the Taposiris Magna to break down and sink underneath the waves. That is the place Martinez and her group are trying subsequent. Though it’s “too early to know the place these tunnels lead,” she is hopeful.
If the tunnels result in Cleopatra, “will probably be a very powerful discovery of the century,” she mentioned.
For full article, see https://www.cnn.com/fashion/article/egypt-temple-cleopatra-lost-tomb-scli-intl-scn/index.html