Is the skull of Cleopatra’s sister in Vienna?

The late Hellenistic small octagonal funerary building in the center of Ephesus was uncovered at the beginning of the 20th century. Inside, a burial chamber was found containing the skeleton of a young woman. The find has puzzled scientists ever since, as a missing epitaph makes it difficult to attribute and leaves room for speculation.

“The location of the grave alone was sufficient evidence to give the woman’s remains a high social status,” as Peter Scherrer of the Institute of Archeology at the University of Graz described. He himself was deputy excavation director in Ephesus from 1997 to 2004 and spent decades investigating who the woman was who was given the prominent grave.

Grab gave directions to the owner
Together with his fellow archaeologist Ernst Rudolf, who now works as a forensic scientist, he searched ancient sources, collected archaeological and architectural clues and linked historical data. The unusual shape of the octagonal building with a three-story structure could therefore be an allusion to the “Pharos”, the ancient lighthouse of Alexandria, which has become known as one of the Seven Wonders of the World. “This could have indicated the provenance of the owner of the grave,” Scherrer surmised in an interview with the APA.

Based on the findings and evidence so far, the two authors believe it is “almost certain” that it is the tomb of a Ptolemaic queen. This is reminiscent of the story of the two royal sisters who fought for dominance in Egypt in the mid-first century BC: Cleopatra and Arsinoe IV.

Had her sister murdered in Ephesus
Cleopatra emerged victorious, while her younger sister was taken by Julius Caesar in his “Alexandrian triumphal procession” in Rome in 46 BC and then sent into exile to the sanctuary of Artemis in Ephesus. She was said to have been murdered there on Cleopatra’s orders in 41 BC.

“We have always suspected that the remains in this grave belonged to Arsinoe IV,” Scherrer said. Whether this is actually the burial place of the young Ptolemaic queen remains a mystery.

Skull found at the University of Vienna
The authors also set out to find the skeleton’s skull, which was thought to have been missing for decades after parts of the original mausoleum are in Vienna’s Art History Museum. “We systematically searched Viennese institutions and finally ended up in the collection of the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology. “I found what I was looking for at the University of Vienna,” says Scherrer.

The identification finally took place about two years ago on the basis of old photos. It is now hoped that there is enough DNA in the temporal bone to analyze and compare with other mummies and skeletons from Egypt. “One day we may be able to identify Cleopatra’s grave by family characteristics,” Scherrer said hopefully.