Newly found ancient Egyptian port may lead to Cleopatra’s tomb

The Egyptian Queen condemned Cleopatra has captured the imagination of people around the world for centuries. Archaeologists have long sought to locate her grave, which she shared with her lover, Mark Antony, by popular legend. So far, research has failed, although many believe that it would have been buried near the royal palace in Alexandria, Egypt.

The Explorer of National Geographic Kathleen Martinez thinks that she could be on the verge of locating the last place of rest of Cleopatra on a site called Taposiris Magna. His 20 -year travel (and her count) to prove his hypothesis – and the new exciting discovery of an old submerged port several kilometers from the Mediterranean shore which was probably part of this temple – is told in Cleopatra’s final secretA new National Geographic documentary film.

Martinez has a diploma in archeology but initially became a criminal lawyer. She brought this legal training to support the question of the location of the tomb of Cleopatra, treating it as she would do a medico-legal case. “I tried to understand his personality, who were his friends, who were his enemies,” Martinez told Ars. “She was a strategist and she always had a plan A and a plan B.” It was simply logical for her that Cleopatra would have brought the same strategic thought to orchestrate her death. Martinez suggested that the queen had arranged for loyal subjects to transport her body through secret tunnels to a hidden final rest.

Martinez knows in the first hand how difficult it can be for prisoners to receive food and other articles from family and friends, who are all sought after before reaching the expected recipient. Cleopatra was imprisoned in his palace, and the legend says that an ally brought him a basket of figs, and hidden inside was the Cobra who gave the Egyptian Queen this fatal bite. Martinez thought about the reason for which Cleopatra would have cared with a real cobra when everything she needed was the venom, mixed with food or drinks.

Martinez thinks that it is because Cobra is associated with the Islamic State in Egyptian mythology, and Cleopatra had shaped its image as a human representation of the goddess. “It was symbolism,” said Martinez. “She was dying, but she was dying as an Islamic state, as a goddess, not as a prisoner. And that is how she became a legend, a myth.” It was therefore stated that, given the choice, Cleopatra could have organized so that his body (and that of Antoine) was buried in an Islamic State temple – a conclusion sustained by the writings of Petrarch, among other sources.