Cleopatra: Portrait of a Killer


Cleopatra: Portrait of a Killer

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Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt - the most famous woman in history.

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We know her as the legendary lover who used power and beauty to seduce

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two of Rome's greatest leaders - Julius Caesar

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and Marc Antony.

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But there was a darker side to this legend, the forgotten story of a cold-hearted killer.

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No! No!

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Over the past 2,000 years, this dark side of Cleopatra has disappeared.

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But now her trail has led here, to Ephesus.

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A vast Roman city, in what we now call Turkey.

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In a 2,000-year-old tomb, scientists have uncovered the skeleton of a young woman.

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They believe she was a murder victim.

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She died because she dared to cross someone even more powerful than herself...

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..Her own sister, none other than Cleopatra.

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Could this skeleton be the first forensic evidence

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of Cleopatra's story?

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This is a story of power, lust and sibling rivalry..

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..That takes us on a journey to two of the great wonders of the ancient world.

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What's inside this tomb reveals Cleopatra

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as you've never seen her before.

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This is the portrait of a killer.

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Our journey starts here, in Turkey.

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In the 1920s, archaeologists were exploring a tomb here

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in the heart of Ephesus,

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once a glorious Roman capital ten times the size of Pompeii.

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In a sarcophagus filled with water, they found human remains.

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The skeleton was small, with thin bones and a slight frame.

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They appeared to be the remains of a young woman.

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But the custom here was to bury the dead outside the city walls.

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In 500 years, there had only been four exceptions, and all of those

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were men of great importance.

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So who was she, and what was she doing here?

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The archaeologists had no idea who they'd found, or her importance,

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and they resealed the sarcophagus.

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The identity of the body remained a mystery,

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until archaeologist Dr Hilke Thur was drawn to the forgotten tomb

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while excavating Roman remains nearby.

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In the 20 years she'd worked at Ephesus,

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she'd never seen anything like it.

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A mysterious, octagonal tomb on the most important street in the city -

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the street of the heroes.

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She was determined to find an answer to the riddle.

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Hilke decided to enter the tomb.

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It would be a momentous decision.

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-So, Hilke, is this the entrance to the tomb?

-Yes, this is the entrance.

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And I can go in here. It's safe?

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Yes, yes, yes, yes. I think so.

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'The chance that the skeleton would still be there

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'nearly a century later seemed remote.

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'But what she uncovered

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'would take her on an extraordinary detective story

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'to the dark heart of the legend of Cleopatra.'

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Right.

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What's that?

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-It's a barrel-vaulted chamber.

-Nice workmanship.

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It's beautifully made, isn't it?

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Lovely masonry. It's just held together by its own weight. Wow.

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What did you see? Just describe what the scene was like.

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I was very excited and I crawled through this small entrance

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-and then came in and I saw the bones.

-Right.

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The long bones from the legs,

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and they nearly were partly in the one niche and partly

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in the other niche.

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I immediately thought we now have at least a skeleton of the owner of this grave chamber.

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How fantastic, you know - there was

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someone in here obviously of some kind of significance, and to then

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immediately wonder, you know, who? Why was somebody worth this?

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What was their story? It's great!

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Determined to discover the identity of this mysterious skeleton,

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Hilke had little to go on.

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It was incomplete.

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She decided to search ancient records

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for a woman important enough to be buried in such an unusual tomb.

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In the Roman accounts, she found a reference to the horrific murder

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of Princess Arsinoe - Cleopatra's sister.

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Please, please go in, come! Come this way.

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A forgotten but bloody chapter in the legend of Cleopatra.

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In the city of Ephesus,

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at the behest of Cleopatra,

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Marc Antony had her sister dragged

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from the temple of Artemis and there, in this holy place, the young Arsinoe

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was put to death.

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These words, by Roman historian Cassius Dio, describing the

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murder of Cleopatra's sister, were written 300 years after the event.

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So was it just a legend, or the truth?

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If Cassius Dio was right, and if Hilke had indeed stumbled

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on the bones of Arsinoe, then this was a huge find.

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The first-ever remains of anyone

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from Cleopatra's family - proof not only of a shocking murder, but also

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the first forensic evidence that Cleopatra was a ruthless killer.

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If this was Arsinoe, how did she end up

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in a tomb 500 miles from Egypt, where she was born?

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To find the answers,

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I need to cross the Mediterranean, to Cleopatra's homeland.

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We're in Egypt, at the magnificent temple of Karnak.

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By the time Cleopatra came to the throne, this place

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was already 2,000 years old.

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The golden age of Egypt was past.

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Its future was hanging in the balance.

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In 51BC, Cleopatra's father died.

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He had four children.

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He left the throne to be shared equally between his eldest son,

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Ptolemy XIII,

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and his eldest daughter, Cleopatra, aged 18.

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Also, and in the custom of Egyptian royal families,

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both rulers - brother and sister - were to be married to each other.

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But behind the scenes they were a family divided, and there was

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one issue above all that split the brothers and sisters - the new and

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emerging superpower of the age...

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Rome.

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The Roman Empire was expanding across the Middle East,

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and for the first time, Roman troops had established a foothold in Egypt.

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So, the ruling dynasty here had a big decision to make.

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Should they try and resist, or make some kind of alliance with Rome?

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Both strategies involved a sizeable risk.

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By siding with the Romans, they might provoke open rebellion

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in Egypt, but resisting the Romans could involve going to war

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with the most powerful military machine on earth.

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Cleopatra wanted to be Rome's friend, but her brother Ptolemy XIII

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disagreed, and he was supported by their sister, Arsinoe.

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They believed it was time for Egypt to stand up to Rome.

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The family argument rapidly got out of hand.

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It so happened

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that the King of Egypt, whose name was Ptolemy,

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and who was but a boy at the time,

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was engaged in a vicious war with his own sister and queen, Cleopatra.

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With the support of those loyal to him,

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the boy king expelled Cleopatra from the kingdom and sent her away.

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Cleopatra was banished from the Egyptian capital, Alexandria.

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She found herself in exile.

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But Cleopatra wasn't finished yet.

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There was one sure way to get back at Ptolemy,

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and that was with the help of Rome.

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Cleopatra was her father's daughter,

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and he was a friend of Julius Caesar.

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He had written in the royal will that if there was conflict

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over the succession, Rome should be the impartial judge.

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In 48BC, Caesar arrived in Egypt with a small force.

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He soon found himself mediating in the family feud.

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Cleopatra knew she had to get to Caesar before her brother

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and she had one key advantage over him.

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Cleopatra decided to seduce Caesar -

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a move which would have fatal consequences for her brothers

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and for her sister, Arsinoe.

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2,000 years later, it's time to test the astonishing theory

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that this might be the skeleton of Princess Arsinoe.

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Armed with state-of-the-art forensic science, Dr Fabian Kanz

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is brought in to examine the skeleton.

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If the bones from the octagonal tomb are male,

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the theory will collapse at the first hurdle.

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So, Fabian, what can you tell from a first analysis of the skeleton?

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From the first analysis, I think, or I'm sure, that it was a female.

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I can show you for comparison from other skeletons.

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Two pelvics, one from a male and one from a female.

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Oh, right, well you can, yes,

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clearly that's a much bigger space there, isn't it?

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And so the female pelvis has, well, basically got room for a baby.

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Yes. Right. And if you take the pelvic bone from the skeleton

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from the octagon, you can see it's a wide angle and so

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from the morphological point of view, it must have been a female.

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OK, so it's a woman.

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'But can Fabian discover anything else from the bones?'

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The next, after the sex, what you try to establish is the...

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age at death and in this case, you can see on the long bones that

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they are still not completely grown,

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because the epiphysis and the diathesis are not fused together.

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So the bones start out in pieces and then gradually grow to become one.

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Yes, they grow in this gap.

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I show it to you with a...

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fully-developed adult skeleton, where even this gap is completely gone.

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Right. Yes, that's quite clear, isn't it?

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Yes.

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So this skeleton here is female and...

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how young?

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I would say...

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between 15 and 17, maybe 18.

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So just a youngster.

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We also know Arsinoe was Cleopatra's younger sister,

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and that Cleopatra was 18 when she came to the throne.

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So this too fits with Hilke's theory.

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So the bones are the right age and sex to be Arsinoe.

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But is the skeleton from the right period?

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Next, Fabian carbon dates the bones.

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The tests show this is a body from the period between 200BC and 20BC.

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I think this is striking,

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because the carbon dating was consistent with being Arsinoe.

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The carbon dating too matches the dates of the Cleopatra story...

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And there's more.

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What about just the general appearance of it?

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You know, what does the skeleton as a whole suggest?

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It's very delicate. It's very thin.

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So it's very...do you mean it's of a small, slightly-built person?

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-Yes.

-A petite person?

-A petite person, yes.

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So our skeleton belongs to a young female of slender frame.

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History suggests that Arsinoe's older sister Cleopatra was slim too.

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Famously, she used her size to smuggle herself back from exile

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into the Royal Palace.

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Here's what the Roman writer Plutarch has to say.

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"Cleopatra sailed into Alexandria in a little skiff

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"and landed close to the palace just as it was getting dark and

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"she was able to enter undetected.

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"She rolled herself up in a bed sack tied with a thick chord,

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"and had it carried indoors, to Caesar.

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"In this way, she was already in Caesar's bed, alone with

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"him in his quarters, ready to reveal herself at the moment

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"it would have the most impact."

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It reveals the clear and calculating mind of Cleopatra - a woman able

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and willing to do whatever was required to get her what she wanted.

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Caesar was 52 years old - she was only 22.

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The story of Cleopatra's seduction of Caesar is at the heart

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of her romantic legend, but it was also a calculated act of betrayal.

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Others have written long before I that her hair was mussed with so

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deft a touch as to give the air that she had been tearing at it.

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Her face, the picture of sorrow, and yet not a tear had been spilled.

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And how she pleaded to the Roman leader - "Mighty Caesar,

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"if birth count for aught..."

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I have been driven from my father's throne.

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I shall be in exile forever

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unless your guiding hand restores me to my rightful destiny,

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and therefore I, a queen, beg at your feet.

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Hearing her speak but a few words, Caesar was

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instantly captivated, such that he spent the whole night with her

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in infamy.

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By getting into bed with Caesar,

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Cleopatra was in effect stabbing her brothers

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and her sister Arsinoe in the back.

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Not expecting to see his sister within the palace,

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the boy king was filled with wrath.

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He tore his diadem from his head and cast it to the ground

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before rushing out to his people, crying out that he had been betrayed.

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The young king felt Cleopatra had sold out to Rome, leaving him and

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his country to pay the price.

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In modern day Ephesus, Fabian is still working with an incomplete skeleton.

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Last summer, he decided to go back into the tomb, with a slim hope of finding new evidence.

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He struck lucky.

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In this niche over the door to the grave chamber,

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there have been some bones.

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It turned out that they're human

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bones, and that they belong to the individual from the grave chamber.

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The chance to find additional bones in this grave

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was nearly nothing, I think.

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Yes, it was a great day.

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I couldn't believe it.

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So now the skeleton is nearly complete,

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but there is one big problem.

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The most important part of the skeleton remains missing...

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The skull.

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Well here, at least, our modern day archaeologist, Hilke Thur,

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found an answer in the archives.

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In the 1920s, the skull had been taken from Turkey back to Germany.

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It was lost in the chaos of the Second World War.

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But before its disappearance,

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an archaeologist had recorded its dimensions.

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Cryptically, he revealed another clue as to the identity of the tomb.

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The skull, long and with a low forehead,

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reminded him of others he'd seen... In Egypt!

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By a stroke of luck, his precise notes, photos and measurements

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of the skull survived.

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Using the latest scientific technology,

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a world-renowned British facial reconstruction team

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believe they can use this evidence to rebuild the skull

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in virtual reality.

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Well, this has been a challenge but it's been quite interesting to take

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in these two dimensional images and recreate a 3D model, within

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the planes created by the images.

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And we can take a template skull of a similar age,

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sex and ethnicity into this space and then alter that to fit

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the morphology - the shape that you can see of the skull on the images.

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So what might the 3D reconstruction reveal about the identity of its owner?

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The eye sockets are quite large in relation to the upper face,

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and that's something that's quite common in children.

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It's also something that's common in young females, but I

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think proportionally, the cranium suggests this is a young adult.

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The virtual skull confirms Fabian's findings that

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this belongs to a young female, and so perhaps our Princess Arsinoe.

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If this is her, can the skull tell us anything about her looks?

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Well, it's difficult to call a skull beautiful, but certainly it's symmetrical, it's balanced, it's

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got quite delicate features, and those are all things

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you would associate with a beautiful face in a woman.

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So far, the age and proportions of the skull are consistent

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with what's known about Arsinoe.

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But we can now go one stage further.

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Using the shape of the skull and the bite of the upper jaw,

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the team can estimate the shape of the lower jaw,

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recreating the mouth and muscles on the face.

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We all have the same muscles in our face,

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and they all have exactly the same origins and attachment points,

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but it's just the proportions of the skull that make a different face shape.

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We can then look at facial feature details, so we can

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work the prominence and position of the eyeballs,

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and then we can put on big structures like the neck,

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because we can see where the neck muscles attach.

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We can look at the bones on the edge of the nasal aperture and

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the nasal root here between the eyes to tell us about the prominence

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and width and shape of the nose.

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She had a very prominent nasal root, kind of like

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an ancient Greek sculpture - that kind of classical nose shape.

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She's got quite a distinctive nose, which is very straight,

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and I think it's something that we now find aesthetically pleasing,

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it's a beautiful feature.

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So the owner of the skull was young and classically beautiful.

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If this is Arsinoe, it ties in with ancient accounts of her sister

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Cleopatra as a beautiful queen.

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2,000 years ago, back in Egypt, Cleopatra's looks may have conquered

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Caesar, but sex with the Roman was seen as treason.

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Troops loyal to her brother and sister took up arms

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and besieged the palace in which Caesar had made his headquarters.

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War besets Caesar on every side!

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Missiles fell upon the palace and battered the roofs.

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To prevent Arsinoe and her brother, the rightful king,

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leading a loyalist uprising, Caesar took them both hostage.

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Caesar rushed from one hall of the palace to the next,

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dragging all the while the king by his side.

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He took some consolation in holding the boy hostage.

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If he could not return the fight

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with firebrands and missiles of his own, then at least he could hurl at

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the Egyptians the head of their own king!

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Barricaded inside the palace complex,

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Caesar sent for reinforcements,

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but they would take weeks to arrive by sea.

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Caesar and Cleopatra took desperate measures.

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To draw the Egyptians away from

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the palace, the Roman general set fire to the ships in the harbour.

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The flames, in turn, set fire to the city.

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But Caesar's firebrands fell on the houses around the harbour,

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the wind fanning the flames until they streaked across the roofs as fast as meteors.

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This inferno drew the Egyptians away from the palace

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as they rushed to rescue the city.

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Caesar did not waste a moment.

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Seizing the opportunity, Caesar led his bodyguard to the mouth of the harbour.

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There, towering up from the centre of an island

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to warn approaching ships of rocks and reefs, was the seventh

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wonder of the ancient world, the lighthouse of Pharos.

0:26:470:26:51

The lighthouse of Pharos!

0:26:520:26:55

Caesar described it soaring in height,

0:26:560:26:59

a work of unimaginable construction.

0:26:590:27:02

It stood on an island at the mouth of the harbour.

0:27:020:27:05

And whoever controlled this island, controlled the traffic of all ships

0:27:050:27:10

into Alexandria. So in all haste,

0:27:100:27:12

Caesar dispatched his troops to seize the island and the great lighthouse itself.

0:27:120:27:18

The 300ft lighthouse had a distinctive eight-sided tower.

0:27:240:27:28

From the top, sentries could see for 30 miles out to sea.

0:27:280:27:32

Workmen stoked giant braziers to keep the lighthouse torch burning.

0:27:340:27:38

It was an emblem of Cleopatra's family,

0:27:410:27:44

and was about to take centre stage, in an epic chapter of this story.

0:27:440:27:49

As the battle raged, the young

0:27:540:27:56

Princess Arsinoe stole a moment to turn the tables for the Egyptians.

0:27:560:28:01

She made a daring escape from the palace.

0:28:040:28:06

The rebels proclaimed Arsinoe their queen,

0:28:330:28:36

to lead them in rebellion against Caesar and Cleopatra.

0:28:360:28:41

Back in Ephesus, Hilke and her team are searching for further clues

0:28:460:28:51

to link their mysterious skeleton with Egypt, over 500 miles away.

0:28:510:28:56

Their investigation turns to the tomb itself.

0:28:570:29:00

The heroes' tombs in Ephesus

0:29:050:29:07

all carried symbols which told the story of who was buried inside.

0:29:070:29:12

2,000 years ago, everyone would have known who they were.

0:29:130:29:18

Today, we have to decipher our tomb like a secret code.

0:29:200:29:24

Only the burial chamber and its octagonal base remain intact.

0:29:250:29:30

But there is one further piece of the tomb that is preserved,

0:29:370:29:41

because the original archaeologists took it back to Vienna.

0:29:410:29:46

Nearly 20 feet high,

0:29:520:29:54

it's still only a third of the height of the whole building.

0:29:540:29:58

It reveals a vital clue about the tomb's owner.

0:29:580:30:03

These pieces have been found right beside the octagon.

0:30:060:30:10

It must have been something like a torch probably, where you can put up

0:30:100:30:13

a light in the top of this little column.

0:30:130:30:16

So it looks like a bundle of papyrus leaves from Egypt.

0:30:160:30:19

As an image, as the type of this column, everyone would recognise

0:30:190:30:23

at once, papyrus bundle and Egypt.

0:30:230:30:25

So the stone imagery strongly suggests the tomb's owner was Egyptian.

0:30:250:30:31

But to decode the building in full,

0:30:310:30:34

the team would have to rebuild the whole thing.

0:30:340:30:37

It survives only as 170 scattered stones.

0:30:370:30:42

Austrian archaeologists and colleagues of Hilke Thur

0:30:430:30:46

have painstakingly been piecing together fragments of the tomb.

0:30:460:30:50

They've scoured the site for fragments,

0:30:500:30:52

hoping one day to put it all together again

0:30:520:30:55

like pieces of a giant jigsaw.

0:30:550:30:58

A team of engineers is brought in to scan each and every stone into

0:31:000:31:05

a computer and rebuild the tomb in virtual space.

0:31:050:31:10

This is just kind of a heap of stones right here.

0:31:110:31:14

It's kind of a virtual stone yard.

0:31:140:31:18

We have plenty of objects looking quite similar,

0:31:180:31:23

and we have to figure out where they could belong.

0:31:230:31:26

Then the scanning reveals another clue, invisible to the naked eye.

0:31:280:31:32

A tiny diagram that gives away the shape of the tomb.

0:31:320:31:36

This potentially is a drawing of the base, the columns,

0:31:360:31:40

and the roof on top of it.

0:31:400:31:42

Nobody knew about this drawing up to this summer.

0:31:420:31:46

Armed with clues like this, the tomb begins to take shape,

0:31:500:31:53

and we can now see what it would have looked like 2,000 years ago.

0:31:530:31:58

Then, it stood 50 feet high and 13 feet wide, the most prominent tomb

0:32:090:32:15

in Ephesus and, most important of all, it had eight sides.

0:32:150:32:20

Hilke searches in vain for tombs from this period

0:32:210:32:25

with the same peculiar octagonal shape.

0:32:250:32:28

Once again, she turns to the story of Cleopatra and her sister Arsinoe,

0:32:280:32:33

and uncovers the story of the battle for the Pharos lighthouse.

0:32:330:32:36

Hilke is immediately struck

0:32:390:32:40

by the eight-sided tomb's resemblance to the lighthouse.

0:32:400:32:44

The symbol of Cleopatra's dynasty, the Pharos was the most prominent

0:32:460:32:51

octagonal building in the ancient world.

0:32:510:32:54

This is a "eureka" moment.

0:32:540:32:57

The Pharos lighthouse and the destiny of Arsinoe were

0:33:020:33:05

about to become inextricably linked.

0:33:050:33:08

The Queen of Egypt, still an adolescent,

0:33:090:33:12

now took on the might of Rome.

0:33:120:33:14

With Caesar pinned down on the island of Pharos, her

0:33:200:33:24

troops launched a surprise attack, catching him completely off guard.

0:33:240:33:28

The Romans ran for their lives.

0:33:360:33:39

Trapped the island of Pharos, Caesar had to swim for his life.

0:33:410:33:45

Weighted down, as he was, by his thick robes and being pelted

0:33:480:33:51

by the Egyptians, his cloak, being purple, made for an easy target.

0:33:510:33:58

He might have perished miserably had he not thrown off his clothing

0:33:580:34:02

and succeeded in swimming further out to sea.

0:34:020:34:05

Caesar barely escaped with his life

0:34:250:34:27

and staggered back to Cleopatra at the palace.

0:34:270:34:31

The hero of Rome had been defeated by Arsinoe - barely a teenager.

0:34:330:34:39

The Pharos lighthouse now became a symbol of her famous victory.

0:34:390:34:44

When Caesar's cloak was hoisted above the battlements,

0:34:500:34:53

the message was clear.

0:34:530:34:55

Princess Arsinoe had shamed the might of Rome.

0:34:550:34:58

There was an incredible moment, when it looked like there might

0:35:060:35:10

be the start of a new dynasty.

0:35:100:35:11

If things had continued along this path, a path Arsinoe might reasonably have hoped for,

0:35:110:35:16

we would now remember the legend of Queen Arsinoe, not Cleopatra.

0:35:160:35:21

But the alternative future didn't last long.

0:35:210:35:24

The rebels began to argue among themselves.

0:35:260:35:29

Caesar used the breathing space to bring in reinforcements from Syria.

0:35:290:35:34

He launched a counter attack.

0:35:340:35:36

Caesar had promised to restore his lover to the throne, and now he was to honour his word.

0:35:360:35:43

The young Ptolemy was pursued by Roman troops and, weighed down by

0:35:430:35:47

his gold armour, he was drowned trying to escape across the Nile.

0:35:470:35:51

Cleopatra's first rival for the throne had been dispatched

0:35:510:35:54

without her having to lift a finger.

0:35:540:35:56

Caesar had done the work for her.

0:35:560:35:59

Arsinoe was taken prisoner.

0:36:120:36:14

Cleopatra's greatest rival, her own little sister, was in her grasp.

0:36:140:36:20

Caesar was victorious, but he didn't take over Egypt.

0:36:300:36:34

He placed Cleopatra, in whose name he'd fought the war,

0:36:340:36:39

back on the throne.

0:36:390:36:41

By tradition, she was to marry her last surviving younger brother.

0:36:410:36:44

He was around 12 years old.

0:36:440:36:48

As for Princess Arsinoe, she was taken to Rome in chains.

0:36:520:36:57

A captive of Caesar,

0:37:000:37:01

she must have felt a world away from her moment of glory.

0:37:010:37:06

In 46BC, Caesar celebrated his Egyptian triumph in Rome.

0:37:130:37:19

Top of the bill of the entertainments was an effigy of the Pharos

0:37:210:37:25

and a parade of the Egyptian prisoners captured in Alexandria.

0:37:250:37:30

At their head was Arsinoe.

0:37:300:37:32

Caesar had a special treat in store for the crowd.

0:37:320:37:36

The custom was to take the main prisoner at the end of the parade

0:37:360:37:40

and strangle her to death.

0:37:400:37:42

Imagine what that must have felt like for Arsinoe.

0:37:440:37:48

Did she know that that was what was intended for her?

0:37:480:37:51

And whatever else she was, whatever else she might have done,

0:37:510:37:55

she was just a young girl.

0:37:550:37:56

But in Caesar's eyes she was the teenage rebel who had taken on Rome

0:37:560:38:01

and this would be her just desserts.

0:38:010:38:03

Arsinoe was to be paraded along with the other captives.

0:38:130:38:18

It was a spectacle which had never before been seen in Rome - a woman,

0:38:180:38:25

and one once considered a queen, now in chains.

0:38:250:38:30

Behind her, Caesar paraded a burning effigy of the lighthouse of Pharos.

0:38:380:38:45

Once the embodiment of her greatest victory,

0:38:470:38:50

it was now a symbol of her humiliation.

0:38:500:38:53

The octagonal symbol that Hilke is now convinced

0:39:040:39:08

is the key to the code of her tomb.

0:39:080:39:10

To onlookers, Arsinoe looked more like a child than a rebel leader.

0:39:180:39:23

To execute barbarians was one thing,

0:39:250:39:28

but to strangle a young princess as a circus act was quite another.

0:39:280:39:32

The triumphs delighted the spectators,

0:39:320:39:36

but the sight of Arsinoe

0:39:360:39:38

led out amongst the captives displeased them exceedingly.

0:39:380:39:43

Caesar's stunt backfired.

0:39:470:39:51

It aroused a great sympathy amongst the people.

0:39:530:39:57

To be certain, it was for that that her life was spared.

0:39:570:40:01

The crowd forced Caesar's hand and he had to spare Arsinoe.

0:40:030:40:07

But he could never allow her to return to Egypt.

0:40:070:40:10

Instead, he banished her,

0:40:100:40:14

close to a thousand miles from Rome and 500 miles from Egypt,

0:40:140:40:20

to Ephesus, in modern-day Turkey.

0:40:200:40:24

Ephesus was a vast, imperial capital - Rome's gateway to Asia.

0:40:320:40:37

Try and imagine what Ephesus was like 2,000 or more years ago.

0:40:470:40:52

This was no Roman backwater.

0:40:520:40:54

This was one of the most exciting and cosmpolitan

0:40:540:40:57

cities anywhere in the known world.

0:40:570:41:00

A glittering jewel, that attracted the great and the good, the famous and the infamous.

0:41:000:41:05

Everybody who was anybody came here.

0:41:050:41:09

To them, Ephesus was a place of pilgrimage and pleasure.

0:41:090:41:14

But for Arsinoe,

0:41:140:41:16

it was a prison.

0:41:160:41:18

For the rest of her life, home would be a religious sanctuary -

0:41:180:41:22

the Temple of Artemis, another ancient wonder of the world.

0:41:220:41:27

In ancient times, the building was visible for miles out to sea, even at night.

0:41:360:41:42

And this is what Princess Arsinoe would have seen as she approached by boat.

0:41:420:41:47

She was just a teenage girl, but she knew that she would be spending

0:41:500:41:53

the rest of her life here, in the care of eunuch priests

0:41:530:41:56

and that she would never see Alexandria again.

0:41:560:41:59

These ruins might not look like much today,

0:42:140:42:17

but 2,000 years ago, this place was the reason for the fame of the city.

0:42:170:42:21

This was the Temple of Artemis,

0:42:210:42:24

one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

0:42:240:42:27

The Roman historian Pliny tells us that the temple alone

0:42:450:42:50

was 425 feet long, 225 feet wide,

0:42:500:42:53

with 127 columns, each 60 feet high, supporting a massive roof.

0:42:530:42:59

It was here, 2,000 years ago,

0:43:070:43:10

Cleopatra's sister came to seek sanctuary.

0:43:100:43:12

'Dr Sabine Ladstatter knows just how important Artemis was

0:43:150:43:18

'to political exiles like Arsinoe.'

0:43:180:43:22

It was a common practice that you may ask for political asylum.

0:43:220:43:26

If you got the asylum here you could stay here as long as you want.

0:43:260:43:31

People lived here for years, for decades, and they were safe

0:43:310:43:35

because the Artemesion had its own administration

0:43:350:43:39

and had its own jurisdiction.

0:43:390:43:42

So nobody was allowed to interfere in the Artemesion.

0:43:420:43:46

Arsinoe's coup had failed, but her life had been spared.

0:43:490:43:54

Under the protection of the temple and the watchful eye of Rome,

0:43:550:44:01

her days as a rebel were over.

0:44:010:44:03

But at least no one could harm her here -

0:44:030:44:07

or so she thought.

0:44:070:44:09

Just two years later, in March 44BC, the man who had spared her life,

0:44:170:44:22

Julius Caesar, was stabbed to death.

0:44:220:44:25

With Caesar dead, Arsinoe's future was thrown into jeopardy.

0:44:290:44:33

For Cleopatra, there was no one left to curb her

0:44:350:44:38

ambition to be sole Queen of Egypt, even at the cost of her own family.

0:44:380:44:43

With Caesar gone, what would she do?

0:44:440:44:48

The bloody answer came within weeks.

0:44:500:44:53

She had her husband, co-ruler and last little brother murdered.

0:44:530:44:57

Only Arsinoe was now out of Cleopatra's reach.

0:45:050:45:09

Then, the Roman Empire in the east got a new governor.

0:45:110:45:15

His name was Marc Antony.

0:45:150:45:18

His seat of power was Ephesus, the city of Arsinoe's exile.

0:45:180:45:23

And he used the city as a place for his expensive personal pleasures.

0:45:250:45:30

Even in Ephesus, with the vast reserves of wealth the city had

0:45:340:45:38

to offer, Marc Antony's licentious lifestyle soon left him broke.

0:45:380:45:43

He had enemies on his borders in Iran and in Armenia,

0:45:430:45:47

and his wars were expensive.

0:45:470:45:50

It wasn't long before the new governor's lifestyle

0:45:500:45:53

meant that he too had to look across the sea to the wealth of Egypt.

0:45:530:45:57

And Egypt meant Cleopatra.

0:45:570:46:01

Antony summoned her to Tarsus in modern-day Turkey.

0:46:040:46:09

But Cleopatra played hard to get.

0:46:090:46:11

If she did come, it would be on her terms.

0:46:110:46:14

She was older now,

0:46:140:46:17

and more savvy.

0:46:170:46:19

She had received several letters from Antony.

0:46:200:46:23

Still, she refused to come.

0:46:230:46:25

Then, as if in mockery of them, she sailed to Tarsus to meet him.

0:46:250:46:30

The people poured from the towns to catch but a glimpse of her.

0:46:320:46:36

The throng streamed away, til at last just Antony was left,

0:46:360:46:40

seated alone on his chair.

0:46:400:46:42

She herself lay under a canopy of golden cloth,

0:46:440:46:49

adorned like Venus, while beautiful boys stood either side of her

0:46:490:46:54

in adoration of their queen.

0:46:540:46:56

Marc Antony held the key to a prize that until now had

0:47:020:47:05

been beyond Cleopatra's grasp -

0:47:050:47:08

the life of Arsinoe.

0:47:080:47:11

Antony was now as valuable to Cleopatra

0:47:110:47:14

as Cleopatra was to Antony.

0:47:140:47:17

The honeymoon period in the year that followed became legend.

0:47:200:47:24

Every day they would hold even more lavish feasts for one another,

0:47:290:47:34

Cleopatra constantly flattering him,

0:47:340:47:36

meting out each day some fresh new delight, some

0:47:360:47:40

enticing little way to charm him, releasing him neither night nor day.

0:47:400:47:44

She watched him as he exercised himself in arms.

0:47:460:47:51

She drank with him, she played at dice with him, she hunted with him.

0:47:540:48:00

But, behind the romance, both knew they had an agenda.

0:48:020:48:06

Antony needed the resources of Egypt to pay his debts and fight his wars.

0:48:060:48:12

Cleopatra craved absolute security, and that meant removing

0:48:120:48:16

her last remaining rival to the throne of Egypt -

0:48:160:48:20

her younger sister Arsinoe.

0:48:200:48:23

But at the temple of Artemis, under the care of priests,

0:48:290:48:33

the Princess was surely no longer a threat to anybody,

0:48:330:48:37

least of all Cleopatra.

0:48:370:48:40

Stung once in Alexandria, Cleopatra saw it differently.

0:48:420:48:49

Back in the present, there's one final question for Fabian to answer.

0:48:510:48:56

How did the lady in the octagon tomb die?

0:48:560:48:59

I have seen hundreds of skeletons in Ephesus, more than 500.

0:49:010:49:06

And there's just two juveniles in the whole sample.

0:49:060:49:10

And this is astonishing, because it's very unlikely to die in the juvenile age.

0:49:100:49:15

She has been treated well her whole life.

0:49:150:49:20

I think she was quite healthy at the time of death.

0:49:200:49:23

We also don't have any sign for why she died.

0:49:230:49:26

And there's also no sign of any kind of long-term, degenerative illness?

0:49:280:49:32

No, there's no sign of long illnesses, even short illnesses.

0:49:320:49:36

There's just perfectly smooth, proportioned bones.

0:49:360:49:40

This was not an individual that had to do hard labour work.

0:49:400:49:44

So it seems to be somebody who lived quite well,

0:49:440:49:47

had an easy life and then unexpectedly, in her teens...

0:49:470:49:51

-Gone.

-Yeah.

0:49:510:49:53

The Roman sources were in no doubt.

0:49:570:49:59

Arsinoe died a sudden death and they knew who was responsible.

0:49:590:50:05

At Tarsus, a deal had been struck between Antony and Cleopatra

0:50:060:50:10

and Arsinoe was to find out what this meant for her.

0:50:100:50:15

SCRAPING

0:50:220:50:24

SHE SCREAMS

0:51:030:51:05

In the city of Ephesus,

0:51:050:51:07

at the behest of Cleopatra,

0:51:070:51:10

Marc Antony had her sister dragged

0:51:100:51:13

from the temple of Artemis and there, in this holy place, the young Arsinoe

0:51:130:51:21

was put to death.

0:51:210:51:23

No!

0:51:230:51:25

It was not only a shock in Ephesus,

0:51:250:51:27

it was a shock in Rome and everywhere, you know?

0:51:270:51:29

It was unbelievable that someone interferes in

0:51:290:51:33

a sanctuary, and especially in the Artemesion of Ephesus.

0:51:330:51:37

It was the biggest crime in this period.

0:51:370:51:40

The carbon dating of the bones,

0:51:480:51:50

the sex, build and age of the skeleton at the time of death

0:51:500:51:53

and the fact it belonged to someone of high birth, point to one thing.

0:51:530:51:58

Experts are now convinced that this skeleton is the first forensic

0:52:000:52:04

evidence of Cleopatra's family ever found.

0:52:040:52:08

The shape of the tomb, its similarity to the Pharos,

0:52:090:52:13

these are all parts of a code.

0:52:130:52:16

And the whole of it comes together to make a complete picture.

0:52:160:52:19

At last, we can solve the mystery beyond doubt

0:52:190:52:23

of who this skeleton actually is.

0:52:230:52:25

None other than Cleopatra's sister, Arsinoe.

0:52:250:52:29

Egyptian rebel, Queen of Egypt, murdered on the sacred ground of

0:52:290:52:33

the holy temple of Artemis, by Marc Antony, on the orders of his lover.

0:52:330:52:38

But of course what we haven't known until now is what she looked like.

0:52:400:52:45

Although the forensic team have only an incomplete skeleton,

0:52:470:52:51

using our virtual template, we can now rebuild the skull.

0:52:510:52:56

Hilke and Fabian thought the skull was lost forever,

0:53:030:53:07

so I'm dying to see how they'll react.

0:53:070:53:10

-I know you've been looking for this skull for a long time.

-Wow.

0:53:100:53:14

And we don't have the real thing, but we've got the next best thing.

0:53:140:53:19

Which is a very exact replica.

0:53:190:53:20

-And this is where it should be.

-May we touch it?

0:53:200:53:23

Yes, of course.

0:53:230:53:25

-Cool.

-This is really cool, yeah.

0:53:270:53:31

Brilliant.

0:53:310:53:32

Perfect.

0:53:320:53:35

It's really like looking in her face.

0:53:360:53:39

But this is quite another thing, to have the skull

0:53:390:53:43

of her in your hands.

0:53:430:53:45

This is really enormous big feeling.

0:53:450:53:49

Wow!

0:53:530:53:55

Well, it was worth bringing then!

0:53:550:53:56

The forensic team are convinced they've proved beyond doubt

0:54:020:54:06

that these are the bones of Princess Arsinoe.

0:54:060:54:09

But rebuilding the skull has unlocked an incredible secret

0:54:090:54:14

about her ancestry.

0:54:140:54:16

Until recently, Cleopatra's dynasty was thought to be Greek,

0:54:160:54:20

European, caucasian.

0:54:200:54:22

But some scholars now believe Cleopatra and her siblings

0:54:220:54:26

had African blood.

0:54:260:54:27

Could the answer be in this skull?

0:54:270:54:31

The distance from the forehead to the back of the skull is long in relation

0:54:310:54:35

to the overall height of the cranium.

0:54:350:54:37

And that's something you see quite frequently in

0:54:370:54:39

certain populations, one of which is ancient Egyptians. Another would be

0:54:390:54:44

black African groups, will also show that characteristic.

0:54:440:54:49

This one certainly looks more white European, but it has got this long head shape.

0:54:490:54:54

It could suggest a mixture of ancestry.

0:54:540:54:59

Our revelation backs up the controversial theory that the

0:54:590:55:03

princess, and therefore her sister Cleopatra, also had African blood.

0:55:030:55:09

11 years after Arsinoe's death, Antony and Cleopatra made a bid

0:55:140:55:19

to take over the Roman Empire.

0:55:190:55:22

But their forces were annihilated.

0:55:220:55:24

The ruthless queen, who had dispatched her own brothers

0:55:260:55:30

and ordered the murder of her sister Arsinoe, was now left with no option

0:55:300:55:36

but to kill herself.

0:55:360:55:37

By killing her sister, Cleopatra ensured that

0:55:450:55:49

her last rival was dead.

0:55:490:55:50

But she also ensured that there would be no more

0:55:500:55:52

descendants of her father's line to do battle with Rome.

0:55:520:55:56

Cleopatra thought she could use the Roman Empire,

0:55:560:55:59

first in Julius Caesar, then in Marc Antony,

0:55:590:56:02

to keep her on the throne. But she was wrong.

0:56:020:56:05

Egypt became just another province of the Roman Empire.

0:56:050:56:10

Although Cleopatra succeeded in murdering Arsinoe, she couldn't

0:56:130:56:18

erase her entirely from history.

0:56:180:56:20

So only one last question remains.

0:56:200:56:25

What did she look like?

0:56:250:56:27

Now that we've remade the skull of the lady from the octagon,

0:56:290:56:34

we can finally rebuild her face.

0:56:340:56:37

Lost for 2,000 years,

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this computer-generated image shows what she might have looked like.

0:56:390:56:44

Scientists are convinced this is Cleopatra's sister...

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..Princess Arsinoe.

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This may be as close as we'll ever get

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to seeing Cleopatra in the flesh.

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The picture it paints is a very different one

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from the romantic legend.

0:57:260:57:28

Not just a cunning politician,

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a beautiful queen

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or an amorous seductress.

0:57:340:57:37

This is the portrait...of a killer.

0:57:370:57:41

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

0:58:070:58:10

E-mail [email protected]

0:58:100:58:14

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