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Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt - the most famous woman in history. | 0:00:12 | 0:00:18 | |
We know her as the legendary lover who used power and beauty to seduce | 0:00:18 | 0:00:23 | |
two of Rome's greatest leaders - Julius Caesar | 0:00:23 | 0:00:27 | |
and Marc Antony. | 0:00:27 | 0:00:30 | |
But there was a darker side to this legend, the forgotten story of a cold-hearted killer. | 0:00:30 | 0:00:35 | |
No! No! | 0:00:39 | 0:00:42 | |
Over the past 2,000 years, this dark side of Cleopatra has disappeared. | 0:00:44 | 0:00:50 | |
But now her trail has led here, to Ephesus. | 0:00:54 | 0:00:58 | |
A vast Roman city, in what we now call Turkey. | 0:00:59 | 0:01:04 | |
In a 2,000-year-old tomb, scientists have uncovered the skeleton of a young woman. | 0:01:04 | 0:01:10 | |
They believe she was a murder victim. | 0:01:10 | 0:01:14 | |
She died because she dared to cross someone even more powerful than herself... | 0:01:18 | 0:01:23 | |
..Her own sister, none other than Cleopatra. | 0:01:25 | 0:01:29 | |
Could this skeleton be the first forensic evidence | 0:01:32 | 0:01:36 | |
of Cleopatra's story? | 0:01:36 | 0:01:37 | |
This is a story of power, lust and sibling rivalry.. | 0:01:39 | 0:01:44 | |
..That takes us on a journey to two of the great wonders of the ancient world. | 0:01:47 | 0:01:51 | |
What's inside this tomb reveals Cleopatra | 0:01:53 | 0:01:56 | |
as you've never seen her before. | 0:01:56 | 0:01:59 | |
This is the portrait of a killer. | 0:02:06 | 0:02:08 | |
Our journey starts here, in Turkey. | 0:02:20 | 0:02:22 | |
In the 1920s, archaeologists were exploring a tomb here | 0:02:25 | 0:02:29 | |
in the heart of Ephesus, | 0:02:29 | 0:02:31 | |
once a glorious Roman capital ten times the size of Pompeii. | 0:02:31 | 0:02:35 | |
In a sarcophagus filled with water, they found human remains. | 0:02:37 | 0:02:42 | |
The skeleton was small, with thin bones and a slight frame. | 0:02:46 | 0:02:51 | |
They appeared to be the remains of a young woman. | 0:02:51 | 0:02:55 | |
But the custom here was to bury the dead outside the city walls. | 0:02:57 | 0:03:02 | |
In 500 years, there had only been four exceptions, and all of those | 0:03:02 | 0:03:07 | |
were men of great importance. | 0:03:07 | 0:03:09 | |
So who was she, and what was she doing here? | 0:03:09 | 0:03:13 | |
The archaeologists had no idea who they'd found, or her importance, | 0:03:15 | 0:03:19 | |
and they resealed the sarcophagus. | 0:03:19 | 0:03:21 | |
The identity of the body remained a mystery, | 0:03:29 | 0:03:32 | |
until archaeologist Dr Hilke Thur was drawn to the forgotten tomb | 0:03:32 | 0:03:37 | |
while excavating Roman remains nearby. | 0:03:37 | 0:03:41 | |
In the 20 years she'd worked at Ephesus, | 0:03:43 | 0:03:46 | |
she'd never seen anything like it. | 0:03:46 | 0:03:48 | |
A mysterious, octagonal tomb on the most important street in the city - | 0:03:48 | 0:03:54 | |
the street of the heroes. | 0:03:54 | 0:03:57 | |
She was determined to find an answer to the riddle. | 0:03:57 | 0:04:00 | |
Hilke decided to enter the tomb. | 0:04:03 | 0:04:05 | |
It would be a momentous decision. | 0:04:05 | 0:04:09 | |
-So, Hilke, is this the entrance to the tomb? -Yes, this is the entrance. | 0:04:09 | 0:04:12 | |
And I can go in here. It's safe? | 0:04:12 | 0:04:14 | |
Yes, yes, yes, yes. I think so. | 0:04:14 | 0:04:17 | |
'The chance that the skeleton would still be there | 0:04:20 | 0:04:23 | |
'nearly a century later seemed remote. | 0:04:23 | 0:04:25 | |
'But what she uncovered | 0:04:27 | 0:04:28 | |
'would take her on an extraordinary detective story | 0:04:28 | 0:04:31 | |
'to the dark heart of the legend of Cleopatra.' | 0:04:31 | 0:04:35 | |
Right. | 0:04:35 | 0:04:37 | |
What's that? | 0:04:37 | 0:04:38 | |
-It's a barrel-vaulted chamber. -Nice workmanship. | 0:04:38 | 0:04:42 | |
It's beautifully made, isn't it? | 0:04:42 | 0:04:44 | |
Lovely masonry. It's just held together by its own weight. Wow. | 0:04:44 | 0:04:48 | |
What did you see? Just describe what the scene was like. | 0:04:50 | 0:04:54 | |
I was very excited and I crawled through this small entrance | 0:04:54 | 0:04:59 | |
-and then came in and I saw the bones. -Right. | 0:04:59 | 0:05:02 | |
The long bones from the legs, | 0:05:02 | 0:05:07 | |
and they nearly were partly in the one niche and partly | 0:05:07 | 0:05:11 | |
in the other niche. | 0:05:11 | 0:05:12 | |
I immediately thought we now have at least a skeleton of the owner of this grave chamber. | 0:05:13 | 0:05:20 | |
How fantastic, you know - there was | 0:05:20 | 0:05:22 | |
someone in here obviously of some kind of significance, and to then | 0:05:22 | 0:05:26 | |
immediately wonder, you know, who? Why was somebody worth this? | 0:05:26 | 0:05:31 | |
What was their story? It's great! | 0:05:31 | 0:05:33 | |
Determined to discover the identity of this mysterious skeleton, | 0:05:36 | 0:05:40 | |
Hilke had little to go on. | 0:05:40 | 0:05:42 | |
It was incomplete. | 0:05:42 | 0:05:44 | |
She decided to search ancient records | 0:05:44 | 0:05:48 | |
for a woman important enough to be buried in such an unusual tomb. | 0:05:48 | 0:05:53 | |
In the Roman accounts, she found a reference to the horrific murder | 0:05:56 | 0:06:00 | |
of Princess Arsinoe - Cleopatra's sister. | 0:06:00 | 0:06:04 | |
Please, please go in, come! Come this way. | 0:06:04 | 0:06:06 | |
A forgotten but bloody chapter in the legend of Cleopatra. | 0:06:06 | 0:06:12 | |
In the city of Ephesus, | 0:06:12 | 0:06:15 | |
at the behest of Cleopatra, | 0:06:15 | 0:06:17 | |
Marc Antony had her sister dragged | 0:06:17 | 0:06:21 | |
from the temple of Artemis and there, in this holy place, the young Arsinoe | 0:06:21 | 0:06:29 | |
was put to death. | 0:06:29 | 0:06:30 | |
These words, by Roman historian Cassius Dio, describing the | 0:06:38 | 0:06:42 | |
murder of Cleopatra's sister, were written 300 years after the event. | 0:06:42 | 0:06:48 | |
So was it just a legend, or the truth? | 0:06:48 | 0:06:51 | |
If Cassius Dio was right, and if Hilke had indeed stumbled | 0:06:55 | 0:06:59 | |
on the bones of Arsinoe, then this was a huge find. | 0:06:59 | 0:07:03 | |
The first-ever remains of anyone | 0:07:06 | 0:07:08 | |
from Cleopatra's family - proof not only of a shocking murder, but also | 0:07:08 | 0:07:13 | |
the first forensic evidence that Cleopatra was a ruthless killer. | 0:07:13 | 0:07:18 | |
If this was Arsinoe, how did she end up | 0:07:24 | 0:07:27 | |
in a tomb 500 miles from Egypt, where she was born? | 0:07:27 | 0:07:31 | |
To find the answers, | 0:07:31 | 0:07:33 | |
I need to cross the Mediterranean, to Cleopatra's homeland. | 0:07:33 | 0:07:37 | |
We're in Egypt, at the magnificent temple of Karnak. | 0:07:55 | 0:07:59 | |
By the time Cleopatra came to the throne, this place | 0:07:59 | 0:08:03 | |
was already 2,000 years old. | 0:08:03 | 0:08:04 | |
The golden age of Egypt was past. | 0:08:05 | 0:08:08 | |
Its future was hanging in the balance. | 0:08:08 | 0:08:12 | |
In 51BC, Cleopatra's father died. | 0:08:24 | 0:08:28 | |
He had four children. | 0:08:31 | 0:08:33 | |
He left the throne to be shared equally between his eldest son, | 0:08:33 | 0:08:37 | |
Ptolemy XIII, | 0:08:37 | 0:08:39 | |
and his eldest daughter, Cleopatra, aged 18. | 0:08:39 | 0:08:44 | |
Also, and in the custom of Egyptian royal families, | 0:08:48 | 0:08:52 | |
both rulers - brother and sister - were to be married to each other. | 0:08:52 | 0:08:56 | |
But behind the scenes they were a family divided, and there was | 0:09:01 | 0:09:05 | |
one issue above all that split the brothers and sisters - the new and | 0:09:05 | 0:09:09 | |
emerging superpower of the age... | 0:09:09 | 0:09:12 | |
Rome. | 0:09:12 | 0:09:13 | |
The Roman Empire was expanding across the Middle East, | 0:09:21 | 0:09:25 | |
and for the first time, Roman troops had established a foothold in Egypt. | 0:09:25 | 0:09:31 | |
So, the ruling dynasty here had a big decision to make. | 0:09:33 | 0:09:37 | |
Should they try and resist, or make some kind of alliance with Rome? | 0:09:37 | 0:09:42 | |
Both strategies involved a sizeable risk. | 0:09:42 | 0:09:45 | |
By siding with the Romans, they might provoke open rebellion | 0:09:45 | 0:09:49 | |
in Egypt, but resisting the Romans could involve going to war | 0:09:49 | 0:09:53 | |
with the most powerful military machine on earth. | 0:09:53 | 0:09:58 | |
Cleopatra wanted to be Rome's friend, but her brother Ptolemy XIII | 0:10:02 | 0:10:08 | |
disagreed, and he was supported by their sister, Arsinoe. | 0:10:08 | 0:10:13 | |
They believed it was time for Egypt to stand up to Rome. | 0:10:13 | 0:10:17 | |
The family argument rapidly got out of hand. | 0:10:18 | 0:10:21 | |
It so happened | 0:10:22 | 0:10:24 | |
that the King of Egypt, whose name was Ptolemy, | 0:10:24 | 0:10:28 | |
and who was but a boy at the time, | 0:10:28 | 0:10:30 | |
was engaged in a vicious war with his own sister and queen, Cleopatra. | 0:10:30 | 0:10:37 | |
With the support of those loyal to him, | 0:10:41 | 0:10:43 | |
the boy king expelled Cleopatra from the kingdom and sent her away. | 0:10:43 | 0:10:47 | |
Cleopatra was banished from the Egyptian capital, Alexandria. | 0:10:56 | 0:11:01 | |
She found herself in exile. | 0:11:01 | 0:11:03 | |
But Cleopatra wasn't finished yet. | 0:11:05 | 0:11:08 | |
There was one sure way to get back at Ptolemy, | 0:11:08 | 0:11:12 | |
and that was with the help of Rome. | 0:11:12 | 0:11:14 | |
Cleopatra was her father's daughter, | 0:11:14 | 0:11:18 | |
and he was a friend of Julius Caesar. | 0:11:18 | 0:11:21 | |
He had written in the royal will that if there was conflict | 0:11:21 | 0:11:24 | |
over the succession, Rome should be the impartial judge. | 0:11:24 | 0:11:28 | |
In 48BC, Caesar arrived in Egypt with a small force. | 0:11:36 | 0:11:40 | |
He soon found himself mediating in the family feud. | 0:11:40 | 0:11:44 | |
Cleopatra knew she had to get to Caesar before her brother | 0:11:47 | 0:11:51 | |
and she had one key advantage over him. | 0:11:51 | 0:11:54 | |
Cleopatra decided to seduce Caesar - | 0:11:59 | 0:12:03 | |
a move which would have fatal consequences for her brothers | 0:12:03 | 0:12:07 | |
and for her sister, Arsinoe. | 0:12:07 | 0:12:10 | |
2,000 years later, it's time to test the astonishing theory | 0:12:13 | 0:12:17 | |
that this might be the skeleton of Princess Arsinoe. | 0:12:17 | 0:12:21 | |
Armed with state-of-the-art forensic science, Dr Fabian Kanz | 0:12:24 | 0:12:28 | |
is brought in to examine the skeleton. | 0:12:28 | 0:12:30 | |
If the bones from the octagonal tomb are male, | 0:12:34 | 0:12:37 | |
the theory will collapse at the first hurdle. | 0:12:37 | 0:12:39 | |
So, Fabian, what can you tell from a first analysis of the skeleton? | 0:12:43 | 0:12:48 | |
From the first analysis, I think, or I'm sure, that it was a female. | 0:12:48 | 0:12:54 | |
I can show you for comparison from other skeletons. | 0:12:54 | 0:12:58 | |
Two pelvics, one from a male and one from a female. | 0:12:58 | 0:13:01 | |
Oh, right, well you can, yes, | 0:13:01 | 0:13:03 | |
clearly that's a much bigger space there, isn't it? | 0:13:03 | 0:13:06 | |
And so the female pelvis has, well, basically got room for a baby. | 0:13:06 | 0:13:09 | |
Yes. Right. And if you take the pelvic bone from the skeleton | 0:13:09 | 0:13:15 | |
from the octagon, you can see it's a wide angle and so | 0:13:15 | 0:13:20 | |
from the morphological point of view, it must have been a female. | 0:13:20 | 0:13:24 | |
OK, so it's a woman. | 0:13:24 | 0:13:26 | |
'But can Fabian discover anything else from the bones?' | 0:13:28 | 0:13:32 | |
The next, after the sex, what you try to establish is the... | 0:13:32 | 0:13:35 | |
age at death and in this case, you can see on the long bones that | 0:13:35 | 0:13:41 | |
they are still not completely grown, | 0:13:41 | 0:13:44 | |
because the epiphysis and the diathesis are not fused together. | 0:13:44 | 0:13:50 | |
So the bones start out in pieces and then gradually grow to become one. | 0:13:50 | 0:13:55 | |
Yes, they grow in this gap. | 0:13:55 | 0:13:57 | |
I show it to you with a... | 0:13:57 | 0:13:59 | |
fully-developed adult skeleton, where even this gap is completely gone. | 0:13:59 | 0:14:06 | |
Right. Yes, that's quite clear, isn't it? | 0:14:06 | 0:14:10 | |
Yes. | 0:14:10 | 0:14:11 | |
So this skeleton here is female and... | 0:14:11 | 0:14:15 | |
how young? | 0:14:15 | 0:14:17 | |
I would say... | 0:14:17 | 0:14:19 | |
between 15 and 17, maybe 18. | 0:14:19 | 0:14:22 | |
So just a youngster. | 0:14:22 | 0:14:24 | |
We also know Arsinoe was Cleopatra's younger sister, | 0:14:27 | 0:14:30 | |
and that Cleopatra was 18 when she came to the throne. | 0:14:30 | 0:14:34 | |
So this too fits with Hilke's theory. | 0:14:34 | 0:14:37 | |
So the bones are the right age and sex to be Arsinoe. | 0:14:41 | 0:14:46 | |
But is the skeleton from the right period? | 0:14:48 | 0:14:52 | |
Next, Fabian carbon dates the bones. | 0:14:52 | 0:14:54 | |
The tests show this is a body from the period between 200BC and 20BC. | 0:14:56 | 0:15:01 | |
I think this is striking, | 0:15:03 | 0:15:05 | |
because the carbon dating was consistent with being Arsinoe. | 0:15:05 | 0:15:10 | |
The carbon dating too matches the dates of the Cleopatra story... | 0:15:11 | 0:15:15 | |
And there's more. | 0:15:15 | 0:15:16 | |
What about just the general appearance of it? | 0:15:16 | 0:15:19 | |
You know, what does the skeleton as a whole suggest? | 0:15:19 | 0:15:23 | |
It's very delicate. It's very thin. | 0:15:23 | 0:15:28 | |
So it's very...do you mean it's of a small, slightly-built person? | 0:15:28 | 0:15:33 | |
-Yes. -A petite person? -A petite person, yes. | 0:15:33 | 0:15:36 | |
So our skeleton belongs to a young female of slender frame. | 0:15:37 | 0:15:41 | |
History suggests that Arsinoe's older sister Cleopatra was slim too. | 0:15:46 | 0:15:51 | |
Famously, she used her size to smuggle herself back from exile | 0:15:56 | 0:16:01 | |
into the Royal Palace. | 0:16:01 | 0:16:03 | |
Here's what the Roman writer Plutarch has to say. | 0:16:03 | 0:16:07 | |
"Cleopatra sailed into Alexandria in a little skiff | 0:16:07 | 0:16:10 | |
"and landed close to the palace just as it was getting dark and | 0:16:10 | 0:16:13 | |
"she was able to enter undetected. | 0:16:13 | 0:16:15 | |
"She rolled herself up in a bed sack tied with a thick chord, | 0:16:15 | 0:16:19 | |
"and had it carried indoors, to Caesar. | 0:16:19 | 0:16:22 | |
"In this way, she was already in Caesar's bed, alone with | 0:16:31 | 0:16:34 | |
"him in his quarters, ready to reveal herself at the moment | 0:16:34 | 0:16:37 | |
"it would have the most impact." | 0:16:37 | 0:16:40 | |
It reveals the clear and calculating mind of Cleopatra - a woman able | 0:16:42 | 0:16:45 | |
and willing to do whatever was required to get her what she wanted. | 0:16:45 | 0:16:50 | |
Caesar was 52 years old - she was only 22. | 0:16:50 | 0:16:56 | |
The story of Cleopatra's seduction of Caesar is at the heart | 0:17:02 | 0:17:06 | |
of her romantic legend, but it was also a calculated act of betrayal. | 0:17:06 | 0:17:12 | |
Others have written long before I that her hair was mussed with so | 0:17:25 | 0:17:29 | |
deft a touch as to give the air that she had been tearing at it. | 0:17:29 | 0:17:34 | |
Her face, the picture of sorrow, and yet not a tear had been spilled. | 0:17:36 | 0:17:42 | |
And how she pleaded to the Roman leader - "Mighty Caesar, | 0:17:44 | 0:17:49 | |
"if birth count for aught..." | 0:17:49 | 0:17:51 | |
I have been driven from my father's throne. | 0:17:51 | 0:17:54 | |
I shall be in exile forever | 0:17:56 | 0:17:58 | |
unless your guiding hand restores me to my rightful destiny, | 0:17:58 | 0:18:03 | |
and therefore I, a queen, beg at your feet. | 0:18:03 | 0:18:07 | |
Hearing her speak but a few words, Caesar was | 0:18:11 | 0:18:15 | |
instantly captivated, such that he spent the whole night with her | 0:18:15 | 0:18:21 | |
in infamy. | 0:18:21 | 0:18:24 | |
By getting into bed with Caesar, | 0:18:28 | 0:18:30 | |
Cleopatra was in effect stabbing her brothers | 0:18:30 | 0:18:33 | |
and her sister Arsinoe in the back. | 0:18:33 | 0:18:36 | |
Not expecting to see his sister within the palace, | 0:18:41 | 0:18:44 | |
the boy king was filled with wrath. | 0:18:44 | 0:18:47 | |
He tore his diadem from his head and cast it to the ground | 0:18:50 | 0:18:54 | |
before rushing out to his people, crying out that he had been betrayed. | 0:18:54 | 0:18:59 | |
The young king felt Cleopatra had sold out to Rome, leaving him and | 0:19:02 | 0:19:08 | |
his country to pay the price. | 0:19:08 | 0:19:10 | |
In modern day Ephesus, Fabian is still working with an incomplete skeleton. | 0:19:17 | 0:19:22 | |
Last summer, he decided to go back into the tomb, with a slim hope of finding new evidence. | 0:19:25 | 0:19:32 | |
He struck lucky. | 0:19:32 | 0:19:34 | |
In this niche over the door to the grave chamber, | 0:19:34 | 0:19:37 | |
there have been some bones. | 0:19:37 | 0:19:39 | |
It turned out that they're human | 0:19:39 | 0:19:42 | |
bones, and that they belong to the individual from the grave chamber. | 0:19:42 | 0:19:46 | |
The chance to find additional bones in this grave | 0:19:49 | 0:19:53 | |
was nearly nothing, I think. | 0:19:53 | 0:19:56 | |
Yes, it was a great day. | 0:19:56 | 0:19:58 | |
I couldn't believe it. | 0:19:58 | 0:19:59 | |
So now the skeleton is nearly complete, | 0:20:02 | 0:20:06 | |
but there is one big problem. | 0:20:06 | 0:20:08 | |
The most important part of the skeleton remains missing... | 0:20:08 | 0:20:12 | |
The skull. | 0:20:12 | 0:20:15 | |
Well here, at least, our modern day archaeologist, Hilke Thur, | 0:20:15 | 0:20:19 | |
found an answer in the archives. | 0:20:19 | 0:20:21 | |
In the 1920s, the skull had been taken from Turkey back to Germany. | 0:20:23 | 0:20:27 | |
It was lost in the chaos of the Second World War. | 0:20:27 | 0:20:31 | |
But before its disappearance, | 0:20:31 | 0:20:33 | |
an archaeologist had recorded its dimensions. | 0:20:33 | 0:20:37 | |
Cryptically, he revealed another clue as to the identity of the tomb. | 0:20:38 | 0:20:44 | |
The skull, long and with a low forehead, | 0:20:44 | 0:20:48 | |
reminded him of others he'd seen... In Egypt! | 0:20:48 | 0:20:52 | |
By a stroke of luck, his precise notes, photos and measurements | 0:20:58 | 0:21:03 | |
of the skull survived. | 0:21:03 | 0:21:05 | |
Using the latest scientific technology, | 0:21:05 | 0:21:07 | |
a world-renowned British facial reconstruction team | 0:21:07 | 0:21:10 | |
believe they can use this evidence to rebuild the skull | 0:21:10 | 0:21:14 | |
in virtual reality. | 0:21:14 | 0:21:16 | |
Well, this has been a challenge but it's been quite interesting to take | 0:21:16 | 0:21:19 | |
in these two dimensional images and recreate a 3D model, within | 0:21:19 | 0:21:24 | |
the planes created by the images. | 0:21:24 | 0:21:27 | |
And we can take a template skull of a similar age, | 0:21:27 | 0:21:31 | |
sex and ethnicity into this space and then alter that to fit | 0:21:31 | 0:21:35 | |
the morphology - the shape that you can see of the skull on the images. | 0:21:35 | 0:21:39 | |
So what might the 3D reconstruction reveal about the identity of its owner? | 0:21:41 | 0:21:47 | |
The eye sockets are quite large in relation to the upper face, | 0:21:49 | 0:21:53 | |
and that's something that's quite common in children. | 0:21:53 | 0:21:56 | |
It's also something that's common in young females, but I | 0:21:56 | 0:22:00 | |
think proportionally, the cranium suggests this is a young adult. | 0:22:00 | 0:22:05 | |
The virtual skull confirms Fabian's findings that | 0:22:05 | 0:22:09 | |
this belongs to a young female, and so perhaps our Princess Arsinoe. | 0:22:09 | 0:22:14 | |
If this is her, can the skull tell us anything about her looks? | 0:22:16 | 0:22:21 | |
Well, it's difficult to call a skull beautiful, but certainly it's symmetrical, it's balanced, it's | 0:22:21 | 0:22:28 | |
got quite delicate features, and those are all things | 0:22:28 | 0:22:31 | |
you would associate with a beautiful face in a woman. | 0:22:31 | 0:22:34 | |
So far, the age and proportions of the skull are consistent | 0:22:34 | 0:22:38 | |
with what's known about Arsinoe. | 0:22:38 | 0:22:41 | |
But we can now go one stage further. | 0:22:41 | 0:22:44 | |
Using the shape of the skull and the bite of the upper jaw, | 0:22:45 | 0:22:49 | |
the team can estimate the shape of the lower jaw, | 0:22:49 | 0:22:53 | |
recreating the mouth and muscles on the face. | 0:22:53 | 0:22:56 | |
We all have the same muscles in our face, | 0:22:59 | 0:23:01 | |
and they all have exactly the same origins and attachment points, | 0:23:01 | 0:23:05 | |
but it's just the proportions of the skull that make a different face shape. | 0:23:05 | 0:23:09 | |
We can then look at facial feature details, so we can | 0:23:12 | 0:23:16 | |
work the prominence and position of the eyeballs, | 0:23:16 | 0:23:20 | |
and then we can put on big structures like the neck, | 0:23:20 | 0:23:23 | |
because we can see where the neck muscles attach. | 0:23:23 | 0:23:27 | |
We can look at the bones on the edge of the nasal aperture and | 0:23:27 | 0:23:31 | |
the nasal root here between the eyes to tell us about the prominence | 0:23:31 | 0:23:35 | |
and width and shape of the nose. | 0:23:35 | 0:23:37 | |
She had a very prominent nasal root, kind of like | 0:23:38 | 0:23:43 | |
an ancient Greek sculpture - that kind of classical nose shape. | 0:23:43 | 0:23:48 | |
She's got quite a distinctive nose, which is very straight, | 0:23:48 | 0:23:52 | |
and I think it's something that we now find aesthetically pleasing, | 0:23:52 | 0:23:56 | |
it's a beautiful feature. | 0:23:56 | 0:23:58 | |
So the owner of the skull was young and classically beautiful. | 0:23:58 | 0:24:01 | |
If this is Arsinoe, it ties in with ancient accounts of her sister | 0:24:04 | 0:24:09 | |
Cleopatra as a beautiful queen. | 0:24:09 | 0:24:11 | |
2,000 years ago, back in Egypt, Cleopatra's looks may have conquered | 0:24:15 | 0:24:19 | |
Caesar, but sex with the Roman was seen as treason. | 0:24:19 | 0:24:23 | |
Troops loyal to her brother and sister took up arms | 0:24:33 | 0:24:36 | |
and besieged the palace in which Caesar had made his headquarters. | 0:24:36 | 0:24:40 | |
War besets Caesar on every side! | 0:24:46 | 0:24:49 | |
Missiles fell upon the palace and battered the roofs. | 0:24:49 | 0:24:52 | |
To prevent Arsinoe and her brother, the rightful king, | 0:25:08 | 0:25:12 | |
leading a loyalist uprising, Caesar took them both hostage. | 0:25:12 | 0:25:15 | |
Caesar rushed from one hall of the palace to the next, | 0:25:21 | 0:25:26 | |
dragging all the while the king by his side. | 0:25:26 | 0:25:29 | |
He took some consolation in holding the boy hostage. | 0:25:29 | 0:25:33 | |
If he could not return the fight | 0:25:33 | 0:25:34 | |
with firebrands and missiles of his own, then at least he could hurl at | 0:25:34 | 0:25:38 | |
the Egyptians the head of their own king! | 0:25:38 | 0:25:42 | |
Barricaded inside the palace complex, | 0:25:43 | 0:25:46 | |
Caesar sent for reinforcements, | 0:25:46 | 0:25:48 | |
but they would take weeks to arrive by sea. | 0:25:48 | 0:25:50 | |
Caesar and Cleopatra took desperate measures. | 0:25:55 | 0:25:59 | |
To draw the Egyptians away from | 0:25:59 | 0:26:01 | |
the palace, the Roman general set fire to the ships in the harbour. | 0:26:01 | 0:26:04 | |
The flames, in turn, set fire to the city. | 0:26:07 | 0:26:09 | |
But Caesar's firebrands fell on the houses around the harbour, | 0:26:11 | 0:26:16 | |
the wind fanning the flames until they streaked across the roofs as fast as meteors. | 0:26:16 | 0:26:22 | |
This inferno drew the Egyptians away from the palace | 0:26:22 | 0:26:25 | |
as they rushed to rescue the city. | 0:26:25 | 0:26:27 | |
Caesar did not waste a moment. | 0:26:27 | 0:26:29 | |
Seizing the opportunity, Caesar led his bodyguard to the mouth of the harbour. | 0:26:31 | 0:26:36 | |
There, towering up from the centre of an island | 0:26:40 | 0:26:43 | |
to warn approaching ships of rocks and reefs, was the seventh | 0:26:43 | 0:26:47 | |
wonder of the ancient world, the lighthouse of Pharos. | 0:26:47 | 0:26:51 | |
The lighthouse of Pharos! | 0:26:52 | 0:26:55 | |
Caesar described it soaring in height, | 0:26:56 | 0:26:59 | |
a work of unimaginable construction. | 0:26:59 | 0:27:02 | |
It stood on an island at the mouth of the harbour. | 0:27:02 | 0:27:05 | |
And whoever controlled this island, controlled the traffic of all ships | 0:27:05 | 0:27:10 | |
into Alexandria. So in all haste, | 0:27:10 | 0:27:12 | |
Caesar dispatched his troops to seize the island and the great lighthouse itself. | 0:27:12 | 0:27:18 | |
The 300ft lighthouse had a distinctive eight-sided tower. | 0:27:24 | 0:27:28 | |
From the top, sentries could see for 30 miles out to sea. | 0:27:28 | 0:27:32 | |
Workmen stoked giant braziers to keep the lighthouse torch burning. | 0:27:34 | 0:27:38 | |
It was an emblem of Cleopatra's family, | 0:27:41 | 0:27:44 | |
and was about to take centre stage, in an epic chapter of this story. | 0:27:44 | 0:27:49 | |
As the battle raged, the young | 0:27:54 | 0:27:56 | |
Princess Arsinoe stole a moment to turn the tables for the Egyptians. | 0:27:56 | 0:28:01 | |
She made a daring escape from the palace. | 0:28:04 | 0:28:06 | |
The rebels proclaimed Arsinoe their queen, | 0:28:33 | 0:28:36 | |
to lead them in rebellion against Caesar and Cleopatra. | 0:28:36 | 0:28:41 | |
Back in Ephesus, Hilke and her team are searching for further clues | 0:28:46 | 0:28:51 | |
to link their mysterious skeleton with Egypt, over 500 miles away. | 0:28:51 | 0:28:56 | |
Their investigation turns to the tomb itself. | 0:28:57 | 0:29:00 | |
The heroes' tombs in Ephesus | 0:29:05 | 0:29:07 | |
all carried symbols which told the story of who was buried inside. | 0:29:07 | 0:29:12 | |
2,000 years ago, everyone would have known who they were. | 0:29:13 | 0:29:18 | |
Today, we have to decipher our tomb like a secret code. | 0:29:20 | 0:29:24 | |
Only the burial chamber and its octagonal base remain intact. | 0:29:25 | 0:29:30 | |
But there is one further piece of the tomb that is preserved, | 0:29:37 | 0:29:41 | |
because the original archaeologists took it back to Vienna. | 0:29:41 | 0:29:46 | |
Nearly 20 feet high, | 0:29:52 | 0:29:54 | |
it's still only a third of the height of the whole building. | 0:29:54 | 0:29:58 | |
It reveals a vital clue about the tomb's owner. | 0:29:58 | 0:30:03 | |
These pieces have been found right beside the octagon. | 0:30:06 | 0:30:10 | |
It must have been something like a torch probably, where you can put up | 0:30:10 | 0:30:13 | |
a light in the top of this little column. | 0:30:13 | 0:30:16 | |
So it looks like a bundle of papyrus leaves from Egypt. | 0:30:16 | 0:30:19 | |
As an image, as the type of this column, everyone would recognise | 0:30:19 | 0:30:23 | |
at once, papyrus bundle and Egypt. | 0:30:23 | 0:30:25 | |
So the stone imagery strongly suggests the tomb's owner was Egyptian. | 0:30:25 | 0:30:31 | |
But to decode the building in full, | 0:30:31 | 0:30:34 | |
the team would have to rebuild the whole thing. | 0:30:34 | 0:30:37 | |
It survives only as 170 scattered stones. | 0:30:37 | 0:30:42 | |
Austrian archaeologists and colleagues of Hilke Thur | 0:30:43 | 0:30:46 | |
have painstakingly been piecing together fragments of the tomb. | 0:30:46 | 0:30:50 | |
They've scoured the site for fragments, | 0:30:50 | 0:30:52 | |
hoping one day to put it all together again | 0:30:52 | 0:30:55 | |
like pieces of a giant jigsaw. | 0:30:55 | 0:30:58 | |
A team of engineers is brought in to scan each and every stone into | 0:31:00 | 0:31:05 | |
a computer and rebuild the tomb in virtual space. | 0:31:05 | 0:31:10 | |
This is just kind of a heap of stones right here. | 0:31:11 | 0:31:14 | |
It's kind of a virtual stone yard. | 0:31:14 | 0:31:18 | |
We have plenty of objects looking quite similar, | 0:31:18 | 0:31:23 | |
and we have to figure out where they could belong. | 0:31:23 | 0:31:26 | |
Then the scanning reveals another clue, invisible to the naked eye. | 0:31:28 | 0:31:32 | |
A tiny diagram that gives away the shape of the tomb. | 0:31:32 | 0:31:36 | |
This potentially is a drawing of the base, the columns, | 0:31:36 | 0:31:40 | |
and the roof on top of it. | 0:31:40 | 0:31:42 | |
Nobody knew about this drawing up to this summer. | 0:31:42 | 0:31:46 | |
Armed with clues like this, the tomb begins to take shape, | 0:31:50 | 0:31:53 | |
and we can now see what it would have looked like 2,000 years ago. | 0:31:53 | 0:31:58 | |
Then, it stood 50 feet high and 13 feet wide, the most prominent tomb | 0:32:09 | 0:32:15 | |
in Ephesus and, most important of all, it had eight sides. | 0:32:15 | 0:32:20 | |
Hilke searches in vain for tombs from this period | 0:32:21 | 0:32:25 | |
with the same peculiar octagonal shape. | 0:32:25 | 0:32:28 | |
Once again, she turns to the story of Cleopatra and her sister Arsinoe, | 0:32:28 | 0:32:33 | |
and uncovers the story of the battle for the Pharos lighthouse. | 0:32:33 | 0:32:36 | |
Hilke is immediately struck | 0:32:39 | 0:32:40 | |
by the eight-sided tomb's resemblance to the lighthouse. | 0:32:40 | 0:32:44 | |
The symbol of Cleopatra's dynasty, the Pharos was the most prominent | 0:32:46 | 0:32:51 | |
octagonal building in the ancient world. | 0:32:51 | 0:32:54 | |
This is a "eureka" moment. | 0:32:54 | 0:32:57 | |
The Pharos lighthouse and the destiny of Arsinoe were | 0:33:02 | 0:33:05 | |
about to become inextricably linked. | 0:33:05 | 0:33:08 | |
The Queen of Egypt, still an adolescent, | 0:33:09 | 0:33:12 | |
now took on the might of Rome. | 0:33:12 | 0:33:14 | |
With Caesar pinned down on the island of Pharos, her | 0:33:20 | 0:33:24 | |
troops launched a surprise attack, catching him completely off guard. | 0:33:24 | 0:33:28 | |
The Romans ran for their lives. | 0:33:36 | 0:33:39 | |
Trapped the island of Pharos, Caesar had to swim for his life. | 0:33:41 | 0:33:45 | |
Weighted down, as he was, by his thick robes and being pelted | 0:33:48 | 0:33:51 | |
by the Egyptians, his cloak, being purple, made for an easy target. | 0:33:51 | 0:33:58 | |
He might have perished miserably had he not thrown off his clothing | 0:33:58 | 0:34:02 | |
and succeeded in swimming further out to sea. | 0:34:02 | 0:34:05 | |
Caesar barely escaped with his life | 0:34:25 | 0:34:27 | |
and staggered back to Cleopatra at the palace. | 0:34:27 | 0:34:31 | |
The hero of Rome had been defeated by Arsinoe - barely a teenager. | 0:34:33 | 0:34:39 | |
The Pharos lighthouse now became a symbol of her famous victory. | 0:34:39 | 0:34:44 | |
When Caesar's cloak was hoisted above the battlements, | 0:34:50 | 0:34:53 | |
the message was clear. | 0:34:53 | 0:34:55 | |
Princess Arsinoe had shamed the might of Rome. | 0:34:55 | 0:34:58 | |
There was an incredible moment, when it looked like there might | 0:35:06 | 0:35:10 | |
be the start of a new dynasty. | 0:35:10 | 0:35:11 | |
If things had continued along this path, a path Arsinoe might reasonably have hoped for, | 0:35:11 | 0:35:16 | |
we would now remember the legend of Queen Arsinoe, not Cleopatra. | 0:35:16 | 0:35:21 | |
But the alternative future didn't last long. | 0:35:21 | 0:35:24 | |
The rebels began to argue among themselves. | 0:35:26 | 0:35:29 | |
Caesar used the breathing space to bring in reinforcements from Syria. | 0:35:29 | 0:35:34 | |
He launched a counter attack. | 0:35:34 | 0:35:36 | |
Caesar had promised to restore his lover to the throne, and now he was to honour his word. | 0:35:36 | 0:35:43 | |
The young Ptolemy was pursued by Roman troops and, weighed down by | 0:35:43 | 0:35:47 | |
his gold armour, he was drowned trying to escape across the Nile. | 0:35:47 | 0:35:51 | |
Cleopatra's first rival for the throne had been dispatched | 0:35:51 | 0:35:54 | |
without her having to lift a finger. | 0:35:54 | 0:35:56 | |
Caesar had done the work for her. | 0:35:56 | 0:35:59 | |
Arsinoe was taken prisoner. | 0:36:12 | 0:36:14 | |
Cleopatra's greatest rival, her own little sister, was in her grasp. | 0:36:14 | 0:36:20 | |
Caesar was victorious, but he didn't take over Egypt. | 0:36:30 | 0:36:34 | |
He placed Cleopatra, in whose name he'd fought the war, | 0:36:34 | 0:36:39 | |
back on the throne. | 0:36:39 | 0:36:41 | |
By tradition, she was to marry her last surviving younger brother. | 0:36:41 | 0:36:44 | |
He was around 12 years old. | 0:36:44 | 0:36:48 | |
As for Princess Arsinoe, she was taken to Rome in chains. | 0:36:52 | 0:36:57 | |
A captive of Caesar, | 0:37:00 | 0:37:01 | |
she must have felt a world away from her moment of glory. | 0:37:01 | 0:37:06 | |
In 46BC, Caesar celebrated his Egyptian triumph in Rome. | 0:37:13 | 0:37:19 | |
Top of the bill of the entertainments was an effigy of the Pharos | 0:37:21 | 0:37:25 | |
and a parade of the Egyptian prisoners captured in Alexandria. | 0:37:25 | 0:37:30 | |
At their head was Arsinoe. | 0:37:30 | 0:37:32 | |
Caesar had a special treat in store for the crowd. | 0:37:32 | 0:37:36 | |
The custom was to take the main prisoner at the end of the parade | 0:37:36 | 0:37:40 | |
and strangle her to death. | 0:37:40 | 0:37:42 | |
Imagine what that must have felt like for Arsinoe. | 0:37:44 | 0:37:48 | |
Did she know that that was what was intended for her? | 0:37:48 | 0:37:51 | |
And whatever else she was, whatever else she might have done, | 0:37:51 | 0:37:55 | |
she was just a young girl. | 0:37:55 | 0:37:56 | |
But in Caesar's eyes she was the teenage rebel who had taken on Rome | 0:37:56 | 0:38:01 | |
and this would be her just desserts. | 0:38:01 | 0:38:03 | |
Arsinoe was to be paraded along with the other captives. | 0:38:13 | 0:38:18 | |
It was a spectacle which had never before been seen in Rome - a woman, | 0:38:18 | 0:38:25 | |
and one once considered a queen, now in chains. | 0:38:25 | 0:38:30 | |
Behind her, Caesar paraded a burning effigy of the lighthouse of Pharos. | 0:38:38 | 0:38:45 | |
Once the embodiment of her greatest victory, | 0:38:47 | 0:38:50 | |
it was now a symbol of her humiliation. | 0:38:50 | 0:38:53 | |
The octagonal symbol that Hilke is now convinced | 0:39:04 | 0:39:08 | |
is the key to the code of her tomb. | 0:39:08 | 0:39:10 | |
To onlookers, Arsinoe looked more like a child than a rebel leader. | 0:39:18 | 0:39:23 | |
To execute barbarians was one thing, | 0:39:25 | 0:39:28 | |
but to strangle a young princess as a circus act was quite another. | 0:39:28 | 0:39:32 | |
The triumphs delighted the spectators, | 0:39:32 | 0:39:36 | |
but the sight of Arsinoe | 0:39:36 | 0:39:38 | |
led out amongst the captives displeased them exceedingly. | 0:39:38 | 0:39:43 | |
Caesar's stunt backfired. | 0:39:47 | 0:39:51 | |
It aroused a great sympathy amongst the people. | 0:39:53 | 0:39:57 | |
To be certain, it was for that that her life was spared. | 0:39:57 | 0:40:01 | |
The crowd forced Caesar's hand and he had to spare Arsinoe. | 0:40:03 | 0:40:07 | |
But he could never allow her to return to Egypt. | 0:40:07 | 0:40:10 | |
Instead, he banished her, | 0:40:10 | 0:40:14 | |
close to a thousand miles from Rome and 500 miles from Egypt, | 0:40:14 | 0:40:20 | |
to Ephesus, in modern-day Turkey. | 0:40:20 | 0:40:24 | |
Ephesus was a vast, imperial capital - Rome's gateway to Asia. | 0:40:32 | 0:40:37 | |
Try and imagine what Ephesus was like 2,000 or more years ago. | 0:40:47 | 0:40:52 | |
This was no Roman backwater. | 0:40:52 | 0:40:54 | |
This was one of the most exciting and cosmpolitan | 0:40:54 | 0:40:57 | |
cities anywhere in the known world. | 0:40:57 | 0:41:00 | |
A glittering jewel, that attracted the great and the good, the famous and the infamous. | 0:41:00 | 0:41:05 | |
Everybody who was anybody came here. | 0:41:05 | 0:41:09 | |
To them, Ephesus was a place of pilgrimage and pleasure. | 0:41:09 | 0:41:14 | |
But for Arsinoe, | 0:41:14 | 0:41:16 | |
it was a prison. | 0:41:16 | 0:41:18 | |
For the rest of her life, home would be a religious sanctuary - | 0:41:18 | 0:41:22 | |
the Temple of Artemis, another ancient wonder of the world. | 0:41:22 | 0:41:27 | |
In ancient times, the building was visible for miles out to sea, even at night. | 0:41:36 | 0:41:42 | |
And this is what Princess Arsinoe would have seen as she approached by boat. | 0:41:42 | 0:41:47 | |
She was just a teenage girl, but she knew that she would be spending | 0:41:50 | 0:41:53 | |
the rest of her life here, in the care of eunuch priests | 0:41:53 | 0:41:56 | |
and that she would never see Alexandria again. | 0:41:56 | 0:41:59 | |
These ruins might not look like much today, | 0:42:14 | 0:42:17 | |
but 2,000 years ago, this place was the reason for the fame of the city. | 0:42:17 | 0:42:21 | |
This was the Temple of Artemis, | 0:42:21 | 0:42:24 | |
one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. | 0:42:24 | 0:42:27 | |
The Roman historian Pliny tells us that the temple alone | 0:42:45 | 0:42:50 | |
was 425 feet long, 225 feet wide, | 0:42:50 | 0:42:53 | |
with 127 columns, each 60 feet high, supporting a massive roof. | 0:42:53 | 0:42:59 | |
It was here, 2,000 years ago, | 0:43:07 | 0:43:10 | |
Cleopatra's sister came to seek sanctuary. | 0:43:10 | 0:43:12 | |
'Dr Sabine Ladstatter knows just how important Artemis was | 0:43:15 | 0:43:18 | |
'to political exiles like Arsinoe.' | 0:43:18 | 0:43:22 | |
It was a common practice that you may ask for political asylum. | 0:43:22 | 0:43:26 | |
If you got the asylum here you could stay here as long as you want. | 0:43:26 | 0:43:31 | |
People lived here for years, for decades, and they were safe | 0:43:31 | 0:43:35 | |
because the Artemesion had its own administration | 0:43:35 | 0:43:39 | |
and had its own jurisdiction. | 0:43:39 | 0:43:42 | |
So nobody was allowed to interfere in the Artemesion. | 0:43:42 | 0:43:46 | |
Arsinoe's coup had failed, but her life had been spared. | 0:43:49 | 0:43:54 | |
Under the protection of the temple and the watchful eye of Rome, | 0:43:55 | 0:44:01 | |
her days as a rebel were over. | 0:44:01 | 0:44:03 | |
But at least no one could harm her here - | 0:44:03 | 0:44:07 | |
or so she thought. | 0:44:07 | 0:44:09 | |
Just two years later, in March 44BC, the man who had spared her life, | 0:44:17 | 0:44:22 | |
Julius Caesar, was stabbed to death. | 0:44:22 | 0:44:25 | |
With Caesar dead, Arsinoe's future was thrown into jeopardy. | 0:44:29 | 0:44:33 | |
For Cleopatra, there was no one left to curb her | 0:44:35 | 0:44:38 | |
ambition to be sole Queen of Egypt, even at the cost of her own family. | 0:44:38 | 0:44:43 | |
With Caesar gone, what would she do? | 0:44:44 | 0:44:48 | |
The bloody answer came within weeks. | 0:44:50 | 0:44:53 | |
She had her husband, co-ruler and last little brother murdered. | 0:44:53 | 0:44:57 | |
Only Arsinoe was now out of Cleopatra's reach. | 0:45:05 | 0:45:09 | |
Then, the Roman Empire in the east got a new governor. | 0:45:11 | 0:45:15 | |
His name was Marc Antony. | 0:45:15 | 0:45:18 | |
His seat of power was Ephesus, the city of Arsinoe's exile. | 0:45:18 | 0:45:23 | |
And he used the city as a place for his expensive personal pleasures. | 0:45:25 | 0:45:30 | |
Even in Ephesus, with the vast reserves of wealth the city had | 0:45:34 | 0:45:38 | |
to offer, Marc Antony's licentious lifestyle soon left him broke. | 0:45:38 | 0:45:43 | |
He had enemies on his borders in Iran and in Armenia, | 0:45:43 | 0:45:47 | |
and his wars were expensive. | 0:45:47 | 0:45:50 | |
It wasn't long before the new governor's lifestyle | 0:45:50 | 0:45:53 | |
meant that he too had to look across the sea to the wealth of Egypt. | 0:45:53 | 0:45:57 | |
And Egypt meant Cleopatra. | 0:45:57 | 0:46:01 | |
Antony summoned her to Tarsus in modern-day Turkey. | 0:46:04 | 0:46:09 | |
But Cleopatra played hard to get. | 0:46:09 | 0:46:11 | |
If she did come, it would be on her terms. | 0:46:11 | 0:46:14 | |
She was older now, | 0:46:14 | 0:46:17 | |
and more savvy. | 0:46:17 | 0:46:19 | |
She had received several letters from Antony. | 0:46:20 | 0:46:23 | |
Still, she refused to come. | 0:46:23 | 0:46:25 | |
Then, as if in mockery of them, she sailed to Tarsus to meet him. | 0:46:25 | 0:46:30 | |
The people poured from the towns to catch but a glimpse of her. | 0:46:32 | 0:46:36 | |
The throng streamed away, til at last just Antony was left, | 0:46:36 | 0:46:40 | |
seated alone on his chair. | 0:46:40 | 0:46:42 | |
She herself lay under a canopy of golden cloth, | 0:46:44 | 0:46:49 | |
adorned like Venus, while beautiful boys stood either side of her | 0:46:49 | 0:46:54 | |
in adoration of their queen. | 0:46:54 | 0:46:56 | |
Marc Antony held the key to a prize that until now had | 0:47:02 | 0:47:05 | |
been beyond Cleopatra's grasp - | 0:47:05 | 0:47:08 | |
the life of Arsinoe. | 0:47:08 | 0:47:11 | |
Antony was now as valuable to Cleopatra | 0:47:11 | 0:47:14 | |
as Cleopatra was to Antony. | 0:47:14 | 0:47:17 | |
The honeymoon period in the year that followed became legend. | 0:47:20 | 0:47:24 | |
Every day they would hold even more lavish feasts for one another, | 0:47:29 | 0:47:34 | |
Cleopatra constantly flattering him, | 0:47:34 | 0:47:36 | |
meting out each day some fresh new delight, some | 0:47:36 | 0:47:40 | |
enticing little way to charm him, releasing him neither night nor day. | 0:47:40 | 0:47:44 | |
She watched him as he exercised himself in arms. | 0:47:46 | 0:47:51 | |
She drank with him, she played at dice with him, she hunted with him. | 0:47:54 | 0:48:00 | |
But, behind the romance, both knew they had an agenda. | 0:48:02 | 0:48:06 | |
Antony needed the resources of Egypt to pay his debts and fight his wars. | 0:48:06 | 0:48:12 | |
Cleopatra craved absolute security, and that meant removing | 0:48:12 | 0:48:16 | |
her last remaining rival to the throne of Egypt - | 0:48:16 | 0:48:20 | |
her younger sister Arsinoe. | 0:48:20 | 0:48:23 | |
But at the temple of Artemis, under the care of priests, | 0:48:29 | 0:48:33 | |
the Princess was surely no longer a threat to anybody, | 0:48:33 | 0:48:37 | |
least of all Cleopatra. | 0:48:37 | 0:48:40 | |
Stung once in Alexandria, Cleopatra saw it differently. | 0:48:42 | 0:48:49 | |
Back in the present, there's one final question for Fabian to answer. | 0:48:51 | 0:48:56 | |
How did the lady in the octagon tomb die? | 0:48:56 | 0:48:59 | |
I have seen hundreds of skeletons in Ephesus, more than 500. | 0:49:01 | 0:49:06 | |
And there's just two juveniles in the whole sample. | 0:49:06 | 0:49:10 | |
And this is astonishing, because it's very unlikely to die in the juvenile age. | 0:49:10 | 0:49:15 | |
She has been treated well her whole life. | 0:49:15 | 0:49:20 | |
I think she was quite healthy at the time of death. | 0:49:20 | 0:49:23 | |
We also don't have any sign for why she died. | 0:49:23 | 0:49:26 | |
And there's also no sign of any kind of long-term, degenerative illness? | 0:49:28 | 0:49:32 | |
No, there's no sign of long illnesses, even short illnesses. | 0:49:32 | 0:49:36 | |
There's just perfectly smooth, proportioned bones. | 0:49:36 | 0:49:40 | |
This was not an individual that had to do hard labour work. | 0:49:40 | 0:49:44 | |
So it seems to be somebody who lived quite well, | 0:49:44 | 0:49:47 | |
had an easy life and then unexpectedly, in her teens... | 0:49:47 | 0:49:51 | |
-Gone. -Yeah. | 0:49:51 | 0:49:53 | |
The Roman sources were in no doubt. | 0:49:57 | 0:49:59 | |
Arsinoe died a sudden death and they knew who was responsible. | 0:49:59 | 0:50:05 | |
At Tarsus, a deal had been struck between Antony and Cleopatra | 0:50:06 | 0:50:10 | |
and Arsinoe was to find out what this meant for her. | 0:50:10 | 0:50:15 | |
SCRAPING | 0:50:22 | 0:50:24 | |
SHE SCREAMS | 0:51:03 | 0:51:05 | |
In the city of Ephesus, | 0:51:05 | 0:51:07 | |
at the behest of Cleopatra, | 0:51:07 | 0:51:10 | |
Marc Antony had her sister dragged | 0:51:10 | 0:51:13 | |
from the temple of Artemis and there, in this holy place, the young Arsinoe | 0:51:13 | 0:51:21 | |
was put to death. | 0:51:21 | 0:51:23 | |
No! | 0:51:23 | 0:51:25 | |
It was not only a shock in Ephesus, | 0:51:25 | 0:51:27 | |
it was a shock in Rome and everywhere, you know? | 0:51:27 | 0:51:29 | |
It was unbelievable that someone interferes in | 0:51:29 | 0:51:33 | |
a sanctuary, and especially in the Artemesion of Ephesus. | 0:51:33 | 0:51:37 | |
It was the biggest crime in this period. | 0:51:37 | 0:51:40 | |
The carbon dating of the bones, | 0:51:48 | 0:51:50 | |
the sex, build and age of the skeleton at the time of death | 0:51:50 | 0:51:53 | |
and the fact it belonged to someone of high birth, point to one thing. | 0:51:53 | 0:51:58 | |
Experts are now convinced that this skeleton is the first forensic | 0:52:00 | 0:52:04 | |
evidence of Cleopatra's family ever found. | 0:52:04 | 0:52:08 | |
The shape of the tomb, its similarity to the Pharos, | 0:52:09 | 0:52:13 | |
these are all parts of a code. | 0:52:13 | 0:52:16 | |
And the whole of it comes together to make a complete picture. | 0:52:16 | 0:52:19 | |
At last, we can solve the mystery beyond doubt | 0:52:19 | 0:52:23 | |
of who this skeleton actually is. | 0:52:23 | 0:52:25 | |
None other than Cleopatra's sister, Arsinoe. | 0:52:25 | 0:52:29 | |
Egyptian rebel, Queen of Egypt, murdered on the sacred ground of | 0:52:29 | 0:52:33 | |
the holy temple of Artemis, by Marc Antony, on the orders of his lover. | 0:52:33 | 0:52:38 | |
But of course what we haven't known until now is what she looked like. | 0:52:40 | 0:52:45 | |
Although the forensic team have only an incomplete skeleton, | 0:52:47 | 0:52:51 | |
using our virtual template, we can now rebuild the skull. | 0:52:51 | 0:52:56 | |
Hilke and Fabian thought the skull was lost forever, | 0:53:03 | 0:53:07 | |
so I'm dying to see how they'll react. | 0:53:07 | 0:53:10 | |
-I know you've been looking for this skull for a long time. -Wow. | 0:53:10 | 0:53:14 | |
And we don't have the real thing, but we've got the next best thing. | 0:53:14 | 0:53:19 | |
Which is a very exact replica. | 0:53:19 | 0:53:20 | |
-And this is where it should be. -May we touch it? | 0:53:20 | 0:53:23 | |
Yes, of course. | 0:53:23 | 0:53:25 | |
-Cool. -This is really cool, yeah. | 0:53:27 | 0:53:31 | |
Brilliant. | 0:53:31 | 0:53:32 | |
Perfect. | 0:53:32 | 0:53:35 | |
It's really like looking in her face. | 0:53:36 | 0:53:39 | |
But this is quite another thing, to have the skull | 0:53:39 | 0:53:43 | |
of her in your hands. | 0:53:43 | 0:53:45 | |
This is really enormous big feeling. | 0:53:45 | 0:53:49 | |
Wow! | 0:53:53 | 0:53:55 | |
Well, it was worth bringing then! | 0:53:55 | 0:53:56 | |
The forensic team are convinced they've proved beyond doubt | 0:54:02 | 0:54:06 | |
that these are the bones of Princess Arsinoe. | 0:54:06 | 0:54:09 | |
But rebuilding the skull has unlocked an incredible secret | 0:54:09 | 0:54:14 | |
about her ancestry. | 0:54:14 | 0:54:16 | |
Until recently, Cleopatra's dynasty was thought to be Greek, | 0:54:16 | 0:54:20 | |
European, caucasian. | 0:54:20 | 0:54:22 | |
But some scholars now believe Cleopatra and her siblings | 0:54:22 | 0:54:26 | |
had African blood. | 0:54:26 | 0:54:27 | |
Could the answer be in this skull? | 0:54:27 | 0:54:31 | |
The distance from the forehead to the back of the skull is long in relation | 0:54:31 | 0:54:35 | |
to the overall height of the cranium. | 0:54:35 | 0:54:37 | |
And that's something you see quite frequently in | 0:54:37 | 0:54:39 | |
certain populations, one of which is ancient Egyptians. Another would be | 0:54:39 | 0:54:44 | |
black African groups, will also show that characteristic. | 0:54:44 | 0:54:49 | |
This one certainly looks more white European, but it has got this long head shape. | 0:54:49 | 0:54:54 | |
It could suggest a mixture of ancestry. | 0:54:54 | 0:54:59 | |
Our revelation backs up the controversial theory that the | 0:54:59 | 0:55:03 | |
princess, and therefore her sister Cleopatra, also had African blood. | 0:55:03 | 0:55:09 | |
11 years after Arsinoe's death, Antony and Cleopatra made a bid | 0:55:14 | 0:55:19 | |
to take over the Roman Empire. | 0:55:19 | 0:55:22 | |
But their forces were annihilated. | 0:55:22 | 0:55:24 | |
The ruthless queen, who had dispatched her own brothers | 0:55:26 | 0:55:30 | |
and ordered the murder of her sister Arsinoe, was now left with no option | 0:55:30 | 0:55:36 | |
but to kill herself. | 0:55:36 | 0:55:37 | |
By killing her sister, Cleopatra ensured that | 0:55:45 | 0:55:49 | |
her last rival was dead. | 0:55:49 | 0:55:50 | |
But she also ensured that there would be no more | 0:55:50 | 0:55:52 | |
descendants of her father's line to do battle with Rome. | 0:55:52 | 0:55:56 | |
Cleopatra thought she could use the Roman Empire, | 0:55:56 | 0:55:59 | |
first in Julius Caesar, then in Marc Antony, | 0:55:59 | 0:56:02 | |
to keep her on the throne. But she was wrong. | 0:56:02 | 0:56:05 | |
Egypt became just another province of the Roman Empire. | 0:56:05 | 0:56:10 | |
Although Cleopatra succeeded in murdering Arsinoe, she couldn't | 0:56:13 | 0:56:18 | |
erase her entirely from history. | 0:56:18 | 0:56:20 | |
So only one last question remains. | 0:56:20 | 0:56:25 | |
What did she look like? | 0:56:25 | 0:56:27 | |
Now that we've remade the skull of the lady from the octagon, | 0:56:29 | 0:56:34 | |
we can finally rebuild her face. | 0:56:34 | 0:56:37 | |
Lost for 2,000 years, | 0:56:37 | 0:56:39 | |
this computer-generated image shows what she might have looked like. | 0:56:39 | 0:56:44 | |
Scientists are convinced this is Cleopatra's sister... | 0:56:58 | 0:57:03 | |
..Princess Arsinoe. | 0:57:04 | 0:57:06 | |
This may be as close as we'll ever get | 0:57:08 | 0:57:11 | |
to seeing Cleopatra in the flesh. | 0:57:11 | 0:57:14 | |
The picture it paints is a very different one | 0:57:23 | 0:57:26 | |
from the romantic legend. | 0:57:26 | 0:57:28 | |
Not just a cunning politician, | 0:57:30 | 0:57:33 | |
a beautiful queen | 0:57:33 | 0:57:34 | |
or an amorous seductress. | 0:57:34 | 0:57:37 | |
This is the portrait...of a killer. | 0:57:37 | 0:57:41 | |
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd | 0:58:07 | 0:58:10 | |
E-mail [email protected] | 0:58:10 | 0:58:14 |