Lost Tunnel That May Lead to Ancient Egyptian Tomb of Cleopatra Discovered

An ancient tunnel discovered in Egypt is thought to possibly lead to the tomb of the famed Queen Cleopatra.

Discovered near the Taposiris Magna temple, west of Alexandria in Egypt, the tunnel was unearthed by an Egyptian-Dominican archaeological research mission from the University of Santo Domingo. The tunnel itself was found around 43 feet under the ground, measured 6.5 feet tall, and stretched for about 4,300 feet.

According to a Facebook post by the Egypt Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, preliminary studies of the tunnel have found that its design is similar to that of Greece's Jubilinos Tunnel. The tunnel's location has led the researchers to hypothesize that it may lead to Cleopatra's tomb, which has yet to be discovered.

Cleopatra lived between 69 B.C. and 30 B.C. and ruled the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt for 21 years as the final leader of Egypt before it was overtaken by the Roman Empire.

"Searches for her burial place over time have largely rested upon accounts in Classical sources, e.g. Plutarch, Cassius Dio, and modern investigations have mostly veered between Alexandria as the capital at the time of Cleopatra VII (including underwater surveys as some of the city has become submerged) and Taposiris Magna, which could have been chosen for its links with the goddess Isis, with whom Cleopatra closely associated herself," Claire Gilmour, a Ph.D. candidate in anthropology and archaeology at the University of Bristol, told Newsweek.

Roland Enmarch, a senior lecturer in Egyptology at the University of Liverpool, told Newsweek that Taposiris contained a major shrine to the Egyptian god Osiris, Isis's husband and that archaeological finds from the area of the temple and around show that rich elites patronized the temple, and were buried in or around it.

"Taposiris Magna was an important religious center in the Ptolemaic and Roman periods of Egyptian history. It was built on a strip of land separating the Mediterranean from a (now much shrunken) Lake Mareotis. Founded in the 3rd century B.C., it lies on the coast about 45 km [28 miles] west of the city of Alexandria, which was the capital of Egypt in Cleopatra's day," he said.

According to the Egypt Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, part of the tunnel was discovered submerged and a number of pottery vessels and pottery tractors were found under the mud, which further strengthens its connection to the Taposiris temple, which was also underwater. Previous excavations of Taposiris found coins with the images and names of Cleopatra and Alexander the Great on them, along with statues of the goddess Isis.

"The huge subterranean tunnel recently announced is a fascinating discovery, though its precise function has still to be clarified. It would be exciting, but also rather surprising, if the famous queen Cleopatra were buried at Taposiris Magna," Enmarch said.

"Her royal dynasty had built their tombs in their capital city, Alexandria, and ancient writers tell us that Cleopatra actually went and took shelter in her (already constructed) tomb when the Romans captured Alexandria—and it was probably there that she famously committed suicide, to avoid being paraded in chains on the streets of Rome in Octavian's triumph.

"The ancient sources also tell us that she asked to be buried beside Mark Anthony and that Octavian granted her wish. The implication is that they were buried in the tomb Cleopatra had constructed for them in Alexandria."

Much of ancient Alexandria, including the harbor where Cleopatra was rumored to be buried, is now underwater. The city was hit by a tsunami caused by the Crete earthquake on July 21, 365 A.D., with a variety of other natural disasters and war further devastating the city over millennia.

"Historically speaking, there have not been any particularly concrete theories as to where Cleopatra's body might be, though because of her fame as Egypt's last pharaoh the discovery of her remains would be sensational,'' Eleanor Dobson, an expert in the reception of ancient Egypt in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries at the University of Birmingham, told Newsweek.

"If Cleopatra's tomb is really there this would be a discovery on a par with or perhaps even exceeding that of Tutankhamun in 1922. There are so few images of Cleopatra from her own time (limited to depictions on coins) that to gaze upon her remains, to see this fabled queen, would completely dominate the media," she said.

An additional network of tunnels was found in this expedition, stretching from King Marriott Lake to the Mediterranean. According to the Egypt Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, these tunnels contained "16 burials inside rock-carved tombs commonly used in the Greek and Roman centuries, as well as a number of mummies highlighting features of the embankment process during the Greek and Roman periods."