Secrets of the Dead

♪♪ -Fantastic ancient ruins are scattered all over Egypt, the legacy of the pharaohs' 3,000-year rule.

Cleopatra VII was the empire's last great queen.

While her name is the stuff of legend, she left very few physical traces of her reign.

After 30 years of excavation work in Alexandria, an archaeological team led by Franck Goddio has just achieved the impossible.

They have discovered a monument sunk beneath the Mediterranean.

-To find this sort of building is unique.

We've never found one.

-Alexandria was a place of vital importance for Cleopatra.

Could these newly found ruins have belonged to her?

They stood on a harbor island that likely sank in the 4th century.

-What we see at the Temple of Isis is really a little time capsule that doesn't get disturbed once the destruction has happened.

-Erected in honor of the god Osiris and the goddess Isis, the structure represented Cleopatra in the eyes of all Egypt.

And the treasure within is priceless to historians.

-It's from the Temple of Isis, a very rare piece.

-The facial characteristics suggest Cleopatra VII.

-The temple would have been an important part of how she was presenting herself to her population.

-The archaeologists have brought thousands of artifacts up from the seafloor for analysis.

And they can now share what their underwater investigation reveals about Cleopatra's life, the fate of her family, the Ptolemies, and the men who stood at her side.

-I think we have an interesting discovery here.

-With cutting-edge technology, these scientists and researchers have created a virtual reconstruction of one of antiquity's major monuments.

♪♪ ♪♪ -Alexandria -- With six million inhabitants, it is Egypt's second-largest city, after Cairo.

2,000 years ago, this Mediterranean port was the capital of the Ptolemaic kingdom, ruled by the pharaohs, including the empire's famous queen, the very last of their civilization -- Cleopatra.

-People have always been fascinated with Cleopatra.

She was never forgotten.

In Egypt, she continued to be revered.

She's seen as a strong, powerful queen.

-She's the last survivor of the dynasties who were established by Alexander the Great.

-Cleopatra was born in Alexandria in 69 BC, the daughter of Pharaoh Ptolemy XII and an unknown mother.

When she took the throne in 51 BC, the country was prosperous, but under Roman influence.

To ease tensions, the young queen chose to ally herself with two of Rome's leaders -- first Julius Caesar, then Mark Antony.

But it was not enough.

Cleopatra reigned for two decades before taking her own life at the age of 39 after defeat at the Battle of Actium.

Today, Alexandria attracts the world's leading underwater explorers, searching for evidence of the iconic queen.

-It actually would have been the major international trading port of the eastern Mediterranean, one of the greatest harbors in the ancient world, if not the greatest.

It's full of palaces and temples and an enormous, teeming, multicultural city.

-The capital city was one of the ancient world's most important Mediterranean ports, making it very wealthy.

It was home to a lighthouse, a library, royal quarters, and temples.

But Cleopatra's Alexandria was destroyed in the centuries following her reign.

-Firstly, there's the slow rise in sea level.

There are earthquakes, which also impact the area.

There are tsunamis that hit it.

And most notably, there's a tsunami that hits Alexandria in 365 AD, which is reported to have killed something like 10,000 people.

And then there's also another big earthquake that happens sometime in the 7th, 8th century.

And so, what was a great classical city is slowly reduced to nothing.

-This has long since vanished underwater and we're not aware of that now.

-While modern Alexandria stands on the ruins of the ancient city, some of the most significant artifacts from Cleopatra's time lay untouched.

Over the last several decades, archaeologists have been raising the sunken remains of ancient Alexandria for study and analysis.

The underwater location has protected these ruins, providing an unexplored site for archaeological exploration.

-You can't see anything of ancient Alexandria on the land.

But fortunately parts of the harbor has preserved this.

And that's why we're so fortunate to be working there, because you can actually excavate into deposits that have been untouched, effectively, and therefore are able to build up a picture of the harbor as it was from the archaeology itself.

-Stretching over an area of more than a square mile, Alexandria's harbor, Portus Magnus, once boasted an island, several peninsulas, and many of the city's major sites.

Around 20 BC, ancient Greek geographer and historian Strabo described Alexandria.

-Thanks to Strabo, we have a fairly detailed description of the Portus Magnus, the great port of Alexandria.

We know it was actually made up of several ports.

-He is fantastic because he provides an eyewitness account shortly after the conquest of Egypt by Rome.

-Using Strabo as their guide, archaeologists from the European Institute for Underwater Archaeology have been exploring the eastern part of the harbor.

The man in charge of operations is French archaeologist Franck Goddio.

-Better rinse the salt off right away.

-When he began exploring the seabed in 1992, he had no sense of what he would find.

-There is Alexandria's eastern harbor, with its cornice here, surrounded by two large modern dikes.

The entire interior of the harbor is the excavation zone.

-This huge area covers nearly 90 acres.

♪♪ Combining modern technology with traditional excavation methods, Franck has succeeded in establishing the contours of all the submerged land in this area.

-This is land that still exists, but which was swallowed up by the sea, along with the monuments.

So, the great pass was here.

Everything to the east was the royal quarters, while to the west were the shipyards.

-Establishing the outlines of this now-vanished landmass was quite an achievement.

The archaeologists hope their work reveals more about Egypt's 33rd dynasty... its last.

This ancient harbor contains secrets belonging to the empire's last pharaohs.

♪♪ ♪♪ The scientific expedition began aboard a boat equipped with a range of bathymetric instruments for studying the seabed.

The science of bathymetry uses various methods like sonar and LiDAR, along with human observations, to map underwater topography.

Bathymetry is essential when identifying buried structures and mapping submerged areas invisible to the naked eye.

-Bathymetry was used right across the Alexandria Bay area, and it clearly showed blunted structures, which are actually the ghosts of an ancient topography.

-Archaeologists were able to draw conclusions about these "ghosts" during the second excavation phase in 1996.

From Roman times right through to the 14th century, Alexandria suffered a series of earthquakes, landslides, and rising waters, which covered part of the ancient city.

-It's beneath about five to six meters in certain places, and then it's obviously deeper towards the edges.

-In the beginning, we weren't really searching for anything at all.

We just saw what was there and gradually made some discoveries.

An island began to take shape.

But there was only one island in Alexandria's Portus Magnus -- the royal island of Antirhodos.

-Antirhodos.

Strabo described it as the site that greeted awestruck travelers sailing into the harbor.

Finding the island had the potential to provide a whole new perspective on ancient Egypt's last pharaohs and its iconic queen.

-We can see the island of Antirhodos here, with two small dikes enclosing a beautifully preserved harbor, formerly the royal port of the island of Antirhodos.

-These ruins opened up a new chapter in Egyptian archaeology.

For Franck, Strabo's writings underscore the island's importance.

-Strabo says, "There is an island, the private property of kings, on which the great queen Cleopatra VII had a palace."

So, right away, when excavations began, we tried to locate the palace.

-The team had hoped to find traces of what they believed was Cleopatra's palace on Antirhodos.

But with the 1996 dig coming to an end, they had to wait another year to continue exploring the site.

-The pieces of the puzzle kept falling into place, year after year.

♪♪ -1997, 5 years after the start of the dig.

The archaeologists have returned to the ruins of Antirhodos for another chance to explore these remnants of ancient Alexandria.

Antirhodos is spread across an area roughly half the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza.

Diving at the site was a difficult underwater mission with poor visibility.

But 20 feet down, the exploration began again.

-In the center was an accumulation of ruins, alongside some kind of terrace leading down to the port.

-The discovery of these ruins, 2,000 years after they were built, was evidence that Franck Goddio was looking in the right place.

The underwater archaeologists pressed on with their exploration.

And their next discovery was monumental in size and significance.

-We saw several fluted pink granite columns scattered all along the island.

A whole series of them -- blocks of granite and limestone.

-Could these columns be from the palace that ancient writer Strabo described?

If so, they suggested the site was home to a large building.

Initially, because of their size, no attempt was made to move these granite pillars... But now, 30 years later, that has changed.

Hoisted onto the boat, this small column must have been part of a colonnade that led to something significant.

-We'll secure it and try to balance it.

We did some preliminary cleaning underwater, because it had about 30 centimeters of concretion.

You could barely make out a column.

It was obviously a massive object, and inside the shapeless rock we found this column.

-Mud and shells cover much of the remains, the result of spending so much time underwater.

It's long and painstaking work for the archaeologists.

And every artifact must be studied to better understand what could be the ruins of a palace that once belonged to Cleopatra.

-Even if you have a little bit of the column shaft, you can measure across it and get the diameter, and then from that you can reconstruct the height.

-This small column delineated an access path.

Other more massive columns, three feet in diameter, supported the structure.

They were more than 25 feet tall.

In all, archaeologists have identified more than a hundred sections of granite columns at the site.

A picture of the structure is slowly beginning to take shape.

And based on what had already been found, it appears to have been enormous.

-The size of the columns, the diameter of the columns, is larger than normal for Alexandria.

-When the granite columns are first found, it indicates that you are in a building that is substantial.

It's important.

-It clearly had to be the palace.

And it must have been something to behold.

♪♪ ♪♪ -On the seabed scans, dark spots show the location of these columns on the screen, including the one just hoisted onto the ship.

-Which column have we brought up?

-From here.

-It's one of the last of the Antirhodos colonnade.

They're over a meter in diameter, the whole line of them, but they're all spilled into the harbor.

-The columns slid to the bottom of the sea after an earthquake and then were quickly covered by sediment, interring them until today.

Knowing the location of the fallen columns, archaeologists can now map the building and better understand its destruction.

-You can see how it tumbled down, towards the south and southeast.

The funny thing is, it actually withstood the earthquake quite well.

-After being studied and cleaned, the last Antirhodos column is put back in its original location at the bottom of the harbor.

-We prefer to have them in situ, in the exact position and orientation they were found in, the idea being of maybe one day creating an underwater museum here, on the island of Antirhodos, with the colonnades on the palace foundations.

-But Franck Goddio is not done.

The ancient columns found on the seabed suggest something other than a royal palace.

♪♪ The archaeologists continue to explore the area near where the columns were found.

There, once again, a vision from another age begins to take shape in the divers' lights... A silhouette.

An extraordinary scene lay sunken in the depths beneath nearly 20 feet of water.

A veritable treasure trove, preserved from the natural disasters that ravaged the ancient city throughout its history.

-To the west of Antirhodos were two sphinxes.

And 15 meters away, a statue.

♪♪ -They're just so visually amazing.

They're so redolent of Egypt.

And for me, that symbolizes everything that we're looking at.

-This statue represents a priest -- an unusual object to find amid the ruins of a palace.

Typically, an item like this would be found at religious sites.

-We were very surprised.

When we found the sphinxes and the priest, we assumed there was some kind of small sanctuary.

Then, as the excavations progressed, we realized it was a temple -- a temple not mentioned in Strabo's descriptions.

-The scientists realize what they have found.

These are not the ruins of a palace, but those of a previously unknown monument -- a temple that nobody expected to find here.

-Once you've got those elements, really, you know that you're in a temple.

You've got the twin sphinxes and the cult statue.

You've got the architecture that you can work with.

It's then a case of putting all the pieces together.

-The discovery of a temple on Antirhodos completely changes the focus of excavation.

Archaeologists now have to determine who built it and which deity it was dedicated to.

Their search for answers leads to an unlikely place... The pair of sphinxes and statue remind Franck of something he'd seen before.

They were strangely reminiscent of a fresco found in the ancient Roman town of Herculaneum, buried alongside Pompeii following the cataclysmic eruption of Mt.

Vesuvius.

-This fresco depicts an Egyptian temple, we're sure about that.

It shows palm trees and ibises, which symbolize Egypt.

We see a priest emerging from a temple holding a vase, while sacrifices are being made at an altar.

-He's flanked by two sphinxes.

There's an altar in front of him, and there's a crowd on either side.

We have all of these elements.

We don't have the crowd... but we can imagine that.

-It looks like it could be our temple on Antirhodos.

-The resemblance is uncanny.

The pair of sphinxes in the painting share two striking similarities with those found underwater.

-Strangely enough, the sphinxes are not the same size.

One is small, one is larger, which is rather unusual because in Egyptian temples you most often see sphinxes aligned, always the same size, standing in pairs.

-As is the case at Luxor's Karnak temple.

Franck believes the scene painted at Herculaneum is a representation of the lost temple of Antirhodos.

But why would an Egyptian temple be depicted in a town near the capital of the Roman Empire?

-It's that initial set of questions and responses that come from that that enable you to start to go, well, actually, what does this mean?

Let's try and piece together the story of this.

-Franck begins to grasp the significance of his discovery.

This monument was one of the first landmarks visible to ships entering the ancient port of Alexandria.

Now, archaeologists can begin to imagine what the temple looked like.

-From the debris field and from the position of the columns, we can work out that the temple itself is probably about 50 meters long.

So, that's roughly the size of an Olympic swimming pool.

It's about 20 meters, 15 to 20 meters wide.

So, about half the width of an Olympic-sized swimming pool in that respect.

So, it's a major monument.

It's very, very large as a temple.

-But one detail puzzles the archaeologists.

The sphinxes seem too small relative to the building.

-If you look at the Herculaneum image, it would suggest that the sphinxes are there outside the temple.

But then when we put them outside the temple, they look tiny in relationship to the sheer scale of the temple.

And then that resulted in Franck looking more closely, the way in which the deposits flow from their original location into the debris field.

And that's enabled him to say, well, actually, yeah, they were probably located in the sort of entrance room rather than outside the front doors, because they would've just been lost amongst the facade.

-The team continued to push the investigation further.

By the late 1990s, scientists had already located limestone boulders, granite columns, and parts of the sanctuary.

And in 2002, they were finally able to draw up a detailed map of the island and its ruins.

The researchers were uncovering a landscape different from what was described in ancient texts.

-When the earthquake came, the temple spilled into the royal port of Antirhodos, like this, breaking apart, with some falling to the north, most to the south.

Everything just slid into the harbor.

-Those disasters were a blessing for scientists, preserving artifacts in sediment.

Some of the objects are no bigger than a sugar cube and difficult to identify.

But as the scientists hope to produce a virtual re-creation of the temple, every detail counts.

-As the temple slid into the harbor, all the objects were buried in the rubble, and before long the mud at the bottom of the harbor covered everything, sealing it all in.

So, on the wall facings, for example, there's still some pigment left, like this dark red-brown here.

I find it moving to see the colors on the walls and the paving.

It gives us a glimpse of the luxury of a temple that must have been quite extraordinary.

It really was beautiful.

-Franck and the team envision bringing this colossal, architecturally rich monument back to life.

And they still want to answer the same questions -- Who built the temple and when?

♪♪ One of the initial discoveries left the team confused, struggling to make sense of what the archaeological evidence seemed to be telling them.

They saw a mixture of styles from all over the ancient world, not just Egypt.

-What was found nearby was a Corinthian column capital, it's a Greek form of architecture.

And the columns themselves are not of an Egyptian style either.

And then similarly, you could say, oh, yeah, is it more of a Roman temple, is it more of a Greek temple?

And those initial questions are the things that suddenly then drive you on to ask further questions about it.

-And the carvings and legible inscriptions allude to Roman emperors, vestiges of Caesar's presence in Egypt.

Over the course of its early history, Alexandria was ruled by pharaohs of Egyptian and Greek descent, as well as Roman emperors.

-This excavation is hugely important, I think, for throwing a light on this particular time period -- the transition from Ptolemaic rule to the Roman Empire.

And so, what we're seeing at the Temple of Isis is the last gasp of the Hellenistic kingdom and the arrival of the power of Rome in Egypt.

-The archaeologists reexamine every artifact collected at the excavation site over the years... and that's when they notice a tiny but important detail.

The cult statue found with the sphinxes is no ordinary statue.

The stone priest is holding a vase in his hands that reveals quite a bit about the temple's significance.

-It's a vase for carrying water, with a lid in the form of a head of Osiris.

-He's the king of the underworld.

He ensures fecundity and fertility to Egypt.

-Osiris was a primary deity for the Egyptian monarchy, which means that the temple could only have been built during the reign of a pharaoh.

And Osiris is one half of a divine couple that includes a goddess of equal importance.

The association of the priest with the sphinxes enabled us to say without question that this is a temple of Isis.

-Isis, protector of children and the faithful wife and sister of Osiris... one of the most important figures in the history of Egyptian civilization.

Isis and Osiris were inseparable, forming a powerful holy couple for ancient Egyptians.

-The two of them are linked with a number of phenomena, one of which is the annual flooding of the river Nile.

And it's that flooding which allows the wealth of Egypt.

So, the vase carrying water is an important reminder of that annual event.

-While archaeologists knew temples linked to Osiris and Isis existed, this is the first one to be located.

-To find this sort of building is unique.

In Alexandria, there's textual references to temples of Isis, but archaeologically, we've never found one.

-Now they know it was built during the reign of a pharaoh -- but not by whom.

The connection to the supreme gods is a vital clue.

The Ptolemies, including Cleopatra, felt a special connection with Isis and Osiris and made them their chief gods.

-The Ptolemies identified themselves with Osiris, and some with Isis.

-The Ptolemies were unlike any other pharaohs.

They were Greek -- descendants of Ptolemy I, Alexander the Great's loyal general who conquered Egypt in 332 BC.

While some things reflected their Greek heritage, the Ptolemies adopted Egyptian customs and beliefs.

-The Ptolemies were very keen to show some solidarity with Egyptian religious belief.

They had to really demonstrate to the people of Egypt that their very venerable cults and rituals were respected.

-A savvy move by the Ptolemies.

Pharaohs frequented this house of worship.

The island of Antirhodos was off limits to the average person.

Strabo writes that the island was "the property of kings."

And according to ancient texts, access to the temple itself was even more restricted.

Only pharaohs, members of the clergy, and assistants were allowed to enter the sanctuary.

-The temple actually became a shrine to the personal cult of the Ptolemies.

This was the royal temple where the Ptolemies honored the gods that they themselves were.

-Franck Goddio's theory is based on an inscription on a stela displayed in the British Museum.

It recounts an event that took place in 76 BC between Ptolemy XII -- Cleopatra's father -- and the high priest of Ptah.

-They sailed together to a temple of Isis, which was in the harbor, so they had to take a boat.

And as they left, the pharaoh gave him a crown of gold and jewels, and in front of the assembled court, ordered him to create a cult making him Ptolemy, the new Osiris, the new Dionysus.

For the Greeks, Osiris was Dionysus.

-Following this ceremony, Ptolemy XII added the designation "New Dionysus" to his royal title.

He was now Osiris on Earth.

-So, this absolutely has to be the temple of his consecration as the new Osiris.

-The temple was constructed during the reign of Ptolemy XII.

We know this from the archaeological evidence.

So, suddenly there is pottery which dates from the right sort of period.

But crucially, there's lots of coins that date to the reign of Ptolemy XII.

And the temple is part of a bigger city set of buildings that he's doing around the harbor at this point.

So, it's a Ptolemaic foundation.

-One of the two sphinxes found at the entrance to the temple also supported the scientist's theory.

-The small sphinx is in the effigy of Ptolemy XII, father of Cleopatra VII.

The other probably represents another King Ptolemy, but we can't tell for sure which one.

But we can identify Ptolemy XII, with his little nose.

So, we have a sphinx representing the pharaoh.

-For ancient Egyptians, pharaohs were the earthly embodiment of specific deities.

And Cleopatra ensured that her subjects throughout the empire were aware of her holy status.

Wherever she went -- at Dendera Temple of Hathor, for example -- she was depicted as the goddess Isis.

-Cleopatra sees herself as the living embodiment of the goddess.

So, the temple and the rites that are being enacted within the temple would have been an important part of how she was presenting herself to her population and to the population beyond.

-Cleopatra certainly wanted to be seen as a ruler of Egypt.

And it's very interesting that even in modern Egypt, her reputation is of a highly effective and brilliant queen.

-It was the Romans who spread the idea that she was a disreputable woman.

The evidence left in the sands of Egypt testifies to a brilliant head of state who embodied a powerful goddess and was beloved by her people.

And she was keen to make a strong impression.

-Cleopatra is one of the most famous women in ancient history.

And this temple is hers.

She completed it.

She would have used it to conduct business, to worship there.

-During her reign, Cleopatra added "New Isis" to her royal title, just as her father had named himself the new Osiris.

She now personified a goddess.

The temple on Antirhodos was clearly a place where she could make holy offerings.

And as Cleopatra publicly associated herself with Isis, the temple became an Iseum.

-It sits at the epicenter of the world of Cleopatra at that point.

And so, it's ridiculously important.

-This temple became a political object.

-The temple is an expression not of military might, but of a kind of soft power.

It is a temple, but it's, you know, it's not a fortress.

But it's absolutely key to her vision of what she's trying to do.

I think she's saying, "You're entering the land of Cleopatra.

Don't mess with me."

-The team has now established when the temple was built and by whom.

And they find another piece of evidence linking the temple with Cleopatra.

-Not all of the temple treasury goes into the sea.

Some of it does and has been preserved for us.

Some of it remained on land and has been reburied underneath the kind of -- the reconstruction of the land on top of the temple.

-Nobody's been able to go in and ransack through it over the centuries since it went underwater.

And that's a characteristic of a number of underwater sites across Egypt, is that they yield a very large number of coins.

♪♪ -One of the divers returns to the research vessel after two hours of digging.

She brings a small coin to the surface -- and it turns out to be a significant find.

-I found a very interesting coin.

It's bronze, from the Temple of Isis.

It's a very rare coin.

-Experts carry out a preliminary examination of the coin on site.

The on-board numismatist decodes the information still visible to determine which major figure in the temple's history is shown on the coin.

-It is very legible, and thus easy to identify.

Here we see the characteristic bun in the hair, and on the flip side is the Ptolemaic eagle, here associated with a double cornucopia and the sign of pi, which signifies its value, that's to say 80 units.

It's hard to read but the legend says "Cleopatra Basilices," meaning Queen Cleopatra.

-Cleopatra... Héloise is holding a 2,000-year-old coin bearing an effigy of the queen.

-Cleopatra is one of the most famous queens in the world, so it's always very moving to find coins from her reign.

-Very little does survive of Cleopatra.

The main surviving evidence we have are the coins.

And they are, you might say, the truest indicator of the character and nature of Cleopatra -- the only things that survive from her own time to tell us about how she wanted to present herself and perhaps how others saw her.

-It's incredibly fortunate the coin survived underwater for so long.

The Mediterranean Sea is a hostile world for metals.

-The mud protects the objects from the air, from oxygen, and from the seawater.

So, it creates just a nice enclosed environment around the coins that allows them to retain their original appearance.

-Since the excavation began in 1992, a number of coins bearing the image of Queen Cleopatra have been found near the ruins of the Temple of Isis.

Each find is meticulously recorded.

Its location in the rubble and depth in the water provide the archaeologists with vital information.

-It's very important to keep track of where an object was found.

The object itself is, of course, of interest, but beyond that, what matters is its position at the time of the discovery, specifically in relation to the other objects found around it.

-Antoine is responsible for cataloging every item brought to the surface.

-We determine the GPS coordinates, which allows us to situate it in relation to the whole dig.

Each dot indicates an object found, which gives us a representation of the site and the position of the objects in relation to each other.

-More than 8,000 objects from the Iseum have been recovered and mapped over the course of the excavation.

As this was a royal temple, the items found inside were deposited there by the pharaohs, their queens, or the elite of Egyptian society.

These coins, for example, were donated by elite visitors to the temple, including Cleopatra herself.

And they are very precise indicators of time -- The coin's mintage tells archaeologists exactly when it dates to, which enables researchers to create a chronology of the temple, from the first pharaoh who passed through its gates, to the very last emperor.

-The temple has an amazing collection of monetary evidence from it.

And these can be dated to a whole -- to its entire occupation, its entire life.

-The earliest coins that we have from the Temple of Isis date to the reign of Ptolemy XII.

And the latest coins date to the reign of the Emperor Claudius.

-A century separates these two coins, which suggests that the Temple of Isis stood for only a hundred years before it collapsed into Alexandria's harbor after an earthquake.

These coins are invaluable for what they can tell archaeologists about Egyptian history.

But once out of the water, a race against time begins.

While sediment can preserve metal objects from destruction for thousands of years, air can cause corrosion or oxidation.

Olivier Berger is the team's restorer.

He is in charge of preserving everything brought to the surface, including Cleopatra's coin.

-The objects were in a balanced environment on the seabed, so taking them out triggers a great deal of trauma, and if you leave them in the open air, they will deteriorate very quickly.

So, we begin with stabilization management, followed later by precise goldsmith's treatments, which allow us to clear surfaces, highlight reliefs, and gain a better understanding of the objects.

-With such precise and meticulous work, the slightest error would be disastrous.

After several days' effort, Olivier has finished restoring the coin.

-Some of it was visible.

You could see part of the eagle on the reverse and make out a profile.

After restoration, a face appeared that was barely visible at first.

It turned out to be a female face with her hair in a bun.

The facial features are characteristic of Cleopatra VII.

So now, it's legible and identifiable.

-When the queen decided to reform the currency, she chose to have her face on the coins.

They reflect the image that she wanted to leave for posterity.

It was an act that speaks to her desire for legitimacy and authority.

-The kings are perhaps feeling a little more insecure about their nature and identity.

So, in that sense, we could almost read the arrival of Cleopatra's portrait on bronze as a sign of insecurity, as a sign that she wanted to reassure everybody who was using these low-value coins that Cleopatra was in charge.

-Many believed her father's alliance with Rome weakened Egypt, and it may be that she wanted to assert her power.

If so, it's something she seems to have achieved convincingly.

♪♪ Amid the ruins of the temple, archaeologists have found an extraordinary item connected to a man forever linked with Cleopatra... A charismatic figure very close to the queen, whose presence in the temple was now confirmed by this absolutely singular object -- a rare crystal head discovered in the sediment.

-The crystal head is magnificent.

You really don't find very many of these across the whole of the Roman Empire.

So, it's a very expensive, high-end gift that has been given to the temple.

-This treasure is kept in the excavation storeroom in Alexandria, at a secret location where few cameras are allowed.

Olivier has completed the cleaning and restoration of the precious object.

-The head is made of rock crystal, which is a very hard stone.

Unfortunately, it has suffered the ravages of time and is now very eroded.

-Under strong light, the face appears more clearly.

-Sorry to say, it's very eroded, but it's still an imperial head.

The face is clearly visible, the hair well defined.

The profile, eyes, and nose are clearly visible.

There's a strong presumption that this is indeed Mark Antony.

-Mark Antony was one of Cleopatra's Roman lovers and the father of three of her children.

Her love affairs are part of her mystique, one of the reasons archaeologists still study her today.

Franck Goddio's excavations continue to reveal new information about what can now be called Cleopatra's temple.

♪♪ On deck, the archaeologist eagerly awaits the divers' latest haul.

-They're just back from the Temple of Isis with what I believe is an interesting discovery.

-Yes, at the corner of a wall, 80 centimeters down, we came across a large beam, something like 25 by 20 in cross-section.

It's not from a ship's wreckage, it's a piece of structural timber.

-A piece of framework?

Well preserved?

-Very well preserved.

-Nearly 1,700 years after it was buried, this wooden beam has just been brought to the surface.

What the archaeologists are looking at is, without a doubt, part of the temple's roof.

Although without any detailed plans, the temple's shape remains a mystery.

♪♪ But a much smaller object pulled from the sediment sheds light on the structure of the building.

This relic, just a few millimeters long, depicts a temple, which might be the Iseum.

And its framework is quite unusual.

-Here we have a small amulet, which is extremely interesting because it's actually the temple.

So, we have a miniature representation of the Iseum, with the pink granite columns, and the pediment here.

-We've found a couple of small lead tokens that seem to show the facade of our temple.

And it has a curved roof on both of them.

So, that's quite direct evidence from our excavations.

-This tiny object suggests the shape of the temple.

Analysis shows that the wood could have been beech, which has the flexibility needed for a curved beam.

Piece by piece, Cleopatra's temple is coming together.

But even after three decades, there's still work to be done.

The latest discoveries at the underwater site stretch back 2,000 years, to the construction of the temple.

-From our excavations within the debris field, we've been able to find a whole range of material that enables us to reconstruct something of the decoration of the temple.

-Franck Goddio and his team have reassembled this decorative item, which shows what Cleopatra might have seen when she walked inside.

-It's part of the temple, an interior room.

And we know that this was the cella, the location of the temple's main statue -- which we found -- of a priest carrying a Canopic urn.

Nearby, at the same level in the rubble, several elements like this with these rather lovely cornices were found, and they're quite well preserved.

-The archaeologists were able to bring other design elements from the temple to the surface, including the remarkable mosaics on the temple floor.

These treasures confirm the immense wealth of the site.

-This is all from this year's excavations.

Here, we have pink marble, strips of pink marble that were set into the floor.

This is a royal temple, so of course these are extremely luxurious materials.

Some very beautiful black marble flooring here, too.

So, among the colors are pink, black, white.

These mosaics were without question walked upon by great figures from history -- Ptolemy XII, Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, Antony, and Augustus.

-The lavish décor reflects the royal temple's status as a place where Egypt's elite came together.

Here, they celebrated religious rituals and held Dionysian feasts dedicated to Osiris.

But the temple's function changed after Cleopatra's death.

After Octavian -- the future Emperor Augustus -- defeated Egypt, the queen committed suicide.

Egypt officially came under Roman rule, though the Temple of Isis was left standing.

-It is a temple to Isis.

And it's quite problematic as a temple to Isis, in that way, because of the associations of Isis with Cleopatra herself.

-Ancient texts mention the emperor's fight against the cult of Isis in Rome.

This temple symbolized everything he hated.

But to avoid clashing with the Egyptian priests, he developed a strategy.

-In order to have a smooth transition, he needs to be friends with the Egyptian priesthood.

And we know that the gifts to the temple keep arriving.

-The emperor transformed the Temple of Isis into a place of protection for ships leaving Egypt to supply Rome with grain.

-Isis is protecting the ships which are taking the grain to Rome.

So, within the Roman world, the temple gets re-imagined to find a new place within this new society.

-Finding a symbolic use for the temple spared it from destruction.

Evidence suggests the temple remained in use for at least a century after Cleopatra's reign.

-Gold coins donated by Augustus bear his effigy, demonstrating that it was he who protected and enriched the Temple of Isis at Antirhodos.

-It is, of course, entirely possible that the Emperor Augustus was the person behind these coins appearing in the Temple of Isis.

He was in Alexandria, and at the time that the temple existed.

-The temple was maintained until the reign of Emperor Claudius in 52 AD.

Then, the first in a centuries-long series of terrible earthquakes sent Queen Cleopatra's Temple of Isis tumbling into the harbor.

The discoveries made by Franck Goddio and his team underwater have provided new insight into how Cleopatra united religion and politics to support her authority.

-What we see at the Temple of Isis is really a little time capsule that doesn't get disturbed once the destruction has happened.

-Arriving in the ancient port, the temple must have been a spectacular sight.

-You could see it from the city, but it was especially visible when arriving by sea, which is rather strange.

The temple was built on an elevated base, with steps, right at the tip of the island, and it could be seen in all its magnificence rising above the waves, alongside all the palaces built to the east of the temple.

-After three decades of excavation, archaeologists now believe that the temple consisted of three parts.

-At the front of it, next to the columned area, is basically what's called the proneos.

So, it's a sort of an entrance space.

Interestingly, within this space, associated within the debris of this space, lots of lamps have been found.

So, it looks as if this is where you take your lamp and then you go into the temple.

And then you have a major space where the cult statue is found.

And this is the big kind of open space with the cult statue.

And then at the back of the temple, there's another room that we think is the temple treasury.

And it's within the remains of that, that we found lots of amazing artifacts -- so, gold coin hoards and a crystal head, those kinds of things.

-The Temple of Isis sat undisturbed on the seabed of Alexandria's harbor... a monument steeped in history that witnessed the greatest leaders of its time pass through its doors.

-It's just mind-blowing.

To be able to put all of this information together and to kind of confront these figures from ancient history is a great privilege.

-But the work is far from over, as each excavation turns up new treasures, revealing more and more about Queen Cleopatra.

-I don't think we've found most of what this temple has to offer.

Far from it.

♪♪ We excavate by sector, but the temple is immense.

I think we've only covered 20%, at most.

♪♪ There are lots of surprises in store for us, that is for sure.

♪♪