Secrets of the Dead

Narrator

Egypt. Of all its kings and queens, one still remains cloaked in mystery... its last queen... Cleopatra. For centuries, archaeologists have searched for clues about this powerful leader's life, yet evidence of the queen has all but vanished from history. But that's about to change. Out in the Egyptian desert, archaeologist Kathleen Martinez has found a long-lost temple dating to Cleopatra's reign. I look around where other archaeologists have excavated, and I immediately knew they were searching in the wrong places. She has uncovered stunning artifacts, mysterious tunnels, and even a vast city of the dead. Kathleen is starting to transform our understanding of this enigmatic queen. She was a mother. She was a wife. She was a queen. She was a goddess. This amateur sleuth from the Dominican Republic has battled on in the face of skepticism from the archaeological community. They were not supportive. They believed it was a crazy idea. With the discovery of a network of underground chambers, she believes she might have found the final resting place of Cleopatra herself. I will never stop until I find the tomb of Cleopatra. Kathleen Martinez is a criminal lawyer from the Dominican Republic, but over the last 20 years, she has used her experience in the courtroom to become an archaeological sleuth. She's searching for the lost tomb of Cleopatra. I don't think 100% as an archaeologist, because my first training is as a criminal lawyer. So I took Cleopatra as a case. Kathleen's obsession with the last queen of Egypt began when she read Shakespeare's play "Antony and Cleopatra." She believes there's much more to the queen's life and death than the legend suggests, and she believes she knows where Cleopatra's tomb lies hidden. Kathleen's quest took her to Alexandria, in north Egypt. It's here in Cleopatra's capital city that most archaeologists believe the queen was buried. But more than 1,000 years ago, the ancient city was hit by a tidal wave and lost beneath the water. The experts believe so, too, was the tomb of Cleopatra. But Kathleen has other ideas. She doesn't believe the queen was buried in the city at all. Defeated by the Romans at the Battle of Actium, Cleopatra famously committed suicide. Kathleen has a theory that the queen planned for her body to be taken out of Alexandria and buried in a sacred temple. When I studied carefully the last days of Cleopatra, I realized it was the beginning of a religious act that ended up with her being buried in a temple... and her lost tomb could be found there. Studying ancient Roman texts, Kathleen investigated 21 temple sites where Cleopatra could be buried, but only one fit with her theory. 25 miles west of Alexandria lies a ruined temple complex known as Taposiris Magna. Kathleen suspects this ancient pile of rubble dates from the time of Cleopatra's royal line. Even though the site is in ruins, its sheer scale and its proximity to Cleopatra's capital city suggest to Kathleen that the queen chose this site to be her final resting place. But over the last century, several archaeological teams have searched here and found very little. This is not a site that would have piqued the interest of the archaeological community, particularly. It didn't present any features which captured anybody's imagination. But could Kathleen's hunch be true? Could this be the site of Cleopatra's lost tomb?

Kathleen

My first reaction when I entered the temple was to laugh because I knew I was in the right place.

Narrator

The great walls that surround the site are different from those at other ancient Egyptian temples

in one important way

there are no inscriptions. There's nothing to link the site to any specific time or dynasty in Egyptian history.

Kathleen

The most accepted idea about this temple-- it was never finished. All the scholars believed it never functioned as a temple, and I believe they were wrong.

Narrator

Experts had written off Taposiris Magna as unfinished and unimportant, but Kathleen is determined to prove it's more than just an ancient building site. She applies to the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities for permission to dig at the site. They're intrigued by her ideas, but given her unconventional background, Kathleen is only given two months by the authorities to prove her theory. Paying for the excavation out of her own pocket, Kathleen assembles a team of Egyptians and local tribesmen.

Kathleen

Maybe nobody ever came to this site with a clear idea of what they were searching for.

Narrator

But the archaeological community is skeptical.

Christopher

I think Kathleen's ideas come across as very sensationalist. In the absence of anything really scientific, there was a lot of skepticism about her work.

Speaking foreign language

Narrator

Whatever the academics think, Kathleen is confident in her theory.

Kathleen

And if we remove this block...

Narrator

If she could find the lost tomb of Cleopatra, there's no telling what secrets would be revealed about the queen's life and eventual death. What people know about Cleopatra is what we have seen in the movies, and this information is only what the Romans wrote about her, and it was propaganda.

Man

You are a goddess, Cleopatra. Everything is permitted to a goddess.

Narrator

2,000 years after her death, the legend of Cleopatra still fascinates us.

Christopher

Cleopatra's a pivotal figure in Egyptian history. She comes from a background of the most turbulent, dramatic, soap-operatic royal family there has ever been. Her story seems to have absolutely everything. It's got sex, it's got wealth, it's got power.

Narrator

She was the lover of Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, and at one time, she was the richest woman in the world. Cleopatra got what she needed. Cleopatra got what she wanted. But following defeat at the hands of the Roman Empire, she ended her life.

And one mystery remains unsolved

where was she buried?

Christopher

The truth is, we don't exactly know what happened either around the time of her death or what happened to her body afterwards.

Narrator

Barely any traces of Cleopatra or her reign survive today.

Christopher

Victors write history, and that means that a lot of Cleopatra has been--been swept away, and that leaves us with a lot of questions unanswered, um, and it leaves us with something of an enigma.

Narrator

Back at Taposiris Magna, Kathleen Martinez was given just 8 weeks to find any proof that Cleopatra could be buried at the site. With her permit about to expire, she's found nothing of interest. It looks like she's going to fail, just like all the archaeologists before her.

Kathleen

Everybody here at the site were disappointed we didn't find anything. We didn't even find pottery or nothing.

Narrator

On the very last day, Kathleen spreads her team across the site. Not far from the north door, she stumbles on a curious depression in the ground.

Kathleen

We started cleaning, and then suddenly a small hole opened, and we start removing the sand, and we found it was a shaft.

Man

OK. You can come down and talk.

Indistinct

Kathleen

It has holes to go down like in ancient times. They never used a ladder. It opens in two chambers, one going north and the other going south.

Narrator

This is an astonishing discovery. The shaft descends 16 feet below ground level... leading to two carved chambers. But what were they for?

Kathleen

You can see traces of color. It was painted.

Narrator

It's possible this could be a cistern for storing water, but why would it be painted? None of the previous archaeologists who had excavated the site came across underground chambers like these. It's enough to convince the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities to extend Kathleen's permit.

Kathleen

It was the happiest day of my life. Because of this shaft, we continue our search for Cleopatra.

Narrator

Kathleen has found more beneath Taposiris Magna than anyone imagined. It keeps alive her hope that the temple could be the last resting place of Cleopatra. For Kathleen, her research has revealed that Cleopatra is much more than the Hollywood seductress of legend.

Kathleen

She was a musician. She studied medicine. She wrote about love. There are so many qualities, and she did so much in a time where women were so restricted.

Narrator

Kathleen is searching for concrete facts about Cleopatra and is transforming our understanding of the enigmatic queen. While Roman poets describe Cleopatra as a sinful whore, medieval Arab writers portray her in a very different light-- as a philosopher, scientist, and astute political leader. At the New Library in Alexandria, curator Walaa Temraz has found references to the queen in ancient Arab texts. One writer was a ninth-century poet named Al-Masudi.

Walaa

Uh, well, here in this chapter, he, uh, talked about Cleopatra, and he mentioned that she wrote several books about medicine and other fields of science.

Reading in Arabic

Walaa

We barely find a mention in the Arabic sources that she was a seducer or something like that. We only find mentions of her either as a ruler, uh, or a great monarch who protected Egypt.

Narrator

It's a view that's gained ground among historians in recent years. Kathleen is not the only person on Cleopatra's trail. Dr. Dorothy Thompson studies ancient papyrus and is finding new insights about the queen from rare written accounts. My interest is in the queen actually in Egypt, not the queen who's constructed for us by others, not the mirage of the queen, but the queen we can tell from the texts. In the Berlin Museum, fragile scraps of 2,000-year-old papyrus give a glimpse of the political control Cleopatra wielded during her reign.

Dorothy

This dates from 50 B.C. It's from within a year and a half of her coming to the throne, and it says at the top the queen

reading in foreign language

Dorothy

-- that's Cleopatra-- made this royal order

reading in foreign language

Dorothy

. Cleopatra is concerned that the people of the capital city should have enough to eat.

Narrator

An astute leader, Cleopatra made the proclamation when Egypt was under severe threat of famine. She was well aware that hunger could lead to dangerous unrest.

Dorothy

She's making a decree saying that no one who purchases corn may take it either to the north or to the south. Everybody must bring it to the capital city, and anyone who disobeys this is to be punished by death.

Narrator

This is Cleopatra far removed from the Hollywood glitz and glamour.

Dorothy

This is a real politician, somebody who's aware of problems and prepared to do something about them. This isn't Cleopatra the seductress. This is Cleopatra, the working queen.

Narrator

Cleopatra's influence extended far beyond the borders of Egypt. It was during her reign that Egypt and Rome were both enemies and bedfellows. In 48 B.C., just 3 years after Cleopatra came to the throne, Julius Caesar conquered Egypt. But rather than surrender, the queen sought an audience with the great general. Cleopatra would prove to be a clever and talented politician, able to forge strong political alliances, even with her enemies. When we think about the relationship between Julius Caesar and Cleopatra, on the one hand we talk about seduction, and on the other hand we talk about political maneuvering. We can actually have both. Rome is the biggest power in the Mediterranean. Egypt needs someone like that to ensure that its power remains. And at the same time, Julius Caesar wants to have Egypt in his back pocket because it's the breadbasket of the Mediterranean. The alliance became a love affair, and Cleopatra bore Caesar a son. He brought her to Rome and showered her with gifts, even building a temple in her honor.

Darius

Julius Caesar is rebuilding Rome, and he builds his own Roman forum-- the Forum Iulium, attached to the great Roman Forum. And in it he adds his own temple, and inside that temple he places a statue of Cleopatra. It's a really bold move to place a statue of your foreign queen, lover, mistress inside your brand-new temple. This is someone that has a special privileged position with Julius Caesar, the ruler of the Roman Empire.

Narrator

Cleopatra's influence on Caesar upset many in the Roman Senate.

But the queen had something to give in return

a wealth of scientific knowledge. She offered her lover the secrets of time. In Caesar's day, the Roman calendar was based on the phases of the moon. The 28-day lunar cycle meant the months and seasons drifted each year.

Darius

You didn't have a fixed number of days per year. Sometimes the whole system can get out of whack.

Narrator

But Cleopatra came from a seat of great learning and knowledge. The Egyptian calendar was based on the Earth's orbit around the sun. By adopting the practices of the astronomers under Cleopatra in Egypt, Julius Caesar finally had a solar cycle system based upon the movement of the sun and gave Romans stability-- 365 days a year, and every fourth year, you have a leap year. This is the modern calendar cycle. Julius Caesar brought it to Rome, the Empire, and the world. Sadly, in 44 B.C., Cleopatra's alliance with the Roman general came to an abrupt end with his murder. Cleopatra fled back to Egypt. Perhaps she found solace in the temple at Taposiris Magna. Kathleen Martinez thinks so. In fact, Kathleen believes Cleopatra felt such a strong connection to the temple that years after her suicide, Kathleen theorizes her body was brought here from Alexandria to be buried.

Christopher

I think if Kathleen Martinez were to find the tomb of Cleopatra intact, I mean, it would be a discovery on a par with Howard Carter's discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun.

Narrator

As she continues her search, Kathleen turns her attention to the ruins of a building unearthed by a previous team of archaeologists. It's thought this was a temple dedicated to the god Osiris, the god of the dead, the source of the temple's name--Taposiris Magna. But just who built it remains a mystery. There's very little left of the building, but just beneath the surface, Kathleen makes a major breakthrough. She discovers a set of rare and fragile tablets.

Kathleen

Well, this is the magical moment. I have to be very careful. They are made of clay and semiprecious stones, like Lapis Lazuli and turquoise and glass.

Narrator

These stunning artifacts are known as foundation deposits.

Christopher

It's incredibly important if you can't find that foundation deposit because that's what gives you your information about when the temple was first built.

Narrator

The writing is barely legible, but Kathleen can just make it out.

Kathleen

We can see the inscriptions are not clear. They are written in Greek, and it refers to

speaks Greek

Kathleen

, which means King Ptolemy.

Narrator

The text reveals the foundation deposits were laid around 2,200 years ago by Ptolemy IV, Cleopatra's great-great- great-grandfather. It's the first direct link between the temple site and Cleopatra's family line. What is important about the foundation deposit-- it was, uh, touched by the pharaoh itself, and it was dedicated to the sun Ra, and then it was hidden by the-- by the pharaoh there and then covered with big blocks. Kathleen's find stunned the archaeology world and strengthened her hunch that the temple was used by Cleopatra herself. We were already proving, with archaeological evidence, that everything that was written about this temple was wrong. Dating the Osiris temple was just the start. Extending her excavation north, Kathleen makes another important breakthrough.

Kathleen

I continued in this direction, and I found this block. We continued cleaning, and we found the remains of a wall, and then we opened to the north, and we found the size of the building, and it had a door.

Narrator

Kathleen finds a second building, and she believes this one has all the hallmarks of the cult of the goddess Isis. Isis temples are known to have 3 separate rooms, with one acting as a holy sanctuary. Kathleen thinks she's found a good match. Isis was wife to the god Osiris. She was Egypt's most potent mother goddess. In her lifetime, Cleopatra had a close link to Isis. She would often portray herself as the earthly embodiment of the goddess.

Joyce

Isis was a really important goddess to the Egyptians. She seemed to really resonate with ordinary people. So for Cleopatra to ally herself with this goddess to the point of declaring herself to be the living Isis was a really important matter, and I think it was something that she took really seriously.

Dorothy

To present herself as Isis is clearly a very canny move. It's an obvious thing for somebody who wishes to be accepted by her people.

Narrator

Finding the Isis temple was a tantalizing link to Cleopatra. Kathleen unearths what she thinks is a holy shrine and hits the jackpot.

Kathleen

We cleaned it inside, and inside the shrine it has around 200 coins. Some of them were in very good condition, and we could see immediately it has Cleopatra's face. You cannot imagine the happiness when I discover inside the sanctuary of Isis the face of Cleopatra in a coin. It was beautiful Cleopatra.

Narrator

At last Kathleen comes face to face with her heroine. This is a major find. The coins match other known coins from Cleopatra's reign. Their discovery suggests the temple was in active use from the time of the queen's rule. We believe the coins were there as offering to the goddess Isis. Bronze coins like the ones Kathleen found reveal a manipulative queen keenly aware of the power of brand management.

Man

Coins are useful in understanding history because they tell us things about what people wanted to say about themselves.

Narrator

Cleopatra's ancestors only put their faces on high-value silver coins used by the rich. But Cleopatra wanted her face seen and adored by all her subjects.

Andrew

What Cleopatra did that was new was introduce her own portrait onto this bronze, low-value coinage, and that's an important step because it made sure that her image reached a much broader public. Anybody conducting a day-to-day transaction with a coin like this would be confronted with Cleopatra's image.

Narrator

Rich or poor, Cleopatra wanted her whole country to know who was in charge. Later in her reign, while Cleopatra was living with her new lover, Mark Antony, she even started producing Roman coins.

Andrew

This is a Roman denarius. What marks this out as really unusual is that it bears portraits on both sides of it.

Narrator

Cleopatra is on one side of the coin, and Mark Antony on the other. To have a foreign queen on a Roman coin was unheard of, but what's even more intriguing is who's on top. The curvature of the coin suggests that Cleopatra occupies the "heads" side, with her Roman lover demoted to "tails."

Andrew

It seems that on these coins, Cleopatra occupies that dominant position.

Narrator

Cleopatra's involvement with Rome was a complex affair. During the time she was lover to Mark Antony, she was despised by many in the Roman Senate. But this didn't stop her from using her political wiles to keep building alliances. At the Berlin Museum, historian Dr. Dorothy Thompson uncovers a second papyrus. It shows Cleopatra trying to gain allies in Rome.

Dorothy

It's an agreement by the queen that a Roman--and this is the real interest of the text-- that a Roman is being given very significant tax concessions. She's allowing him to export a whole bargeload of corn and to import 5,000 jars full of wine, and he's able to do this without paying any taxes.

Narrator

At the end of the decree, Dorothy notices something intriguing.

Dorothy

Right down at the bottom of the text is the one word

reading in foreign language

Dorothy

. In English, that means "so be it, let it happen." Cleopatra's seal of approval for the decree that's recorded above.

Narrator

This word is written differently from the rest of the document, and it has prompted speculation as to who might have written it.

Dorothy

The exciting question is, is this Cleopatra's own hand that's used here? It would be nice, wouldn't it, if she'd written that? But we can't really be sure.

Narrator

Back at Taposiris Magna, Kathleen is spurred on by her discovery of the Isis temple and the coins bearing Cleopatra's face. She continues her search for Cleopatra's lost tomb. Poking around just outside the temple enclosure, Kathleen notices a strange indentation in the ground. She soon realizes these could be tunnels.

Kathleen

So we start cleaning it, and then we realized it went down 25 meters. I've been searching for shafts, tunnels, passages underground, and chambers, so this was a big hope this could be what we were looking for. Who would like to go inside the shaft with me?

Laughter

Kathleen

Albert, are you ready to risk your life...

Laughter

Kathleen

for Cleopatra?

Laughter

Narrator

Kathleen has already excavated tons of rubble, sand, and rock out of the shaft. Today she's extending her dig.

Kathleen speaking foreign language

Man

Don't put your hands on the wall.

Kathleen

OK. Fine. OK.

Man

I'm coming--coming in.

Kathleen

OK.

Narrator

At the bottom, she uncovers two secret passageways. She hopes that one might lead to a hidden tomb.

Kathleen

So first we will go in this direction, to the north, and then we will go to this direction.

Narrator

These passageways are also blocked. Kathleen wonders if someone was trying to conceal something. 80 feet below ground level, the tunnel is chiseled out of the bedrock, and along the passageway, Kathleen finds more vertical shafts leading back to the surface.

Kathleen

Can I have the light here?

Man

Yeah.

Kathleen

You see it has the steps going down in this side? Yes. Yes. Why did they need several entrances? Why? Because anybody can find or discover the entrance.

Narrator

The tunnels appear to run north to south, parallel to the temple. Kathleen considers the possibility they were part of a sophisticated water transport system. But there is very little evidence of any plaster to seal the walls, or any erosion.

Kathleen

Carefully. Ah. This is where we stopped, these big blocks, and...

Narrator

In among the remaining debris still blocking the tunnels, she stumbles on more clues.

Kathleen

Yeah. Look. It's part of the temple.

Narrator

Was the temple destroyed at some point and the rubble dumped underground?

Chatter

Kathleen

Bye!

Narrator

Returning to the surface, Kathleen quickly inspects her finds.

Kathleen

We found marble that belongs, probably, to Isis chapel. And the pottery will help us to date exactly when the tunnels were revealed.

Narrator

Even more exciting, Kathleen and her team also recover some human remains.

Kathleen

We found... a piece of skull. Skulls, a skeleton.

Narrator

Who do these bones belong to? Is it possible they were temple priests who met a grisly end, perhaps protecting the tomb of their queen? The discovery of a network of tunnels and chambers reinforces Kathleen's hunch. Cleopatra's tomb could be hidden underground. Cleopatra's final days are shrouded in mystery. We don't have a clear account of what happened when Cleopatra died because nobody at the time wrote it down. We know that in 31 B.C., the Roman Empire was in the midst of a civil war. With Cleopatra by his side, Mark Antony faced Roman General Octavian at the Battle of Actium and was defeated. Fleeing to Egypt, Antony fell on his sword. Stricken by grief, Cleopatra, too, took matters into her own hands. In the classic telling of the story, she then committed suicide by clasping a poisonous snake, an asp, to her bosom. But what happened next remains unclear.

Christopher

We simply don't know what happened to Cleopatra's body. The events around her death are quite confused and conflicting, and they don't really give us any clear pointers as to where she was buried. All we can do is keep looking and piecing together little clues from the evidence that we have.

Narrator

Digging in the ruins of Taposiris Magna, Kathleen Martinez is unearthing dozens of stunning artifacts. All date from the time of Cleopatra's royal line.

Kathleen

This is one of my favorite artifacts-- the bust of this Ptolemaic queen. So this is a liner to do the makeup in the eyes. It was very easy for me to recognize when I saw it. You can see it's a weight. They were selling something. This is the bust of Alexander the Great. This is a penis belonging to an Egyptian god of fertility.

Narrator

Just to the south of the Osiris temple, Kathleen discovers a square-shaped sunken structure. She thinks it held water and was used in a ritual purification process.

Kathleen

What happened here, the priest, before they go to worship Osiris, they need to take a bath to clean themselves, and they go to the temple.

Narrator

The artifacts and temple structures create a picture for Kathleen of an important temple site, one that was active during the time of Cleopatra. Digging down near the north door of the complex, Kathleen makes another surprising discovery. Beneath 10 feet of earth and sand, she uncovers a row of 14 curiously shaped stone plints.

Kathleen

What is important about this is that all of them has a different geometrical shape. This is unique. So far we have uncovered 14 bases, so maybe it could be related to the Ptolemies itself because they were 14 rulers of Egypt.

Narrator

Cleopatra came from the Ptolemy family line. And at the base of one of the plints, Kathleen discovers a statue carved in the style of a Ptolemy pharaoh. She believes this was a grand avenue leading to the temple. Kathleen starts to attract global interest in her quest for the lost tomb. An archaeologist in Egypt claimed today to be on the verge of finding the burial place of Cleopatra...

Different announcer

Archaeologist Kathleen Martinez says the old theory doesn't make sense.

Third announcer

...displayed artifacts found in an ancient temple near Alexandria. She could not use the same cemetery. She needed a special place.

Different announcer

And this could be that special place.

Narrator

Kathleen's hunch that Cleopatra is buried at the temple site is about to get a significant boost. Digging in the rubble just behind the plints, Kathleen stumbles upon something that shocks the archaeological community-- a large inscribed limestone tablet called a stele. Like the world-famous Rosetta Stone, the inscription appears in both hieroglyphics and Demotic script, the everyday written language of ancient Egypt.

Kathleen

Can you believe that this piece of block has changed the history of Taposiris Magna? I already named Stele Magna.

Narrator

The stele dates from 196 B.C., 7 years into the reign of Ptolemy V, predating the Rosetta Stone by two years. Translating the hieroglyphics reveals a decree written by the pharaoh that the temple was dedicated to the worship of the goddess Isis.

Kathleen

The decree by Ptolemy V is the declaration of Taposiris Magna as a religious center for Isis, for worshiping Isis, and the land, it was considered sacred land. And everything around the temple was used to worship Isis.

Narrator

Cleopatra portrayed herself as the earthly embodiment of Isis. It is as queen and goddess that she was revered by her people.

Christopher

This is an important text. It shows us that this is a temple which is very much part of the royal institution at that time, very much an important place. So this is not a temple which is a backwater. This is an important spot.

Narrator

The stele that Kathleen found has rewritten history. It reveals that Taposiris Magna, dedicated to Isis, was the most important Ptolemaic temple in northern Egypt.

Kathleen

It's so important for the Ptolemies that it was the most important center of adoration of Isis in the north.

Narrator

With Taposiris Magna so close to Cleopatra's Alexandria power base and with such a profound link to the goddess Isis, the evidence is mounting that Cleopatra herself could have been a frequent visitor, but is she buried here? Kathleen decides to cast her net wider. A stone's throw from the temple is an ancient monument. It's a copy of the famous Alexandria Lighthouse. Here she spots odd sunken areas in the desert floor.

Kathleen

Well, we start excavating here, close-- between the lighthouse and the temple, and we uncover the first steps.

Narrator

At the bottom of the steps, she discovers a set of chambers cut deep into the bedrock... burial chambers.

Kathleen

OK, we have to check these blocks, but please, wear your masks and gloves when you go down.

Narrator

Kathleen is worried that bacteria from any dead bodies could be dangerous.

Chatter

Kathleen

Let's see.

Indistinct

Narrator

The rock-cut tombs yield the first evidence of ritual burials, all within sight of the temple complex. Further excavation slowly reveals a labyrinth of ancient catacombs. Many contain skeletons; others, mummies.

Kathleen

We didn't know how big it was, but now we have more than 800 skeletons.

Narrator

Kathleen has unearthed a huge necropolis, an ancient Egyptian city of the dead. It covers hundreds of square yards.

Kathleen

This can be the equivalent of the Valley of the Kings for the Ptolemies.

Narrator

But who is buried here? After years of skepticism, the archaeological world is now paying attention.

Woman

Well, this looks fantastic.

Narrator

Dr. Salima Ikram is an expert in ancient Egyptian burials.

Salima

Oh, my God. Look at that. They're fabulous!

Narrator

Some of the mummies' skulls appear to be encrusted in gold.

Salina

Here you've got all this gilding on them. What you do is you coat the face with this sort of oil/resin mixture, sometimes even with beeswax, and that gives you a very tacky substance, and then you have these small squares of gold leaf which you can just attach, and sometimes they overlap.

Narrator

These were clearly wealthy people, but there's more than meets the eye to these blackened mummies with their gold-covered skulls. During the later Ptolemaic and early Roman period, we notice that the mummification is not so well done. If a body is not properly desiccated and then it's wrapped up, there is a kind of internal combustion, and so that's when you wind up with these blackened bodies. To make up for their apparent lack of skill with the mummification process, the priests appear to have overcompensated with additional decoration.

Salima

So lots of oils and unguents are poured over the body. You have fancy wrapping. You have glittery, you know, gold and this and that to sort of make up for the fact that you're not quite sure as to what you're supposed to do.

Narrator

Clues drawn from the site suggest to Salima the burials date directly from the time of Cleopatra.

Salima

It's a wonderful necropolis. It's a really fabulous late Ptolemaic, early Roman necropolis which is still filled with all kinds of goodies and, you know, bodies to be found.

Narrator

Salima believes the necropolis would have been an important burial site and one in active use during Cleopatra's time.

Salima

It's a holy place. It's a sacred place. It's a significant place. So people wanted to be buried here so that they could get the sort of good vibes. You would have the gods' blessing, and the god Osiris and the goddess Isis were here, so of course these are funerary deities par excellence, so anyone who was buried here was definitely having a straight shot to eternity.

Narrator

The presence of such an elaborate necropolis so close to the temple suggests to Kathleen that she's closing in on her ultimate goal-- the tomb of Cleopatra herself.

Kathleen

These people knew about this important person who was buried and wanted to be close to them.

Narrator

In ancient Egypt, kings, queens, and nobility have been found buried in pyramids and in valleys full of rock-cut tombs. But they're also known to have been buried beneath temples. 540 miles south of Alexandria lies the ancient city of Luxor, with the famous Ramesseum temple. This temple was originally built in 1275 B.C. by Ramesses II, but it was still in use centuries later. In 2014, a shaft was discovered leading to an underground tomb.

Christopher

This sensational discovery was of a Princess, um, Karomama, who was an extremely high-ranking priestess.

Narrator

Karomama's secret underground tomb dates to 900 years before the death of Cleopatra. Might Cleopatra have revived an ancient royal tradition to be buried beneath Taposiras Magna? It's very possible Cleopatra could have been buried in a similar shaft underneath a temple. There are actually quite a lot of examples of high-status, royal, even, individuals, royal women in particular, being buried in shaft tombs, um, within temple complexes. At Taposiris Magna, Kathleen has already found a number of shafts and underground chambers, and she's still finding more.

Kathleen

I will go down.

Narrator

In a wide chamber by the west door, she discovers the body of a woman.

Kathleen

We found the skeleton of this woman who was carrying a baby.

Narrator

The bones reveal the pregnant woman is too young to be Cleopatra, but the discovery raises many questions.

Kathleen

We can see she was married. She had a ring in her hand and an amulet in her ankle. This woman is still a puzzle for us because we don't know what happened to her.

Narrator

Whoever she was, the skeleton is a clue that Kathleen is on the right track. It's the first indication that burials had taken place inside the temple. Kathleen's hunt for Cleopatra's lost tomb continues. In the northwest corner of the enclosure, Kathleen discovers a set of steps. They lead down to a wide cavity.

Kathleen

We start cleaning around, but it's 10 meters by 10 meters by 9 meters. It was very deep, and it was a big cut. like the tombs of the Valley of the Kings. So we thought-- we were thrilled. "This is it!"

Narrator

But there are more surprises. She uncovers a second opening. Excavations in the hole reveal a vertical shaft cut into the bedrock nearly 100 feet deep... and more human remains.

Kathleen

We start cleaning the shaft, and at the depth of 23 meters, we found two skeletons, and that make us still more excited because we thought, "What if this means we're seeing the tomb?"

Narrator

Such a deep vertical shaft in combination with a huge subterranean chamber usually means one thing.

Christopher

The most striking feature of this shaft is just its massive size. It's a huge opening cut into the bedrock. Um, you don't see those very often. When you do see them, they are the shafts that lead to tombs--to burial chambers, to bodies.

Narrator

As a last-ditch attempt to see even deeper beneath the temple, Kathleen decides to bring in some scientific help. She's using the latest in ground-penetrating radar to probe the area around the shaft, hoping to reveal any concealed chambers. We're trying to use our geophysical methods to help the people who work in the archaeology to find, where is the mummy of Cleopatra? The results are encouraging.

Kathleen

The GPR reveal important cavities big enough to be the final resting place of a pharaoh.

Mohamed

I can confirm to you something-- that somebody is hiding something. What is it? We don't know. Maybe it's the mummy of Cleopatra--maybe.

Narrator

Kathleen has found tunnels, shafts, and underground rooms hidden beneath the temple at Taposiris Magna, with more concealed chambers still to investigate. But for this year, the dig has ended. Just as Howard Carter followed tantalizing clues for 6 seasons until he found King Tut, Kathleen now feels her goal is within her grasp. I think Kathleen has taken us closer to finding the tomb of Cleopatra than we've ever been before. It's the beginning of a journey that will end with a big discovery. She has proved the site is one of the most important temples of the Ptolemaic dynasty and found compelling evidence there is a burial chamber concealed deep underground.

Christopher

I think if Kathleen found the tomb of Cleopatra intact, she would be elevated to the status of the most famous archaeologist in the world.

Kathleen

I feel connected with her in a way that experience that I lived searching for her give me strength to continue. I feel in my heart the tomb of Cleopatra is under my feet at Taposiris Magna.