All language subtitles for HistorysGreatest.Mysteries.S04E20.The.Hunt.for.Cleopatras.Missing.Tomb.1080p.HULU.WEB-DL.AA.H264-Wht_track3_[eng]

♪

Tonight,
a 2,000-year-old mystery

that's confounded
top archaeologists.

The world's most famous queen
lost without a trace.

Cleopatra is
a giant in Egyptian history,

renowned for her cunning
across a 21-year rule.

But no one knows
what happens to her

after she dies
or where she's buried.

This kicks off
an incredible mystery

that lasts to this day.

Now we reveal the top theories

surrounding
the final resting place

of Egypt's last pharaoh.

The last place we know
where Cleopatra was

when she was alive
was her palace.

HUGO:
If we can find Mark Antony,

we could potentially
find Cleopatra.

Octavian has her killed
and either he dumped her body,

or he left her
where she lay in her mausoleum.

LAURENCE:
Can new evidence finally uncover

Cleopatra's missing tomb?

♪

LAURENCE:
November, 2022.

In the ancient Egyptian city
of Taposiris Magna,

Kathleen Martínez has
been excavating

a ruined temple
for the past 17 years.

Martínez is actually
a really formidable woman,

and she's a lawyer by training.

She's not an archaeologist
of any kind,

but she has this passion.

And so, in 2002,

using her own funds,
she decides to take herself

out to Egypt
to explore what's there

in Taposiris Magna.

PATRICIA COLETTO:
She collaborates with Egypt's

most famous archaeologist,

Dr. Zahi Hawass,
because Kathleen

believes that
at the site of Taposiris Magna

is the lost tomb

of the famous
Egyptian queen Cleopatra.

LAURENCE:
It could be a major new lead

in a cold case that goes back
thousands of years.

Cleopatra is one
of the most powerful women

ever to come out of
the ancient Mediterranean world.

She ruled Egypt for 21 years,

from 51 to 30 B.C.

NICOLA:
When Cleopatra is 18 years old,

her father,
King Ptolemy XII Auletes, dies.

And Cleopatra then
sort of ascends to the throne.

But because she's a woman,
she can't do it alone.

So her brother is made
co-regent.

The thing
about her brother, however,

is that he's only ten years old.

Before long, a rivalry ensues,

and those aligned
with Cleopatra's younger brother

seek to dethrone her.

LAURENCE:
But Cleopatra devises

a clever way to stay in power.

She allies herself with Rome.

HUGO:
Cleopatra has two significant

relationships in her life,
both of which are

strategic partnerships
to keep her on the throne.

PATRICIA: One is a partnership
with the great Julius Caesar.

He helps her shore up her power,

and with him, she supposedly has

a son named Caesarion.

LAURENCE: The second?

Caesar's top general,
Mark Antony.

In 43 B.C.,
he becomes part

of a new Roman
power structure created

after Caesar's assassination.

Rome comes to be ruled
by what's called a triumvirate.

This is actually
a group of three men:

Mark Antony, Marcus Lepidis,

and Octavian.

Wisely, she begins
a strategic relationship

with Mark Antony,

who promises
to support her rule.

Their romance becomes
the stuff of movie lore.

Eventually, Mark Antony is

so smitten with Cleopatra

that he leaves his wife,

moves to Alexandria,
and stays with Cleopatra.

Unfortunately for Cleopatra,
this ends up having

the opposite effect
of what she intended,

because, instead of really
getting the support of Rome,

she's got Mark Antony
earning the enmity

of everybody back in Rome

for leaving his wife, Octavia,

who was actually
Octavian's sister.

So Octavian is furious
and declares war against

Mark Antony and Cleopatra.

LAURENCE: After nearly
three years of fighting,

in 31 B.C.,
Octavian's forces

defeat Antony
and Cleopatra's armies

and march on Alexandria.

HUGO: As the fighting
grows ever closer,

Cleopatra retreats
into a mausoleum in her palace.

The rest is the stuff
of Shakespearean lore.

PATRICIA: Mark Antony,
who's out fighting on the front,

gets a message from
one of Cleopatra's servants.

When he opens it,
he's horrified to find out

that Cleopatra is dead,
that she's killed herself.

Upon hearing the news,
Mark Antony attempts

to kill himself
by falling on his own sword,

but he fails to take his life.

LAURENCE: Instead,
a mortally wounded Antony

is brought
to Cleopatra's chambers.

It turns out she hasn't
killed herself at all.

At this time, Antony had become

more of a liability
than an asset to Cleopatra.

He had no more power in Rome.

NICOLA: She actually
asked one of her servants

to go to Mark Antony

and give this message
to try to scare him

into surrendering
in the hopes that

maybe that would help
keep him alive.

Tragically, Antony dies
shortly after this.

Cleopatra leaves her tomb,

goes back to the palace,
meets with Octavian

with negotiations
about her future.

Cleopatra's aspirations
is for Caesarion, her son,

to become the king
or the ruler of Egypt.

Rome doesn't have kings,
but at least he could

be the legitimate heir

of Julius Caesar
and the ruler of Rome as well.

Octavian says he will
spare her and her children,

but he will never
allow the succession.

Cleopatra takes herself
back to her palace,

to her mausoleum,
considers this deal,

and ultimately decides
that she has

nothing left to live for,

and she takes her own life.

LAURENCE:
Octavian goes on to become

Rome's first emperor,

and Cleopatra will die

as the last active ruler
of the kingdom of Egypt.

HUGO:
Early historians tell us

the method
of Cleopatra's death is poison.

But in those histories,
her story ends there.

NICOLA: This was
a time of civil war.

This is a time
of occupation of Egypt,

and a lot of stuff has
been lost over time.

HUGO: This kicks off
an incredible mystery

that lasts to this day.

No one knows what happens to her

after she dies
or where she's buried.

LAURENCE:
With such limited information,

where should the search
for Cleopatra's remains begin?

Cleopatra has a mausoleum
and tomb under construction

in her palace when she dies.

So it makes sense
that the tomb should be

the first place that we look.

LAURENCE: The challenge is,
the tomb is missing.

But in 1996,

a French archaeologist makes
a breakthrough.

NICOLA: Frank Goddio is
one of the fathers

of underwater archaeology.

He primarily focuses on finding

ancient shipwrecks
and also sunken cities.

Goddio comes up with a theory
as to the location

of Cleopatra's palace.

He believes
that it lies due east

of the modern city
of Alexandria.

And the reason
why we haven't found it

is because it's underwater.

LAURENCE: According
to Goddio's research,

the landscape of this region

has changed dramatically
since Cleopatra's time.

NICOLA: Frank Goddio reads
the ancient sources,

and he learns from them
that, in 365 A.D....

so, about 400 years
after Cleopatra...

there was a massive earthquake
that hit Alexandria,

followed by a tsunami that did
a tremendous amount of damage.

Most of the ancient city
at that point was destroyed.

ANDREW: This tidal wave
is so massive

that it flings ships over houses

and kills over 50,000 people.

And Goddio thinks that might be

what ultimately
covers Alexandria

and hides Cleopatra's palace.

LAURENCE:
To prove this,

Goddio begins his search
in the waters

of modern-day Alexandria's
eastern seaport.

ANDREW:
Goddio and his team start

by doing high tech scans,

ultimately wanting to create

a master map
of the seafloor surface.

NICOLA: They start to see
the outlines of columns,

porticos, buildings,
even statues.

The team is able to compare

the written sources

with the archaeological mapping,

and they start to see
correlations.

So, they know from this
that they're on the right track.

It takes years to complete
the first initial map.

They are doing this underwater,

and it is so much more difficult

than doing archaeology
on the land.

But once they have
this master map,

things start to go much quicker.

LAURENCE: In 1998,
Goddio strikes paydirt.

He finds the sunken remains
of Cleopatra's palace.

NICOLA: The palace has been
missing for 2,000 years.

This makes
big international headlines.

ANDREW: The thing is,
the palace is

entirely covered
and filled with mud.

It is very difficult
to excavate and explore.

They're confident
that Cleopatra is there,

but finding her is going
to be extremely difficult.

LAURENCE: After nearly
a decade of searching,

Goddio finds
no trace of the tomb.

In 2008,
Goddio discovers something new.

It's an enormous structure,

as large as a football field.

ANDREW:
Goddio has radiocarbon dates

that he's taken from
organic pieces of the structure.

And these dates show
that it could have been built

during the time of Cleopatra.

LAURENCE:
Though the team remains hopeful,

they have not yet
discovered the tomb.

To this day,
Goddio and his team are

still searching, but they have

barely scratched the surface

of this enormous complex.

LAURENCE: When Cleopatra's
palace is found underwater

by archaeologist Frank Goddio,

he believes her tomb should be

somewhere inside.

The last place
we know Cleopatra was

when she was alive
is her palace,

and that was
just discovered underwater

in 1998.

LAURENCE: However,
not everyone's convinced

Goddio will find the tomb.

HUGO: First of all,
underwater exploration

is incredibly difficult.

Secondly,
we believe her tomb was

unfinished when she died.

So the artifacts, relics,

statues, and other signs
that would lead us there,

they weren't put in place yet.

LAURENCE:
But there might be another way

to find Cleopatra's tomb.

HUGO: Even though
he dies a traitor,

many Romans are interested
in what becomes of Mark Antony.

He was at one point
a national hero,

and so there's a chance
he'd be easier to track down.

And if we can find Mrk Antony,

we could potentially
find Cleopatra.

LAURENCE: Within a few years
of Mark Antony's death,

several ancient historians
share more details.

HUGO:
The Roman custom at the time is

to cremate great leaders.

Mark Antony is cremated,
Julius Caesar is cremated,

and, after his death,
Octavian will be cremated.

A few decades afterward,

the Greek historian Plutarch

fills in even more details.

Plutarch writes that,
after Mark Antony's death,

Octavian has Cleopatra
as his prisoner.

But he does allow her,
out of clemency,

to go and visit
Mark Antony's tomb.

And when she's there,
she holds the urn

that has his ashes in it,
and she pours out a libation,

as a kind of
act of love and piety.

HUGO:
So apparently Mark Antony

has been given a tomb
for his ashes.

According to Plutarch,
after Cleopatra commits suicide,

Octavian is similarly
generous with her remains

and allows her to be buried
with Mark Antony.

Mark Antony's
final resting place

hasn't been found either,
so there's a chance

that he and the missing
Cleopatra are

out there together somewhere.

NICOLA: Plutarch is
actually the only source

that we have that says
that Cleopatra, after her death,

was placed together with Antony.

We do have other ancient sources

which talk about
Octavian's clemency,

his mercy and compassion
towards his enemies.

HUGO: Despite all the stories
of Octavian's kindness,

many historians
believe he didn't treat

Cleopatra's body
with respect at all.

There's a saying that history is
written by the victors.

That means that authors
in Octavian's time are

generally going to write
great things about him.

Otherwise they might suffer
punishment if they upset him.

NICOLA: As for the accounts
of Plutarch, they were

probably just
embellished over time.

LAURENCE: Octavian himself also
doctors the historical record.

ANDREW: He comes up
with a smear campaign

against Cleopatra, labeling her

an evil seductress and traitor,

someone who used
their feminine wiles

to brainwash Mark Antony.

HUGO: To me, this suggests
that he wouldn't have

given Cleopatra a royal burial

beside Mark Antony.

LAURENCE: Octavian's actions
after Cleopatra's death

also speak volumes.

One of the last acts
that Cleopatra does

before she dies is
she sends her son Caesarion away

away in order to protect him,
but after her death,

Octavian sends people
to go and find him

and have him killed.

He actually does this
by tricking Caesarion

once he's been found.
So he tells Caesarion that,

if he returns to Alexandria,
he'll be made king of Egypt.

But as soon as Caesarion
returns home, he's killed.

The most commonly-told
account says

that one of
Octavian's bodyguards

strangles him to death.

Keep in mind,
this is by the same historians

who say that
Octavian was generous

with Cleopatra and Mark Antony.

This is the cleaned-up
version of the story.

LAURENCE:
Octavian's actions don't stop

with Caesarion's murder.

Antony's oldest son
Antyllus is executed...

and Antony's children
with Cleopatra...

he has three of them...
Are actually captured,

and they're taken back to Rome,

where they're paraded in chains

as part of Octavian's
military triumph.

All of this shows
considerable hatred

and contempt
for Mark Antony and Cleopatra.

To the new emperor,
Antony is the man

who left the Triumvirate,

who left his wife,
Octavian's sister,

for another woman,

who left Rome
to go and flee to Egypt.

Cleopatra was the foul temptress

who made it all happen.

I think the prevailing opinion
among today's scholars

is that if you're going to go
digging around Alexandria,

trying to find
a carefully-preserved urn

of Cleopatra's ashes
beside those of Mark Antony,

you're probably
wasting your time.

Once Cleopatra was
of no further value as a trophy,

Octavian probably didn't care
about her or Antony.

LAURENCE:
For more than 2,000 years,

the story of Cleopatra's
dramatic suicide

remains mostly unchallenged.

The most famous version
of this suicide

comes from Virgil
in "The Aeneid,"

where he suggests that Cleopatra
gets a snake to bite her,

and that's how she dies.

The story then gets
elaborated on

over the years,
where some authors suggesting

that the snake is
actually an asp.

NICOLA: Plutarch also
supports this idea.

And what he says is
that Cleopatra has the asp

smuggled into the palace
in a basket,

and it was covered over
with figs and leaves

so that nobody could
see it coming in.

LAURENCE: Today, many historians
doubt the snake bite story.

The reason people have
a problem with it

is that, at this point,
Cleopatra is Octavian's prisoner

and under close guard.

Asps are large.
They wriggle and hiss.

So for someone to have
brought in a tray of food

with a snake and for it
to have gone unnoticed,

well, those would have been
the worst guards in history.

NICOLA:
Cleopatra is also no fool.

She knows her science
and her medicine,

and she is smart enough
to figure out

all the things
that could go wrong

with this particular plan.

HUGO: She wouldn't have chosen
a plan with so many variables.

Those who believe
the suicide story think

it's much more likely
Cleopatra simply had

a bottle of poison with her

from the moment
the Romans arrived at her gates.

LAURENCE: In 2013,
bestselling author

and criminal profiler Pat Brown

upends the suicide theory.

ANDREW:
Brown looks at Cleopatra's death

like she would
any other cold case,

as she's been trained to do
throughout her career.

KEVIN: Pat Brown looks
at the evidence,

the wounds,
the placement of the body,

and she wonders
if some of the evidence

was staged
or just completely fabricated.

LAURENCE:
Brown's conclusion?

Cleopatra's death isn't suicide.

It's cold-blooded murder.

ANDREW:
Brown starts by taking

the suicide theory
at face value.

She consults
with medical examiners,

with herpetologists,
to understand

all of the in's and out's
of snake poison.

HUGO: According
to the historical accounts,

Cleopatra's two maidservants

also die from poisoning
shortly after she does.

So how exactly does
one snake kill three people?

Is it trained
to bite on command?

Does it even have enough venom
to kill three women?

ANDREW: The most likely
poisonous snakes

that were around
during this time in Egypt

were the cobra and the asp.

Although both snakes have
enough venom in them

to kill multiple people,

most of the venom is
actually discharged

in their very first bite.

And after that,
it takes a little while

for them to sort of
recharge and reload.

LAURENCE:
Fully replenishing their venom

can take a snake days.

HUGO: They don't need
a full tank to kill someone,

but it would need to be
at least an hour

before someone else
could be killed.

There's another
timing issue as well.

The amount of time it takes

for the snake bite
to kill someone.

ANDREW: Brown points out
that in the hours

before Cleopatra's death,

she's exchanging messages
with Octavian.

Guards and messengers are
going in and out,

and dying from a snake bite
takes hours, and it's agonizing.

So, we're saying that

nobody noticed
this agonizing death

over several hours?

LAURENCE: According to Brown,
the outcome would be the same

even if poison was
smuggled in via a bottle.

HUGO: Once again,
you're left with the same issue.

In fact,
it would take slightly longer

for the venom to take effect
because it has to get

absorbed into
the bloodstream first.

LAURENCE:
Once Brown rules out suicide,

she turns her attention
to murder.

ANDREW: As Brown and any good
criminal profiler knows,

murder requires motive.

And who had the most to gain
from Cleopatra's death?

Octavian.

KEVIN: Some people
believe that Octavian

would want to keep
Cleopatra alive

to display her
as a conquered trophy

through the streets of Rome.

He displays the children
of Cleopatra and Mark Antony

exactly in this way.

LAURENCE:
But according to Brown,

Octavian has a stronger motive
to kill Cleopatra

than to keep her alive.

NICOLA:
If Cleopatra is still alive,

then Octavian would
have somebody

who could stand in the way
of his control over Egypt.

Cleopatra is the rightful queen.

HUGO: Octavian already has
several non-threatening trophies

to parade around...
Her younger children.

They're too young
to raise an army

or seize the throne.

LAURENCE: One year
after Brown's book, in 2014,

two Greek historians
write an article

that reaches
the same conclusion.

ANDREW: Gregory Tsoucalas
and Markos Sgantzos publish

"The Death of Cleopatra:

Suicide by Snakebite
or Poisoned by Her Enemies?"

In it, they propose
that Egypt's last queen

was, in fact,
murdered by Octavian.

HUGO:
Tsoucalas and Sgantzos say

that all the circumstances
point to Cleopatra

being killed by a Roman poison,

and that means murder.

Like all military leaders
of the time,

Octavian actually travels
with physicians,

and physicians are
trained in poisons.

HUGO:
The Romans specialize

in a poison that's a mixture

of hemlock, opium, and aconite.

LAURENCE: This poison
induces a deep sleep,

resulting in coma, then death.

According to Tsoucalas
and Sgantzos,

Octavian has Cleopatra
and her servants injected

with this Roman poison,

possibly even using a needle
that makes it look like

they've been bitten by a snake.

LAURENCE: Then what happened
to Cleopatra's body?

NICOLA: If this is the case,
there is no tomb.

Octavian is just kind
of trying to move on

from the whole
Cleopatra situation.

So, according to their theory,

he has her killed
and plants the story

of suicide in order to be able

to kind of tell a nice story

and then move on
as quickly as possible.

ANDREW:
If he's smart enough to do that,

then he's smart enough
to not build her a tomb.

The last thing he needs is
a permanent marker

of a once-beloved queen

for people to pilgrimage to

and make offerings to.

HUGO: So, unfortunately,
if you subscribe to this theory,

the search for Cleopatra's
lost tomb is pointless.

Because Octavian
covered his tracks.

Egypt's last pharaoh
never gets a tomb.

Her body was destroyed,

dumped, and forgotten.

For thousands of years,
Cleopatra's story has been

entwined with her relationship

with Rome's most powerful men.

But in 2010,

an American archaeologist
finds evidence

that upends that notion

and offers a new theory
about her final days.

In 2010, Ohio State University
Professor Duane Roller

publishes
"Cleopatra: A Biography."

The real Cleopatra is

notoriously difficult to grasp.

HUGO: Roller's book is one
of the best-researched accounts

of Cleopatra around.

In addition to being
an archaeologist,

Roller is a classicist.

He can read
all of the original accounts

in their original Greek
and Latin.

Based on an exhaustive search
through the historical record,

he believes that
a great deal about Cleopatra

has been misunderstood,
and perhaps this can explain

what happens to her
after she dies.

First of all,
Roller is convinced that

Cleopatra is not subservient

to her Roman lovers
or even to Rome at all.

LAURENCE: According to Roller,
she carefully manipulates them

to keep her kingdom intact.

DUANE ROLLER: When Cleopatra
came to the throne,

she had three surviving siblings
who did not get along.

There's all kind of
sibling rivalry.

PATRICIA: Cleopatra's
Egypt is probably

about to be split in three parts

until she convinces
Julius Caesar to help.

ANDREW: She does this
in a rather ingenious way.

Roman sources tell us
that she has herself

wrapped in a carpet and smuggled

into Caesar's quarters.

When he unrolls
this mysterious gift,

there she is
in all her regal finery,

ready to negotiate a deal
to save Egypt.

After Caesar's death,
Cleopatra carefully researches

his successors.

DUANE: When Antony comes
to the east,

she very quickly realizes

he is a person to be cultivated.

HUGO: She learns that
Mark Antony believes himself

to be the embodiment
of the Greek god Dionysus.

And so she hatches
a clever plan to earn his favor.

LAURENCE: Dionysus is
the god of wine and pleasure,

a fact Cleopatra uses
to her advantage

when she first meets
Antony in 41 B.C.

Knowing his Dionysus fetish,

she arrives dressed up
as the Greek goddess Aphrodite,

being fanned by attendants
dressed as Cupids.

Almost immediately,
Antony is willing to do

just about anything
Cleopatra asks of him.

While these stories show cunning
on Cleopatra's part,

they suggest that her main tool
for manipulation was sex.

But Roller believes
that that was not the case.

LAURENCE: Instead,
Roller believes Cleopatra uses

her negotiation skills
to survive.

ANDREW: Despite being
a smaller kingdom

with a less powerful military,

Egypt had a lot more money
than Rome.

Cleopatra, as it turns out,
was phenomenally wealthy.

I believe it's her wealth

and not her sexual prowess

that ultimately dictates
how Cleopatra lived

and how she died.

HUGO:
Roller examines the work

of the Roman historian
Cassius Dio.

In it, he discovers that

Mark Antony initially
comes to Cleopatra

because he needs
her financial support

to pay off
Rome's armies and debts.

DUANE: According to Dio,
Cleopatra and Antony had

a financial relationship,

and who knows whether
it was all that he needed?

But it certainly helped
to sustain him financially,

especially as sources
began to dry up in Rome.

LAURENCE: When Octavian
defeats Antony in 30 B.C.,

he intends to seize
Cleopatra's treasure.

But she has other plans.

HUGO: Roller finds
evidence that,

in those final days,
Cleopatra takes action.

She isn't about to let
Octavian get the upper hand.

She still has
one final play to make.

ANDREW:
Cleopatra has her servants

gather up her wealth,
everything they can grab,

and she has them amass it

in the safest place she knows:
her own mausoleum.

The rest she orders hidden.

When Octavian's forces
arrive inside,

she dramatically
holds up a torch

and threatens to kill herself

and take
all the treasure with her.

HUGO: If this is true,
this is an ingenious move.

Cleopatra knows the only thing

Octavian needs from her
is her money,

and she can use that
as a bargaining tool.

LAURENCE: According
to Roller's research,

Cleopatra begins

an extended negotiation
with Octavian.

She offers to support him
and give over her treasure,

if he agrees
to meet certain conditions.

ANDREW: Here, she is
holding her wealth hostage

and giving herself time
to make other plans.

Among those plans,
she finds a way

to smuggle her son out of town.

Next, she has
to make plans for herself.

Roller cites the account

of the Roman historian
Titus Livius.

In one of Cleopatra's
final exchanges

with Octavian, she writes,

"I will not be led
in triumph."

This is one of
the few times any historian

bothers to write
her specific words down,

and it gives us a clue
as to what she intended next.

LAURENCE: Roller writes
that Cleopatra then

orchestrates her own death
by poisoning,

which takes place
in August of 30 B.C.

NICOLA:
If she's planned this out

down to the last detail,

many historians believe

that she made

one final arrangement.

And that explains why her tomb

has yet to be found.

HUGO: Upon her death,
Cleopatra orders her body

smuggled out of the palace
and buried in an unmarked grave.

This way, her enemies will
never find her.

Is it possible she pulled
this off to have her body

smuggled out of a palace
swarming with Roman soldiers?

I think the answer is yes.

PATRICIA: Cleopatra had
so much wealth,

she could have bribed
every Roman in the palace.

This is how she could have
made arrangements

for her secret burial.

LAURENCE: If Cleopatra was
successful, where is her tomb?

NICOLA:
So if this is the case,

and Cleopatra made
her own funeral arrangements,

that means that we would
have to stop looking

for any kind of evidence
of a Roman-style burial

in ash urns

and start thinking
like an Egyptian.

HUGO: This would mean
Cleopatra didn't end up

in Alexandria at all.

Now, we have a whole new world

of possibilities to explore.

LAURENCE: In 2002,
Dominican attorney

Kathleen Martínez
sets out to find

Cleopatra's lost tomb.

HUGO: Ever since
she was a young child,

Martínez has been
fascinated with Egypt.

Her family encouraged
the law career.

But eventually,
she gives it all up

to become
an archaeologist in Egypt.

NICOLA: The one mystery
that she wants to solve

beyond anything else is
the mystery of Cleopatra's tomb.

Like many modern day historians,

she respects
and admires Cleopatra

as a brilliant queen.

And she can't imagine
that a queen would have

allowed herself to be
desecrated after death.

ANDREW: Martínez believes
that Cleopatra is way too smart

not to have seen
her own death coming.

She knows that
Octavian is either

going to have her executed
or use her as a puppet

by parading her around.

So she plans for her death

and has her handmaidens

smuggle her body
out of Alexandria.

But where do you look?

Martínez believes
that she has the answer.

LAURENCE: Like many pharaohs,
Cleopatra shapes her image

around one of the Egyptian gods.

During her reign,
Cleopatra considers herself

a living representation of Isis,

a goddess of fertility
and motherhood

and wife to the god-king Osiris.

If Cleopatra was able to choose
her own resting place,

Martínez is confident
it would have been

a temple of Isis or Osiris.

ANDREW: The problem is,
there are a lot of temples

dedicated
to both Isis and Osiris.

To locate the right one,
Dr. Martínez relies

on Greek geographer
Strabo's descriptions

of ancient Egypt.

PATRICIA:
Based on Strabo's writing,

Martínez locates 21 temples

associated with Osiris and Isis.

She looks at these 21 locations

and realizes
that almost all of them

have already been
thoroughly explored.

All except one:
the temple

at the ancient ruins
of Taposiris Magna.

Looking at the scant
historical records,

Martínez believes it's only
been lightly surveyed,

and it's only 30 miles
from Alexandria.

This must be the place.

NICOLA: Martínez gets
in touch with Egypt's

chief archaeologist,
a man called Zahi Hawass,

who agrees to show her
around Taposiris Magna.

PATRICIA:
From the moment she arrives,

she feels certain that the great
Queen Cleopatra is here.

LAURENCE:
In order to excavate the site,

Dr. Martínez needs permission
from the Egyptian government.

Initially, the Egyptians
kind of make fun of her.

They blow her off
because, after all,

what would a lawyer by trade

know about
ancient Egyptian archaeology?

ANDREW:
But Martínez persists,

and she agrees to fund
the venture entirely on her own.

Finally, they do
grant her a license,

the first ever given
to a Latin American expedition.

There's just one catch:

the license is only good
for eight weeks.

HUGO: Anyone who knows anything
about archaeological digs

knows that this is
an impossible challenge.

Excavations are
a slow and tedious process.

It can take eight months
to find a single artifact,

and once you find it,
it can take a long time

to excavate it safely.

So an eight week deadline

to excavate an entire site

really limits
what you're able to do.

LAURENCE: Undeterred,
Martínez and her team

start digging
at Taposiris Magna in 2004.

The clock is ticking down.
For seven whole weeks,

Martínez finds
absolutely nothing.

And then, almost like
something out of a movie,

on the last day of the dig,

Martínez discovers
what looks to be

a hidden shaft

by the north gate of the temple.

LAURENCE:
Inside the shaft,

she discovers
two secret chambers.

And in those chambers, Martínez
finds something important.

These are small gray tablets
with Greek inscriptions.

The tablets Martínez finds are
called foundation deposits.

During constructions
of the time,

tablets like that were
left behind to give information

on the construction
of the building.

KEVIN: When Martínez
cleans the tablets

and reads the Greek,
she learns that

the Taposiris Magna complex

was built by Ptolemy IV,

Cleopatra's great-great-
great grandfather.

HUGO: Initially,
people thought Martínez's theory

was far-fetched.
They believed that

no one was digging
at Taposiris Magna

because there was
nothing to find.

Now, Martínez has
found something.

LAURENCE: The Egyptian
government allows Martínez

to extend the dig.

Energized by their find,

the team brings in
new technology.

NICOLA: In 2008,
Martínez and her team

bring in
ground-penetrating radar.

And they're quickly able
to ascertain

that there are
a whole series of tunnels

underneath Taposiris Magna,

about 68 feet
beneath the surface.

And just below these corridors,

they find something that
just makes their jaws drop.

LAURENCE: In 2008,
archaeologist Kathleen Martínez

and her team are
exploring the ruins

of the Egyptian temple
of Taposiris Magna.

They're looking
for Cleopatra's tomb.

ANDREW: As they sweep the area
with ground-penetrating radar,

they suddenly see
what appears to be

a network
of underground corridors.

And these corridors lead
to multiple chambers.

Martínez believes that
these are burial chambers.

Martínez is not about
to miss this discovery.

She's going in herself.

She has her team lower her down

into the tunnels themselves.

HUGO: From there, she enters
into one of the chambers,

and she finds
the head of a statue.

And can you believe it?
It's Cleopatra.

She also finds a mask
that resembles Mark Antony.

PATRICIA:
It's extraordinary to think

that other archaeological teams

have explored this site

and declared that
there was nothing to find,

when all these wonderful
artifacts have been discovered.

LAURENCE: Next,
Martínez and her team

uncover hundreds
of bronze coins.

ANDREW: These coins bear
the image of Cleopatra,

so obviously they're
from the time of Cleopatra.

They also suggest that
this is a place of pilgrimage

for Egyptians
who left those coins.

KEVIN: With each
of these discoveries,

the team becomes
increasingly convinced

that they're going to find

the tomb of Cleopatra.

LAURENCE: But just as Martínez
believes she's on the verge

of a major breakthrough,

unrest in North Africa

brings her progress to a halt.

Democracy, democracy,
let us live in liberty.

ANDREW: It's complete chaos
in the Arab world.

You have Libya's leader,
Muammar Gaddafi,

who is deposed
and also murdered.

And then, in 2011,
Egyptian president

Hosni Mubarak is overthrown.

LAURENCE: With all
of Egypt in turmoil,

Dr. Martínez has no choice
but to suspend her dig.

ANDREW: This is a worst case
scenario for Martínez,

because once
an expedition is suspended,

there is no guarantee that

it will ever start up again.

LAURENCE:
Fortunately, in 2014,

stability returns.

KEVIN: The project is able
to start again,

and they discover new artifacts,

more links to Cleopatra herself,

but no tomb.

PATRICIA:
Martínez doesn't give up.

In 2021, she finds

16 more burial chambers

with many skeletons and mummies.

Two of these mummies are

incredibly special,
because they appear

to be royalty and buried
side by side, like lovers.

One of them is adorned
with a crown

that's decorated with horns.

The other has gilded decorations

that look like a wide necklace.

Most importantly,
the two mummies have

golden tongues nestled
in their jawbones.

Golden tongues are
a very important part

of ancient Egyptian culture.

In the Book of the Dead,
gold tongues ensure

that the deceased will
be able to speak,

eat and drink in the afterlife.

NICOLA:
A crown, golden tongues,

gilded decorations.

This was obviously the tomb

of no ordinary couple.

LAURENCE:
Could these possibly be

the mummified bodies
of Antony and Cleopatra?

ANDREW: The mummies are
eventually X-rayed,

and while it is found
that they are male and female,

no further identification
can be made.

Martínez concludes that,
while the mummies

are promising,
if this really was

the tomb of Cleopatra,
it would probably be

much grander... but who knows?

If Cleopatra and Antony had
to be smuggled out

at the last minute, maybe
the tomb wouldn't be so grand.

LAURENCE: A year later,
Dr. Martínez's team makes

an even more exciting discovery.

PATRICIA: Recently,
in 2022, Martínez's team

found a long tunnel,
60 feet underground.

ANDREW: The tunnel is attached

to a newly-found temple of Isis

that's part of the complex.

This is where
Martínez believes that

Cleopatra and possibly Antony

are both buried.

KEVIN: If Cleopatra does
in fact have a tomb,

I think Martínez really is
looking in the right direction.

And what she has produced so far

only strengthens her theory

that she is looking
in the right place.

I think that
this is a possibility,

although there are a lot
of possibilities out there.

No matter what,

the investigations
at Taposiris Magna

will give us more information
than we had before.

And it looks like it'll give us

more information
on the time of Cleopatra

and hopefully Cleopatra herself.

In the hunt for Cleopatra,

Kathleen Martínez may have

her work cut out for her.

The new section she's exploring

at Taposiris Magna

is mostly underwater.

Undeterred, Martínez calls

this phase of her dig, quote,

the beginning of a new journey.

Only time will tell

if she's on the right track.

I'm Laurence Fishburne.

Thank you for watching

"History's Greatest Mysteries."