Buried at the Temple

This is a roundup of the recent excavations going on at the temple of Taposiris Magna by an Egyptian-Dominican team including the discovery of a headless statue of a king with the cartouche of Ptolemy IV. The article also speculates about the burial of Cleopatra and Mark Antony at the temple. Mummies have been found in a cemetery outside the temple which is facing it perhaps indicating the presence of a royal burial within the temple.

An inscription found in a foundation deposit dates the construction of this temple to Ptolemy IV. This may mean that if the temple received a royal burial it may be more likely that of Ptolemy IV or members of his immediate family and not Cleopatra VII who ruled nearly two hundred years after Ptolemy IV.

Dig leader Kathleen Martinez however, believes it could contain Cleopatra's tomb as the temple would have been a much venerated to the later members of the late Ptolemaic dynasty.