A human skull that for almost a century had been attributed to Arsinoe IVthe younger sister of Cleopatraactually belongs to a male adolescent between 11 and 14 years old who suffered from a genetic disease. That is the main conclusion of a study led by researchers from the University of Vienna and the Austrian Academy of Sciences that has combined the study of the individual’s remains using a computed tomography scan with ancient DNA analysis.
The site of the ancient city of Ephesus, in Türkiye, was the place where the enigmatic skull appeared in 1929. It was among the vestiges of the magnificent monument known as the Octagonon the main street of the city, inside a marble sarcophagus completely filled with water that also housed a skeleton. The author of the discovery, the Austrian archaeologist Josef Keil, estimated that they must be the remains of a distinguished woman of about twenty years old, despite not finding any inscriptions or luxurious artifacts.
Ancient sources indicate that Ephesus was the place where Arsinoe IV died murdered. This woman had taken up arms against her stepsister and Julius Caesar and she had led her troops in the siege of Alexandria in the years 48 and 47 BC. After being defeated and captured, she went into exile in the temple of Artemis in the aforementioned city. But in the year 41 BC Mark Antony He gave the order to end his life since he was the only person who could challenge Cleopatra for the throne of Egypt.
Historical photograph of the excavations in the Octagon of Ephesus.
Austrian Academy of Sciences
The Octagon’s architecture and Egyptian motifs led Austrian researchers to identify it as the tomb of Arsinoe IV, but new analyzes of the skull have revealed a different story. A multidisciplinary team led by anthropologist Gerhard Weber, from the University of Vienna, has dating the skull between the years 205 and 36 BCbut the results, published in the journal Scientific Reportsshowed that he was a young man whose origins would be found in the Italian peninsula or Sardinia.
Morphological evaluation of the skull, micro-computed tomography data and high-resolution images of dental roots revealed that the young man in the Octagon was still in puberty and was between 11 and 14 years old. He also suffered from a general pathological development with one of the cranial sutures, which normally fuses at the age of 65, already closed, which gave the skull a very asymmetrical shape.
The most striking feature was the underdevelopment of the upper jaw, which was unusually inclined downwards and presumably caused big problems when chewingas the dental remains also indicate. “It is now clear that it was not Cleopatra’s sister who was buried in the Octagon of Ephesus, but a young man with developmental disorders who was presumably Roman,” the researchers summarized.
Although the design of the tomb seems to indicate that it was intended for a person of high social status, the presence of images referring to Egypt still remains to be resolved. “In any case, the results of this study open a wide field for new and interesting research. And the search for the remains of Arsinoe IV can now resume without rumors,” explains a press release from the University of Vienna.