Scientists recently determined that a skull once believed to belong to Cleopatra’s half-sister, Arsinoë IV, in fact belonged to a teenage boy with developmental disorders. “Using modern CSI methods, scientists have now found out that not Cleopatra’s sister was buried in the Octagon of Ephesus, but a young man with developmental disorders,” revealed researchers, as reported by Focus Online. This ended decades of speculation that Arsinoë IV might have been buried in the Octagon, a grand structure along the main street of ancient Ephesus in present-day Turkey.
In the new study, the team showed that the remains did not match any biological profile for Arsinoë IV. According to Gazeta.ru, the skull, first recovered in the early twentieth century, belonged to a male aged between 11 and 14 years, whose genes indicated an origin from Italy or Sardinia. Researchers found that his skeletal development was hampered by either vitamin D deficiency or a genetic defect, causing visible deformities in the skull and facial bones.
In 1929, Austrian archaeologist Josef Keil discovered a water-filled sarcophagus in the ruins of the Octagon at Ephesus. He initially suspected it belonged to a noblewoman about 20 years old, though later studies questioned his conclusion. Keil took only the skull for further investigation and left the rest of the skeleton in Ephesus.
By the 1990s, researchers proposed that the unusual burial might have belonged to Cleopatra’s half-sister, who some believed was executed in Ephesus in 41 BCE at the demand of Mark Antony. Instead, micro-computed tomography and genetic analysis pointed to a Roman boy, aged no more than 14 years, buried with no notable grave goods.
The possibility of Arsinoë IV’s remains in Ephesus had drawn attention partly because Cleopatra, born Cleopatra VII Philopator, was the last active ruler of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt. Although she governed Egypt, she descended from a Greek family, and Greek remained her mother tongue. Her relationships with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony had a decisive impact on Rome and Egypt. Arsinoë IV was also swept up in political conflicts of the era, but the recent findings confirmed that the Octagon remains did not belong to her.
This article was written in collaboration with generative AI company Alchemiq