The Search for Cleopatra's Lost Tomb

by Gerard Sanchez Ramirez, age 11

Cleopatra's tomb has remained undiscovered for over 2,000 years. Explorer Kathleen Martinez, has become close to cracking the mystery. She suspects that Cleopatra's tomb is a sunken port.

Kathleen Martinez has been searching for Cleopatra's tomb since 2005. In 2022, she and her team found artifacts in the ruins of an ancient town named Taposiris Magna. Martinez believes these artifacts are connected to Cleopatra.

A temple to the Egyptian goddess Isis is located in Taposiris Magna. There, Martinez's team found a tunnel 40 feet underground and partly sunken in seawater, In the Tunnel they found a ceramic jar which Martinez said it was created when Cleopatra was alive.

In A.D. 365 the city had a major earthquake and a tsunami that submerged parts of the city 20 feet underwater. Martinez later recruited Robert Ballard a marine archaeologist, who is famous for finding the Titanic, to help find Cleopatra. Martinez showed Ballard the locations where she found the artifacts of Cleopatra on the side of the Isis Temple.

There was a letter written by Plutarch, about Mark Antony and Cleopatra being buried together in a mausoleum within Alexandria. However, no tomb has been found in Alexandria.

Martinez feels she is close to her goal of finding Cleopatra's tomb. “We will continue searching. This is the beginning of this huge task.” Martinez said. “For me it is a matter of time.”

[Sources: National Geographic; PBS; Popular Science]