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A virgin blood sacrifice

By John, on May 30th, 2010

Arsinoe IV A virgin blood sacrificeAn octagonal monument situated in the centre of Ephesus was identified as the tomb of Arsinoë IV, by Hilke Thür of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. (BBC documentary, Cleopatra portrait of a killer.)

Arsinoe (left) was the youngest daughter of Ptolemy XII Auletes and one of the last members of the Ptolemaic dynasty of ancient Egypt.

150px Kleopatra VII. Altes Museum Berlin1 A virgin blood sacrifice Bust of Cleopatra VII, carved in her own lifetime.

She was the half-sister of Cleopatra VII and Ptolemy XIII, sharing a father (Ptolemy XII Auletes), but having a different mother.

There is no inscription in the tomb anymore, but the tomb can be dated to between 50 to 20 BCE.

In 1926 the body of an approximately 15-18 year old woman of aristocratic rank was found in the burial chamber.

The Octagon Ephesus A virgin blood sacrifice Octagon was a vaulted burial chamber placed on a rectangular base with the skeleton of a 15 or 16 year old woman in a marble sarcophagus.

At Cleopatra’s instigation, Mark Antony ordered Arsinoë executed on the steps of the temple.

Arsinoe was literally a virgin blood sacrifice.

The assumption of the skeleton’s identity was based on the shape of the tomb (octagonal, like the Lighthouse of Alexandria), the timing of the death (around 20 BCE), the gender of the skeleton, and the age of the child at death.

It is also claimed that the tomb contains Egyptian motifs, such as “papyri-bundle” columns.

If the monument is really the tomb of Arsinoë, she would be the only member of the Ptolemaic dynasty whose remains have been recovered.

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May 30th, 2010 | Tags: , , , , | Category: The History of Antiquity, Theurgy
  • Solomon

    Bust of Marc Antony

    This is a marvellous example of the constrast between the archaeological approach to history and the traditional, which is reliant on the texts that have been available to us for centuries (millennia even).

    Here are the ‘facts’ for Arsinoe IV from Livius:

    • After 69: Born
    • 48: Together with her brother Ptolemy XIV, Arsinoe is made queen of Cyprus by Julius Caesar
    • She flees from Alexandria and is presented by Achillas as queen and alternative for Caesar’s favorite, Cleopatra II
    • Caesar wins the civil war
    • 46: She is carried through the streets of Rome in Caesar’s triumph
    • Exiled to Ephesus
    • 41: Cleopatra demands the execution of her sister; Marc Antony agrees. Arsinoe is killed in the temple of Artemis

    Here is the problem:

    If the body in the tomb is Arsinoë, then, given the age of the body, Arsinoë was born between 59 and 56 BCE, making her between 8 and 11 at the time of Caesar’s arrival in Alexandria.

    Her actions in the brief war that followed had suggested she was someone older than that.

    As a result of the earlier assumption that she was older, her date of birth was usually placed between 68 and 62 BCE.

    That age would have made it impossible for her to be the woman buried in the Octagon.

    However the possibility remains that she was in fact younger than had previously been assumed, and that she may just have been a figurehead rather than an active participant in the war.
    - Her possible tomb at Ephesus, Arsinoe IV of Egypt

    The traditional history is therefore likely to be unreliable. How is that?

    Many of the primary sources we have are official, from employees, agents and those approved by the authorities at the time. We see this very much in the first and second centuries, with the Flavian dynasty controlling strictly the production of philosophy and history. Two or three primary sources, providing the same ‘facts’ are therefore not as a reliable as historians have liked to imagine.

    This is how archaeology is beginning to prompt a revision for the history of Classical Antiquity, a process in which History Hunters International is very much involved.