Arsinoe IV father Ptolemy XII Auletes
Tomb at Ephesus
In the 1990s an octagonal monument situated in the centre of Ephesus was hypothesized by Hilke Thür of the Austrian Academy of Sciences to be the tomb of Arsinoë. Although no inscription remains on the tomb, it was dated to between 50 and 20 BC. In 1926 the skeleton of a female estimated to be between the ages of 15 and 18 years at the time of her death was found in the burial chamber. Thür's identification of the skeleton was based on the shape of the tomb, which was octagonal, like the second tier of the Lighthouse of Alexandria, the carbon dating of the bones (between 200 and 20 BC), the gender of the skeleton, and the age of the child at death. It was also claimed that the tomb boasts Egyptian motifs, such as "papyri-bundle" columns.A DNA test was also attempted to determine the identity of the child. However, it was impossible to get an accurate reading since the bones had been handled too many times, and the skull had been lost in Germany during World War II. Hilke Thür examined the old notes and photographs of the now-missing skull, which was reconstructed using computer technology by forensic anthropologist Caroline Wilkinson to show what the woman may have looked like. Thür alleged that it shows signs of African ancestry mixed with classical Grecian features – despite the fact that Boas, Gravlee, Bernard and Leonard, and others have demonstrated that skull measurements are not a reliable indicator of race, and the measurements were jotted down in 1920 before modern forensic science took hold. Furthermore, Arsinoë and Cleopatra, shared the same father (Ptolemy XII Auletes) but may have had different mothers, with Thür claiming the alleged African ancestry came from the skeleton's mother.
Mary Beard wrote a dissenting essay criticizing the findings, pointing out that, first, there is no surviving name on the tomb and that the claim the tomb is alleged to invoke the shape of the Pharos Lighthouse "doesn't add up"; second, the skull doesn't survive intact and the age of the skeleton is too young to be Arsinoë's (the bones said to be that of a 15-18 year old, with Arsinoë being around her mid twenties at her death); and third, since Cleopatra and Arsinoë were not known to have the same mother, "the ethnic argument goes largely out of the window." Furthermore, craniometry as used by Thür to determine race is based in scientific racism that is now generally considered a pseudoscience that supported exploitation of groups of people to perpetuate racial oppression and distorted future views of the biological basis of race.A writer from The Times described the identification of the skeleton as "a triumph of conjecture over certainty". If the monument is the tomb of Arsinoë, she would be the only member of the Ptolemaic dynasty whose remains have been recovered. It has never been definitively proven the skeleton is that of Arsinoë IV.
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