The Greco-Roman metropolis of Ephesos served as the scenery for many historical episodes.
Numerous welldocumented personalities walked the city's streets including C. Julius Caesar
Marcus Antonius and Arsinoë IV of Alexandria who was a descendant of the Ptolemaic royal
family that ruled the shores of the Nile for nearly three centuries. Arsinoë IV played a signi_
cant role during the decline of the Lagid dynasty and the concluding Roman Civil Wars. She
acted as both an actual and potential rival Queen to her elder sister Kleopatra and was one of
the trophies during Caesar's Alexandrian Triumph in Rome. While still in her youth she sought
refuge from Kleopatra in the Artemisian Temple sanctuary near Ephesos where she was
assassinated in 41 BC. Assuming that the sacrilegious death of a Ptolemaic Queen in Ephesos
should have found an architectural echo the burial site of Arsinoë IV has long been suspected
in the so-called Octagon. This temple tomb dating from the late Hellenistic period and being
one of the oldest polygonal monuments is situated along an important procession route in the
heart of the city known as Curetes Street. However the connection of the grave to Arsinoë IV
remained a subject of ongoing dispute. In light of this the authors revisited ancient sources
related to Arsinoë IV and conducted extensive research on the Octagon and its construction
site. As a result it is highly likely that the mausoleum indeed represents the only available
Ptolemaic sepulchre containing therefore the skeletal remains of a Macedonian-Egyptian Queen.
Since previous attempts to extract royal DNA of this sort from the postcranial skeleton have
failed the authors finally embarked on an ultimately successful quest to locate the skull of
the Octagon which has been considered lost for decades.
