Researchers vow to prove human remains found in Turkey ARE those of Egyptian queen Cleopatra's murdered sister

By DAMIEN GAYLE


An archaeologist who claimed to have found the bones of Cleopatra's murdered half-sister says they are pinning their hopes on new forensic techniques to conclusively identify the remains.

It was claimed that the remains of Princess Arsinöe IV, who was murdered more than 2,000 years ago on the orders of Egypt's queen Cleopatra, were the first relics of the Ptolemaic dynasty to be identified.

But rival experts have since said the evidence linking the bones to the princess is largely circumstantial, and even the researcher who found them admits they have been handled too many times to get a reliable DNA test result.

Nevertheless, Dr Hilke Thuer, from the Austrian Academy of Science, who made the discovery, remains convinced that they belonged to the Classical-era Egyptian royal.

Princess Arsinoe's purported remains were found in a tomb in Ephesus, a large and important ancient Greek city on the coast of Asia Minor, in what is now modern-day western Turkey.

She was Cleopatra's younger sister or half-sister. It is believed both were fathered by Ptolemy XII Auletes, but whether they shared a mother is unclear.

Still, however closely they were related by blood, there was no love lost between Arsinoe and her powerful sister.