CLEOPATRA’S GRAVE

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 816, 9 November 1929, Page 32

CLEOPATRA’S GRAVE

IN OLD PARIS GARDEN SEARCH FOR MUMMY After devoting his life to find the hiding place of Cleopatra’s mummy, an antiquarian here has just announced that the famous queen lies buried in an unmarked grave in the garden of the National Library, Paris. , . ' , According to his story, which he says is based on documents and the verbal evidence of a friend of his who lived during the French Commune, Cleopatra’s mummy, enclosed in a magnificent sarcophagus, was kept until the war of 1870 in the Library Hall of Medals. When the war came, his story goes, the sarcophagus, with other valuable relics, was placed in a cellar for safekeeping. In 1872 it was brought to the surface again and opened. To the dismay of the custodians the mummy of the woman who drove Mark Antony mad and ruined an empire was found to be worm-eaten and in a bad state of decomposition After a hasty conference it seems it was decided to bury the Serpent of the Nile in a vulgar grave in a garden bordering Rue Vivienne.