Kathleen Teresa Martínez Berry (born 1966) is a Dominican lawyer, archaeologist, and diplomat, best known for her work since 2005 in the search for the tomb of Cleopatra in the Taposiris Magna temple in Egypt.
Her father, professor and legal scholar Fausto Martínez,[1] owned an extensive private library, which she drew on to research the subject that would become her great passion – Egypt and the last days of Cleopatra.
Martínez asserts that delving into Cleopatra's history, despite the influence of Roman propaganda and enduring biases against women over the centuries, revealed a figure ahead of her time.
Her initial hypothesis was that, since Cleopatra was considered the representation of Isis, if she had to search for a place to be buried in her last days, she would have chosen a temple dedicated to the goddess.
From Strabo's descriptions of ancient Egypt, Martínez sketched a map of potential burial sites and identified 21 localities associated with the legend of Isis and Osiris.
[7][8] The site Martínez selected was Taposiris Magna, a semi-destroyed temple located on the edge of Lake Mariout in Borg El Arab, about 50 kilometers west of Alexandria.
In 2021, Egyptian-Dominican researchers led by Kathleen Martinez announced the discovery of 2,000-year-old ancient tombs with golden tongues dating to the Greek and Roman periods at Taposiris Magna.
[12] In 2016, this was supplemented by a GPR surveyor using more powerful radar to detect new chambers and follow the extent of the tunnels already discovered, potentially speeding up excavation work.
[13] In January 2019, controversy arose over the possibility that the discovery of the tombs was imminent, attributed to remarks by Zahi Hawass at a conference at the University of Palermo.
"[14] On 18 April 2018, the Cairo Museum inaugurated the exhibition "10 Years of Dominican Archaeology in Egypt", where the advances, achievements, and more than 350 architectural elements discovered by Martínez from the Ptolemaic dynasty were displayed.
[15] The artifacts are a record of daily life, administrative and religious activities, and royal and social roles that emerged at the end of the Ptolemaic period.