Egypt Archaeologists May Have Found Alexander the Great’s Tomb

Greek Worls Reporter ^ | Nikoleta Kalmouki

[blam]

Egypt Archaeologists May Have Found Alexander the Great’s Tomb

Nikoleta Kalmouki
April 30, 2014

In Egypt, a team of archaeologists and historians from the Polish Center of Archaeology have revealed a mausoleum made of marble and gold that might be the tomb of Alexander the Great. The site is situated in an area known as Kom el-Dikka in the heart of downtown Alexandria, only 60 meters away from the Mosque of Nebi Daniel.

The monument was apparently sealed off and hidden in the 3rd or 4th century AD, to protect it from the Christian repression and destruction of pagan monuments after the change of the official religion within the Roman Empire. It is a testimony to the multicultural nature of Alexander’s empire, as it combines artistic and architectural influences from Greek, Egyptian, and Persian cultures. The inscriptions are mainly in Greek but there are also a few Egyptian hieroglyphs, mentioning that the mausoleum is dedicated to the “King of Kings, and Conqueror of the World, Alexander III.” The finding is extremely important as it can provide new information about Alexander the Great.

The mausoleum contains a broken sarcophagus made of crystal glass, 37 bones, mostly heavily damaged but presumably all from the same adult male, as well as some broken pottery dating from the Ptolemaic and Roman ages. A carbon-dating analysis and a series of other tests will determine the age of the bones and whether or not they belong to the Macedonian King.

[SunkenCiv]

Uh, right back at you. Nyah nyah.

[SunkenCiv]

:’) Yes, but 37 is the number which remain.

[SunkenCiv]

Nice link, I love that guy’s theory.

[SunkenCiv]

Ptolemy may have been the only one who gave it a try. Originally (it sez somewhere around here) the crystal sarco was put into the Euphrates (presumably in a monument of some kind), then Ptolemy grabbed it and built the tomb in Alexandria. Apparently Seleucus realized what a great idea that had been, and built some sort of cenotaph or other monument in Macedonia or Greece somewhere.

[SunkenCiv]

:’) I’ll go out on a limb right now and say, this will prove to be the biggest archaeology news of 2014. If someone finally uses remote imaging, good luck, a lot of zigzagging, and a metal detector to turn up Cambyses’ Lost Army, that would be a close second. :’)

[Verginius Rufus]

Reportedly Ptolemy hijacked the sarcophagus when it was on its way to Macedonia.

Whether the tomb found in Verghina in the 1970s was that of Philip II (Alexander's father) or of another member of the family (like Philip III Arrhidaeus) has been hotly debated--scholars are divided on the question of whose tomb it is.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

"After the main library was fully destroyed, ancient scholars used a "daughter library" in a temple known as the Serapeum, located in another part of the city. According to Socrates of Constantinople, Coptic Pope Theophilus destroyed the Serapeum in 391 AD."

More wood for the fire.

[Verginius Rufus]

The mosaic is the so-called Alexander Mosaic, found at Pompeii (now in the archaeological museum in Naples), thought to be a reproduction of an earlier painting.

[Hot Tabasco]

I never even knew he lost it.........Hopefully they have a current address for him and can send it back.

[Verginius Rufus]

There is a good chance the library was already gone before the Muslim conquest.

It may have been destroyed in 273 during the war between Aurelian and Zenobia, or a bit later when Diocletian sacked the city.

Luciano Canfora has a book on the library (The Vanished Library, University of California Press, 1990), but I haven't read it.

[Jeff Chandler]

I love that guy’s theory.

Considering every other theory requires limestone blocks the size of mobile homes to be cut out with copper tools, carted across the Nile, dragged up to the construction site, and fitting within a hair's breadth, yeah, cast-in-place makes more sense.

[Forward the Light Brigade]

Top Ten Finds in Archaeology for me.

1. Pompeii (The Villa of the Papriri)
2. The Clay Army of Shang Han of China
3. The Swedish warship Vasa.
4. The tomb of King Herod
5. The Royal Tombs at Tanis (the silver mummy)
6. King Tut in the Valley of the Kings.
7. The Etruscan Tombes in Italy.
8. The Pyramides in Northern Sudan
9. the Cities of Zimbabwe
10. The Mound builders tombs in Ohio, America.

[Verginius Rufus]

I think you mean the Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum.

Other notable archaeological finds are Troy (Hisarlik) and Bogazkoy (Hattusas) in Turkey, Mycenae, Pylos, Delphi, Olympia, and the Athenian agora in Greece, Knossos and Phaistos on Crete, and the Mayan sites in Yucatan and Central America.