• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Alexander The Great’s Father, Brother, And Son Finally Identified In Greek Tomb

January 23, 2024 by Deborah Bloomfield

After years of speculation and controversy, the occupants of three tombs belonging to the family of Alexander the Great have finally been identified. Located in the Great Tumulus of Vergina in northern Greece, the burials contain the remains of Alexander’s father, stepmother, half-siblings, and son, along with armor and other items belonging to the man himself.

First excavated in 1977, the tombs are listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and, according to the authors of a new study, “contained an astoundingly rich array of burial goods.” However, while there’s never been any doubt that the interred bones belonged to close relatives of Alexander, scholars have spent almost half a century bickering over who exactly lies within each grave.

Advertisement

To figure out who’s who, the study authors combined osteological analyses, macrophotography, X-rays, and anatomical dissections of the ancient remains with historical sources from the ancient past. In doing so, they discovered that Tomb I contained the bones of a man with an injured knee, as well as a woman and a baby, who was just days or weeks old at the time of death.

They therefore conclude that the male figure was King Philip II of Macedon – Alexander the Great’s father – who was known to have a limp. The extremely young age of the infant also lines up perfectly with the story of Philip’s assassination in 336 BCE.

According to most sources, Philip II was slain by his bodyguard just a few days after his wife Cleopatra had given birth. It’s thought that the murder was ordered by Philip’s previous wife Olympias, the mother of Alexander the soon-to-be Great.

Almost immediately after the assassination, Olympias then killed both Cleopatra and her baby – possibly by burning them alive – thus clearing the way for Alexander to succeed the throne. According to the researchers, the “skeletal evidence from the neonate is conclusive that Tomb I belongs to Cleopatra and her newborn child and consequently to Philip II, as Cleopatra’s child is the only assassinated newborn known from any royal Macedonian couple.”

Advertisement

Previously, some scholars had argued that Philip II was buried in Tomb II, which also contains the remains of a man and a woman. However, the absence of a baby, combined with no apparent signs of physical trauma on the male skeleton, ultimately rules this out as a possibility.

Instead, based on skeletal evidence for excessive horseback riding, the study authors conclude that Tomb II belongs to the “warrior woman” Adea Eurydice, wife of Alexander’s half-brother King Arrhidaeus. 

“Due to ancient depictions and descriptions, some scholars have suggested that some of the objects in Tomb II, such as the armor, belonged to Alexander the Great, which is possible only if this is the Tomb of Arrhidaeus, not Philip II,” write the authors. Thus, these remains are determined to be those of “Alexander’s much less impressive brother” and his rather impressive warrior wife.

Finally, the study authors find no reason to question the long-standing assumption that Tomb III contains the remains of Alexander IV, the teenage son of Alexander the Great.

Advertisement

To put it neatly, then, the researchers write that “the evidence presented supports the conclusion that Tomb I belongs to King Philip II, his wife Cleopatra and their newborn child. Tomb II belongs to King Arrhidaeus and his wife Adea Eurydice. Tomb III to Alexander IV.”

“These conclusions refute the traditional speculation that Tomb II belongs to Philip II,” they say.

The study is published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Paris ramps up security as jihadist attacks trial starts
  2. Cricket-‘Western bloc’ has let Pakistan down, board chief says
  3. Ancient Bison Found In Permafrost Is So Well Preserved Scientists Want To Clone It
  4. Where Inside Us Do We Feel Love?

Source Link: Alexander The Great’s Father, Brother, And Son Finally Identified In Greek Tomb

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • Could This Be The Real Reason Humans Survived And Neanderthals Died Out?
  • Newly Discovered Snail Species Named After Studio Ghibli Co-Founder Is A Hairy Beauty
  • 2025 SC79 Is The Second-Fastest Asteroid Ever Found – And Only The Second Within Venus’ Orbit
  • When Red Devil Spiders Arrived On A New Island, Their Genome Dramatically Shrank In Half
  • Is This The World’s Oldest Story? Ancient Human Tale About The Seven Sisters May Be From 100,000 BCE
  • This Pill Is Actually A Tiny Printer That Repairs Internal Injuries Using Biocompatible Ink
  • “This Is Amazing”: Scientists Have Found Evidence Of A Long-Lost World Deep Within The Earth
  • From The Shiniest World To Lava And Eternal Darkness, These Are The Weirdest Known Planets
  • Do Sharks Have Bones?
  • The Zombie Awakens: A Volcano Is Showing “First Signs” Of Unrest After 700,000 Years Of Quiet
  • Two Of The World’s Biggest Earthquakes Seem To Be Synched Together
  • California Has A New State Snake, And It’s A 1.6-Meter-Long Giant
  • Experimental Nanoparticle “Super-Vaccines” Stop Breast, Pancreatic, And Skin Cancers In Their Tracks
  • New Nightmare Fuel Unlocked: Watch The First Known Capture Of A Shrew By A False Widow Spider
  • Peculiar Glow In The Milky Way Might Be Dark Matter Signature
  • “I Was Scared To Death”: Missouri’s Great Cobra Scare Of 1953 Was Eventually Solved After 35 Years
  • Two Spacecraft To Fly Through Comet 3I/ATLAS’s Ion Tail – Will They Be Able To Catch Something?
  • Pioneering Heavy Water Detection Suggests Earth’s Water Might Be Older Than The Sun
  • PhD Students’ Groundbreaking New Technique Rescues JWST’s Highest Resolution Data
  • Popcorn-Like Parasites And Weird Worms Among 14 New Species Discovered In The World’s Oceans
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version