The tombs at Vergina

The dearth of accurately datable documents from the time (323–c. 275 BCE) of Alexander the Great’s Successors (also known as the Diadochi or Diadochoi) has contributed to uncertainty regarding the dating of key events from this time.  In attempting to explain these inconsistencies, recent scholarship has focused on various different chronologies, some of which are described as “high” and “low.”  It would seem that particular importance would be assigned to the date of the end of the reign of Alexander IV, Alexander the Great’s lone legitimate heir.  However, little scholarly attention has been paid to the possible date of this very important transition that marked the end of the Macedonian Argead Dynasty.  The current article attempts a thorough investigation of this event by examining remaining historical accounts and surviving contemporary government documents along with epigraphical evidence and archaeological discoveries.  This information is then utilized in an attempt to arrive at a more precise date for the end of Alexander IV’s reign and the end of the satrapies ruling in his name

El ensayo se centra en El rapto de Perséfone, pintura mural de la Tumba I de Vergina, y forma parte de una investigación
más amplia en que me he propuesto analizar las estructuras pictóricas de las escasas obras griegas que se han conservado y llegado a
nuestros días. Mediante la reconstrucción de los procesos de creación artística, el artículo intenta desvelar los conocimientos del oficio
de pintar de la época. Los resultados del análisis permiten demostrar que fueron los talleres helenos los que pusieron las bases de las
herramientas de comunicación visual que más utilizamos actualmente, como también la representación de la forma, de la luz y de la
sombra, del espacio e incluso el uso de la perspectiva lineal. El texto se dirige tanto a los especialistas en el tema como a un público
más amplio. Las imágenes gráficas elaboradas por el autor facilitan la comprensión del alto nivel pictórico de la obra.
Palabras clave: Vergina; tumba; Persefoné; pintura griega; perspectiva.

This paper is extracted from my 2017 book titled In Search of the Lost Testament of Alexander the Great. Please see Press release for my 2019 book titled Unearthing the Family of Alexander the Great for a fuller account of the Vergina tombs.

The ancient city of Aegae in Greece, where the royal tombs are located, dates back to the 7th century BCE; it became Macedonia's first capital after it was conglomerated from a collection of villages into a city in the 5th century BCE. Aegae was eventually supplanted by a new capital at Pella in the 4th century BCE but retained its status as the spiritual home and burial ground of the Macedonian kings. Aegae becomes lost to history Both settlements were partially destroyed by Rome in 168 BCE following the Battle of Pydna when Macedonia was finally defeated, and a landslide buried the older capital in the 1st century, after which it was uninhabited. The name 'Aegae' ceased to be used and its history was grazed over by goats and sheep and survived in oral legend only, while papyri and faded vellums told of a former city of kings. Only a nearby early Christian basilica built from the stones of the ancient ruins marked the forgotten location. In the 1920s, on what had once been the southeast side of the Macedonian royal palace, Greek refugees from the Euxine Pontus region of Asia Minor founded the village of Vergina, and the still unidentified fallen stones were used as masonry in the new houses. Supervised excavations at what turned out to be the founding city of the Argead (otherwise, Temenid) dynasty go back to the 1860s when a dig by French archaeologist, Léon Heuzey, sponsored by Napoleon III, revealed a Macedonian tomb next to the village of Palatitsia, 'the small palaces', a name that hinted tantalisingly at its former significance, though it was erroneously thought to be the site of the ancient city of Valla. In the 1930s, Konstantinos Romaios, a professor of archaeology at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, revealed a further tomb, but as Albert Olmstead's above

(chapter introduction precedes this…) The five-year study of the Tomb II bones by the Antikas team provided more accurate age profiling for both Tomb II occupants: the male was aged 45 +/-4 years at death, and the female 32 +/-2 years, supported by her previously unseen pubic symphysis joint, a more accurate ageing marker, along with her fused collarbone. Although they had given her statutory 4-year leeway in their paper, Professor Theo Antikas and Laura Wynn-Antikas felt the evidence suggested the woman was closer to 30. When reading their conclusions, I first questioned how these ranges fitted the life expectancy of the day. The study of skeletal remains suggests that longevity averages in ancient Greece were around 43 years for men and an even shorter 34 for women. These average lifespans are something of a reversal of the demographics in today's society, where female life expectancy at age 83 is three years longer than that of a male at 79. 1 Considering the lifestyle markers and wounds found on the Tomb II bones, the short life expectancy is not surprising, but there was another significant factor that impacted female mortality rate: childbirth. In the ancient world girls married young and they were expected to produce offspring when hardly physically mature. The inscriptions on the 1 Angel (1947) pp 18-24.

Vergina 2013.  The phase after the abandonment of the fortification. Vergina of the craftsmen and the tomb-robbers.


The 2013 excavation of the Aristotle University focused once again on the eastern and southeastern part of the enceinte, which traverses the estate of Ph. and G. Belas and was the most heavily defended to compensate its lowland nature. The excavation trenches dug for uncovering both faces of this part of the wall extend to a total length of 760 meters and are up to 7 m. wide. Apart from the uncovering and the recording of the fortification data, our trenches, considered as long and wide trial trenches at the fringes of the settlement offered an interesting picture of the period following the abandonment of the wall and the well-documented destruction that the city suffered in the middle of the 2nd century BC, forming a turning point in its history. With the main elements of this part of the circuit already presented, this paper focuses not on the wall itself, but on the zones that touched both faces of the wall.
The external trench gave deposits of refuse material of both domestic and burial origin. No grave was found.
Inside the wall, we excavated a line of poor makeshift lodges braced against the wall.  Their destruction layers except for the remnants of their miserable living contained waste from various workshops testifying to the manufacturing activity that occupied most part of the town in the second half of the 2nd century BC. These finds, very similar to those on the acropolis, and other parts of the city illustrate the harsh living of the inhabitants who settled in the ruins of the wealthy Cassandrean city made mainly by recycling every suitable material found in the ruins and looting the tombs of the cemetery. The nearby torrent that descended raging sometime after the beginning of the 1st century BC sealed these miserable, already abandoned dwellings with tons of sand and gravel.

Ο τάφος ΙΙ της Μεγάλης Τούμπας της Βεργίνας ήρθε στο φως το 1977. Πρόκειται για έναν ασύλητο μακεδονικό διθάλαμο τάφο με δωρική πρόσοψη. Εντός του ταφικού μνημείου εντοπίστηκαν δύο ταφές, μία στον προθάλαμο και μία στον θάλαμο. Τόσο στην πρώτη περίπτωση, όσο και στη δεύτερη, τα καμένα οστά του νεκρού είχαν τοποθετηθεί μέσα σε μία χρυσή κίστη.

Πλησίον του τάφου ΙΙ, βρέθηκε ένας ακόμα ασύλητος μακεδονικός διθάλαμος τάφος, το 1978. Ο τάφος αυτός έχει πρόσοψη δωρικού ρυθμού και ανήκει πιθανότατα στο πρώτο τέταρτο του 3ου αι. π. Χ. Ο νεκρός είχε καεί σε πυρά μαζί με προσφορές και η τέφρα του είχε αποτεθεί σε μία αργυρή υδρία. Πρόκειται για άτομο νεαρής ηλικίας, το οποίο κτερίστηκε με όπλα που ανήκαν πιθανότατα σε κάποιο συγγενικό του πρόσωπο που είχε θητεύσει ως στρατιωτικός, αν κρίνουμε από την κατασκευή των επίχρυσων χάλκινων περικνημίδων που βρέθηκαν μέσα στον τάφο και προορίζονταν για ενήλικα άνδρα .

Το σημαντικότερο από τα μέχρι στιγμής γνωστά νεκροταφεία της εποχής του Σιδήρου στη Μακεδονία, είναι χωρίς αμφιβολία αυτό της Βεργίνας, στα βόρεια πρανή των Πιερίων. Η νεκρόπολη των τύμβων εκτείνεται βορειοανατολικά του σύγχρονου οικισμού, αλλά και δυτικότερα του φυσικού ορίου του χειμάρρου της Παλιοπαναγιάς. Σε αυτήν την έκταση ανασκάφηκαν συνολικά τριάντα δύο τύμβοι από τον τότε επιμελητή αρχαιοτήτων και μετέπειτα καθηγητή, Μ. Ανδρόνικο και άλλοι εβδομήντα πέντε από τον συνάδελφο του και μετέπειτα καθηγητή, Φ. Πέτσα. Αρκετοί από τους τύμβους των πρώιμων ιστορικών χρόνων (11ος αι.-8ος αι. π. Χ.) κάλυπταν ανδρικές ταφές κτερισμένες με όπλα. Ο τρόπος ταφής που κυριαρχεί είναι ο ενταφιασμός σε λακκοειδείς τάφους ή σπάνια σε πίθους, ενώ οι καύσεις είναι ελάχιστες.

In October 336 BC, statues of the twelve Olympian Gods were paraded through the ancient capital of Macedon. Following them was a thirteenth, a statue of King Philip II who was deifying himself in front of the Greek world. Moments later Philip was stabbed to death; it was a world-shaking event that heralded in the reign of his son, Alexander the Great. Equally driven by a heroic lineage stretching back to gods and heroes, Alexander conquered the Persian Empire in eleven years but died mysteriously in Babylon. Some 2,300 years later, a cluster of subterranean tombs were unearthed in northern Greece containing the remains of the Macedonian royal line. This is the remarkable story of the quest to identify the family of Alexander the Great and the dynasty that changed the Graeco-Persian world forever.
Written in close cooperation with the investigating archaeologists, anthropologists, and scientists, this book presents the revelations, mysteries and controversies in a charming, accessible style. Is this really the tomb of Philip II, Alexander’s father? And who was the warrior woman buried with weapons and armour beside him?