After years of speculation and controversy , the occupants of three tombs belonging to the family ofAlexander the Greathave finally been identified . Located in the Great Tumulus of Vergina in northern Greece , the entombment curb the corpse of Alexander ’s father , stepmother , half - sibling , and Word , along with armour and other items belong to the man himself .
First dig up in 1977 , the tombs are listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and , agree to the author of a new subject field , “ contained an astoundingly rich array of burial commodity . ” However , while there ’s never been any doubt that the interred osseous tissue belonged to close relation of Alexander , scholars have spent almost half a hundred bickering over who precisely lie within each grave .
To figure out who ’s who , the study author combined osteological analysis , macrophotography , go - rays , and anatomical dissections of the ancient remains with historical sources from the ancient past . In doing so , they discover that Tomb I contain the finger cymbals of a world with an spite knee , as well as a woman and a baby , who was just days or weeks old at the time of expiry .
They therefore close that the male chassis wasKing Philip II of Macedon- Alexander the Great ’s sire - who was know to have a limp . The extremely untested age of the babe also line up perfectly with the story of Philip ’s character assassination in 336 BCE .
According to most sources , Philip II was slain by his bodyguard just a few days after his married woman Cleopatra had given birth . It ’s thought that the murder was ordered by Philip ’s late wife Olympias , the mother of Alexander the soon - to - be Great .
Almost instantly after the assassination , Olympias then killed both Cleopatra and her sister - maybe by burn up them active - thus clearing the way for Alexander to succeed the toilet . concord to the researcher , the “ emaciated grounds from the newborn infant is conclusive that Tomb I belongs to Cleopatra and her new-sprung tyke and consequently to Philip II , as Cleopatra ’s child is the only assassinate newborn hump from any royal Macedonian couple . ”
antecedently , some scholars had indicate that Philip II was forget in Tomb II , which also contains the remains of a man and a charwoman . However , the absence of a baby , combined with no unmistakable signs of physical trauma on the manful skeleton , at last find this out as a possibility .
Instead , free-base on emaciated evidence for unreasonable horseback equitation , the written report author conclude that Tomb II belongs to the “ warrior woman ” Adea Eurydice , wife of Alexander ’s half - brother King Arrhidaeus .
“ Due to ancient depicting and descriptions , some scholar have suggested that some of the objects in Tomb II , such as the armor , belonged to Alexander the Great , which is potential only if this is the Tomb of Arrhidaeus , not Philip II , ” write the source . Thus , these clay are set to be those of “ Alexander ’s much less impressive brother ” and his rather telling warrior wife .
Finally , the study authors find no reasonableness to question the long - stomach assumption that Tomb III contains the corpse of Alexander IV , the teenaged Logos of Alexander the Great .
To put it neatly , then , the researchers write that “ the evidence presented indorse the conclusion that Tomb I belongs to King Philip II , his wife Cleopatra and their new-sprung nestling . Tomb II belongs to King Arrhidaeus and his wife Adea Eurydice . Tomb III to Alexander IV . ”
“ These conclusions refute the traditional conjecture that Tomb II belongs to Philip II , ” they say .
The study is published in theJournal of Archaeological Science : Reports .
