After several months without updating the blog, we return to the classical archeology to analyze one of the greatest discoveries of ancient history: the burial mound that guards the royal tomb of Philip II, king of Macedonia and father of Alexander the Great. Vergina, 75 km southwest of Thessaloniki in northern Greece, was first explored by the French archaeologist Leon Heuzey, who began digging in 1861. In those years I could not imagine what results would lead future investigations. Nor could I know, because it did not have any advice offered by ancient literary sources, what belonged city was exploring the ruins. In the excavations located between the villages of Vergina Palatitsia and gave them the name of Balla, a name taken from an old publication, without any direct reference to the site.
modern excavations, begun in the years 1937-1938, found palatial structures, previously identified by Heuzey, along with a theater and the foundations of a small temple. But the most extraordinary discoveries date back to late seventies, when excavations in the necropolis, led by the Greek archaeologist Manolis Andronikos, showed the world the identity of the remains stunning. Indeed, the field Vergina was only the ancient city of Aegean, the capital of the powerful kingdom of Macedonia.
Since late V a. C., when the Macedonian king Archelaus built his new capital at Pella, the sources mention the Aegean city only rarely. The event which brought the city to a prominent place in the chronicles of the time was the assassination of King Philip II of Macedonia, which occurred in the theater of the ancient capital in the year 336 a. C.
The vast necropolis that houses the remains of Philip II extends east of the small town of Vergina, in an area of \u200b\u200bfew square kilometers, which are more than 300 burial mounds. Most of these not exceed one meter high and its diameter varies from 15 to 20 m. Archaeological investigations have shown, moreover, that the age of the mounds differs markedly. The oldest dates back to the First Iron Age (1000-700 BC), and most recently the Hellenistic period (until the second century BC).
In the western boundaries of the burial mound is a quite exceptional dimensions. This is a real hill, 110 m. in diameter and more than 12 m. high. When, in the second half of the s. XIX, Léon Heuzey recorded in his notes the great monument, wrote: "This is certainly the most beautiful of the tombs of Macedonia ... Within these, as in the underground tombs of Egypt and Etruria, there is more than just a selection of antiques. In these mounds lie the lives and history of a people waiting to be discovered ".
Heuzey's intuition proved successful during the archaeological campaign carried out by Manolis Andronikos in the summer of 1977. Excavating the layers of large mound in search of the grave which had been built, Andronikos was faced with three different burial buildings still closed and without the usual traces left by grave robbers. The main tomb, whose facade was the gateway adorned with Doric columns and a painted frieze depicting scenes of hunting, was explored on November 8, 1977, when, through an opening created by moving a stone vault, Manolis Andronikos down to the burial chamber. The Greek archaeologist was the first man to set foot in the burial chamber after closing, made more than two thousand years earlier.
Discovery largely exceeded expectations. Inside the tomb there were many objects, including bronze highlighted fine china and silver, weapons and armor parts, a great sword, shin guards, helmets and spear points. A shield of gold and silver lay fact pieces: a shell of iron, finished with a thin gold thread and tacked on a lion's head, lay a short distance from the sarcophagus. Having lifted the lid of the marble sarcophagus in the center of a chamber wall, archaeologists found before the most exciting discovery: a richly decorated golden urn, whose lid contains a star of 16 points. Inside were the remains of the bones of the deceased, along with fragments of a crown composed of hundreds of sheets of gold.
The discovery of the objects kept in the antechamber aroused considerable astonishment. At this point, leaning against the jamb the door leading to the main burial chamber, had an extraordinary quiver embossed gold and two bronze jambs. A marble sarcophagus with a second golden urn, this time decorated with a star just 12 points, guarded the remains of a woman. It was immediately clear: the tomb and its contents, which is the largest treasure found in a Greek tomb was that of Philip II, the eighteenth king of Macedonia, who reigned from 359 to the 336 a. C. and gained dominion over Greece after the battle of Chaeronea. In a small ivory portrait head (part of a bed made entirely of ivory, fragments were scattered by the hundreds in the chamber funeral), is recognized in all its vital expressiveness, the face of the great Macedonian.
The rich grave goods shows the magnificence of the Macedonian kingdom years before Alexander the Great soared to the top of an empire that extended to the Indus. Would it have been possible Macedonian progress towards the east without the legacy of Philip II? In another post I will discuss the rapid transformation of the kingdom of pastors in one of the most dynamic states of classical antiquity.
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