The Sphinxes Guarding the Lion Tomb Entrance at Amphipolis

[system1988]

If this is an inhumation, and that isn't a little box of remains there but a coffin, then it does get very interesting.

The skeleton is almost 'INTACT'

[Efstathios]

Yes it gets interesting. Also, the press release talked about a burial complex and the geo-survey may reveal if there other tombs. Taken from a comment on a greek blog, the wooden casket may indicate that the dead was not of Macedonian origin (Roxanne?) otherwise there would be a larnaca, but this is speculation so far. There is no mention of cremation as in Philip's remains or anything else. Mrs Panagiotarea who is in charge of the press said to be patient, the study of the remains will take a few days. The dating will also reveal if the burial is of the same time as the construction of the tomb.

Who had a cult and was worshiped as a hero at 325-300 B.C and his/her tomb was constructed at Amphipolis?

[Efstathios]

Newest from the press, Mrs Peristeri said that a lion would not be placed at a woman's tomb. Also she said that the dig continues as the perivolos holds other secrets too. The first is a possible reference to the gender of the dead, and the second that there are other tombs inside. The plot thickens even more. The most puzzling element so far is the wooden casket, it does not "agree" with he rest of the findings, karyatids, sphinxes, mosaic.

[Zebedee]

Hasn't Peristeri today also suggested a general from that time period as a possibility? Sexing skeletons has proven to be a minefield in the past, but it does seem like the team there are confident that this is a male skeleton from what they've said today. Wait and see though. On the burial aspect, it does suggest something intriguing. The options seem to be between someone who died fairly close to the area, a much older skeleton which has been re-buried or that the corpse was preserved in some way to allow it to be transported. I see Dorothy King has suggested the last and done the subtraction there. One of the things which will be interesting to discover will be if the corpse has been cremated but little bone has been lost or whether this is a direct inhumation.

[system1988]

1) The sex of the deceased can be found within ONE MINUTE
2) Also ( ROUGHLY) the age
3) Also a trained eye can distinguish within a few hours (ROUGHLY) injuries and other stresses.
Therefore i expect some announcement. SOON

[Efstathios]

The decorative elements on the wooden casket are the same as the ones at the Sidon sarcophagus as Dorothy King pointed out. She also said that wooden caskets were considered more luxurius than marble ones.

[Zebedee]

1) The sex of the deceased can be found within ONE MINUTE
2) Also ( ROUGHLY) the age
3) Also a trained eye can distinguish within a few hours (ROUGHLY) injuries and other stresses.
Therefore i expect some announcement. SOON

Perhaps system, but getting it wrong on that first inspection isn't particularly rare either. I think they'll play it very, very carefully because this is so high profile but they do seem to be hinting towards a male burial without outright saying it. We'll see. Only a few days to wait in any case.

[system1988]

I also want to see the photo of the bones at the moment of the finding. They are not presentable? They are not pretty enough ? We will see them in the presence of the Prime Minister?
God only ONE photo.

[Taphoi]

Everything still looks like Olympias to me. It is very unusual that the body seems not to have been cremated and the coffin and cist tomb are very low quality relative to the rest of the monument. That fits with the sources which say that Cassander originally (316BC) disposed of Olympias’s corpse without proper funeral rites. Later I would infer that her family and supporters built the monument over the original burial and began a cult. Cassander finally desecrated and sealed the tomb when he murdered the king, her grandson, in 310BC. It seems that the sealer did not gather the scattered bones, which tends to confirm that he was also the desecrator. The bones should be those of a female in her fifties if this is Olympias. They should soon know. If it is Olympias and the bones have not been cremated, then we have the DNA of Alexander the Great!
There seems to be a lot of disinformation on the sex of the occupant circulating. The 1.8m height thing seems literally to mean the vertical height of the cist tomb, but some articles are inferring that the person was 1.8m tall and therefore male. Dorothy King has gone with Hephaistion now (having given up on a cenotaph). She has invented an unhistorical order of Alexander to bury Hephaistion in Macedon and ignored the accounts of Hephaistion's cremation on a huge pyre in Babylon. Yes, Katerina Peristeri has been quoted in some press articles as saying it is a general of Alexander. BUT she said that in August - I think our lovely press may be re-cycling her comments from then. So please hold your horses on the sex, since the official release does not confirm the sex and the quality of this "information" is suspect. The official release says this person was subject to a religious cult. That limits the field somewhat. If you combine that with the previous comment of a likely member of the Royal House, we are still on course for Olympias. Debate is very welcome, but happy they have ruled out a cenotaph
Best wishes,
Andrew

[Zebedee]

http://www.tanea.gr/news/culture/articl ... amfipolhs/

Seems like the press conference was today, and so one infers that the lead archaeologist on the site talking about a general of Alexander as being a potential candidate is either extreme misdirection or, maybe, the initial belief is that this is a male skeleton. As unfortunate that would be if one is desperate to believe otherwise. But mistakes happen so we'll see over the next few weeks as more is revealed.

[Alexias]

Dorothy King hasn't got a clue what she is talking about:

Hephaestion died before Alexander, and Alexander ordered his body returned to Macedonia in an elaborate funerary cortege to be buried in a magnificent tomb there. We know that if the tomb had been started, Perdiccas cancelled work on it once Alexander died (here).

Hopefully people will stop taking her as some kind of authority.

System1988, as an archaeologist, is aware that osteoarchaeologist can tell the age and sex of a skeleton (male brow ridges, shape of female pelvises, calcification of certain bones relative to age), pretty quickly by visual examination alone. They do it all the time of Time Team, but it does depend upon the quality of the bones. Presumably though the archaeologist want scientific evidence before they make a statement. That they are talking about an almost intact skeleton, a sarcophagus and a coffin instead of a funerary urn, does imply that the bones have not been cremated.

I am not sure I agree with Andrew that the tomb would have built over an older grave. Wouldn't there have been a problem with locating it? And then why seal the tomb?

That they are talking about the tomb being built with public money perhaps brings us back to a local dignitary such as Neachus whom the whole city wished to honour.

[lio]

The skeleton of the dead was found in Amphipolis.Dorothy King claims it belongs to Alexander the Great or Ifestionas http://www.thetombofamphipolis.com

[amyntoros]

Quick note to all members regarding the above post (and any similar others that you may happen upon). Because of a previously severe spam problem new members must have their first four posts approved by a moderator. Normally one might not notice, but when a thread is as active as this one,a delay of a couple of hours in approving a post can cause it to seem out of place.

Best regards,

[Efstathios]

Good Amyntoros, i was starting to wonder if lio had read the previous posts but now i see.

Andrew, so Kassandros took the remains of Olympias from Pydna and put them in the tomb that was meant for Alexander? It is a theory of course, but the data the archaeologists give us suggest that it is a male, (Mrs Peristeri saying that the lion indicates a male burial). The karyatids possibly indicate the Athenian descent of Hephaestion through his father Amyntoros. There is no indication that Hephaestion was buried in the east, so his remains could have returned to Macedonia and the tomb's construction could have started with Alexander's orders. After all he ordered shrines for Hephaestion to be built in Greece.

The bones that were found scattered, could be a result of a natural phenomenon that happened during the ages and not necessarily vandalism, as one would expect that the people that put the sand in wouldn't leave the bones like that.

[Zebedee]

System1988, as an archaeologist, is aware that osteoarchaeologist can tell the age and sex of a skeleton (male brow ridges, shape of female pelvises, calcification of certain bones relative to age), pretty quickly by visual examination alone. They do it all the time of Time Team, but it does depend upon the quality of the bones. Presumably though the archaeologist want scientific evidence before they make a statement. That they are talking about an almost intact skeleton, a sarcophagus and a coffin instead of a funerary urn, does imply that the bones have not been cremated.

And when one has seen the arguments over whether a skeleton is overly gracile to be male etc then one exercises a certain amount of caution until the i's are dotted and t's crossed in the absence of anything but brief summaries in press releases. And it's very understandable here that they'd want to do that rather than risk embarassment. Would certainly agree that the bones are not likely to have been cremated but it is a possibility, it's just that an inhumation here and at this time period is rather peculiar so I'd imagine it would be something that they'll be keen to clarify at some stage.