You Tube video

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Alexias
Strategos (general)
Posts: 1099
Joined: Thu Nov 26, 2009 11:16 am

You Tube video

Post by Alexias »

'Tomb of Alexander the Great: In search of the final resting place of Alexander the Great'

This might have come up before https://youtu.be/w6OoVATMa-E, although Prof. Spawforth discounts the Greek archaeologist's claim that she has found Alexander's tomb at Siwah, saying that she has rediscovered a Greek temple which was found in the 19th cent.

Interesting claim that Alexander influenced all the world's major religions with the notion of man as god. It is true that the notion of Christ as both man and god owes more to Greek thought than the Hebrew tradition, but not necessarily a direct influence from Alexander. It seems more probable that Alexander was part of a long tradition in Greek thought of the man-god eg Heracles, Endymion and other men, immortalised by the favour of the gods. This is part of the growth of the cult of the individual in western philosophy. Alexander was also tapped into the tradition of the hero that died young, and in some cases were deified. There were a lot of them about particularly in the early centuries after Christ's birth eg Adonis, Mithras, Antinous, and Christ also tapped into this tradition as early images show him young and beardless. Alexander's image does seem to have had an influence in religious art, but again, this is probably just a part of the influence of Greek art in the last couple of thousand years.
hiphys
Pezhetairos (foot soldier)
Posts: 191
Joined: Tue Apr 03, 2012 2:59 am

Re: You Tube video

Post by hiphys »

Yours is an interesting comment to the video. Certainly the notion of a man/god wasn't invented by Alexander. I only want to remember that in Pindar's times Herakles, as true ancestor of the Argeadae, was the one called heros-theos. There were, of course others like Dionysus, born from a mortal mother, who were recognised as gods suddenly, without doubts, but only Herakles had a double nature, human and divine, from Homer on, ie. from the beginnings of the Greek culture. Later others heroes (Asklepios, Achilles, and so on) were divinized, but only from IV century B.C. on.
Thanks for sharing the video.
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