' The lameness of king Philip II .'

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system1988
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' The lameness of king Philip II .'

Post by system1988 »

Published yesterday ,Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,' The lameness of King Philip II and Royal tomb at Verghina',A.Barziokas,juan-Luis Arsuaga,Elena Santos Algaba, and Asier Gomez Oliveira. A rather controversial theory .
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Re: ' The lameness of king Philip II .'

Post by Alexias »

There is a link here http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/ ... 2.abstract. Not sure if that is the one you meant, Pauline.
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Re: ' The lameness of king Philip II .'

Post by system1988 »

Oh thank you very much ! There is also a link the full text and with photos ( Philip s knee with the wound etc) on www.zougla.gr
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Re: ' The lameness of king Philip II .'

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Re: ' The lameness of king Philip II .'

Post by agesilaos »

The full English text is at the first link you just have to click on the PDF link in red.

This does explode the usual 'grave-robber' explanation ; no one is crawling through or digging hole with an injury like that. I predict a raft of counter argument; many have much invested in the Philip II Tomb II identification. Odd this evidence is only surfacing nearly fifty years after the find, what can we expect from Kastas on that timeline? :shock:
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Re: ' The lameness of king Philip II .'

Post by Callisto »

A friend kindly sent me earlier the reply of the Greek ministry of culture in English. I still havent managed to find the full english text in the MoC website. Anyway i just paste here the translated text i got. Maybe some readers find it informative.

------------
It was recently published in the American journal ''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)'' a paleoanthropological study by Mr. A. Bartsiokas and Mr. Juan Luis Arsuaga , concerning bones that have been found in the cist tomb (Tomb I) of the Royal Burial Cluster, excavated in the '70s by the late professor Manolis Andronikos in the Great Tumulus at Aigai. In this study Mr. A. Bartsiokas and Mr. Juan Luis Arsuaga claim that the male skeletal remains belong to Philip II, while the female and infant skeletal remains belong to the last wife of the king of Macedon, Cleopatra and her daughter Europe. The same had been proposed earlier by the historian E. Borza but it was not accepted by the scientific community.

Although there is an abundance of relevant scientific publications, because the theme is of particular interest to the public, it is necessary, in order to avoid confusion and misunderstandings, to provide in summary the following archaeological-historical data necessary for the proper understanding and thus the interpretation of specific findings:

1. Mr. A. Bartsiokas and Mr. Juan Luis Arsuaga examined part and not all of the bones found in the Tomb I.

2. The Tomb I of the Great Tumulus at Aigai, is a monument that has the form of a cist (box-shaped )and it is the smallest and less monumental tomb of the Royal Burial Cluster, which also includes two large unplundered Macedonian Tombs (Tomb II recognized by Manolis Andronikos as the tomb of Philip II and Tomb III unanimously attributed to Alexander IV, son of Alexander the Great and Roxane) and a third Macedonian Tomb looted and heavily damaged ("The free standing columns Tomb"), dating to the early 3rd c. BC which is the latest dated of the cluster.

3. The cist Tomb I, in the interior of which is preserved the fresco depicting the abduction of Persephone, was plundered, but it contained several clay vessels, safely dating the tomb and the original burial in the last decades of the first half of the 4th century. BC, with the upper limit in 350 BC. However, as is well known from the ancient written sources, Philip II was assassinated in 336 BC, and his wife Cleopatra was executed a few months after his death. Thus there is a substantial period of time that is difficult if not impossible to bridge.

4. The bones of the deceased that this study attempts to link with Philip II, in particular the bones of the legs (shins and the ossicles of the foot) were not found on the floor of the tomb, like the bones of a woman and her neonate, but they were found about 20 cm higher of the original burial, on a layer containing stones and limestone fragments, within the soil of backfill that came into the grave after its looting. The fact of finding bones in connection with each other, belonging to a shin , signifies "articulation", i.e. the presence of muscle tissue that hold them altogether, and eliminates the possibility that these bones came from the disturbance of the original burial (the woman's body was completely dissolved and her bones were found mixed and gathered in two groups on the mortar of the floor). It is obvious that the body of the deceased to whom these bones belong are deposited or "rejected" in the grave after the looting of the tomb, which, as the stratigraphy indicated, is associated with the destruction and plunder of the neighboring overground "Heroon".

5. The destruction of the royal necropolis of Aigai is a historical fact attested by the ancient written sources and has absolutely confirmed by the archaeological excavations. It is a fact happened in 276/5 BC, when the Gauls mercenaries of Pyrrhus occupied the ancient Metropolis of the Kingdom of Macedon. As indicated by the findings of the debris (pottery, coins etc.), the Great Tumulus which covered the cluster of royal tombs and sealed the looted tomb I and the remains of "Heroon", which is right next to it, was built before the mid-3rd century BC . Thus, the incident with the dead man who was placed or "rejected" in the looted cist Tomb I must have happened between 276/5 and 250 BC. It is worth noting that similar phenomena of "rejection" of dead men have been noticed in other looted tombs of royal clusters of Aigai and has already been suggested by the excavators the possibility that such skeletons belong to tomb robbers.

6. The dead is not crimated, however, as evidenced by the ancient sources and demonstrated by the very rich archaeological findsof Aigai, since the early 6th century BC, cremation in grand pyres with burial offers is the norm for the Macedonian kings, a custom which during the reign of Philip II and Alexander the Great expanded to the Royal Companions.

7. The argument on which Mr. A. Bartsiokas and Mr. Juan Luis Arsuaga support their interpretation is the claim that the person is about 45 years old with trauma to the leg. The average age or lameness are not exclusive identification characteristics of Philip II. On the contrary the data from the excavation make the proposed identification unlikely. The man, whose bones were found in the tomb I could not be Philip II or any other member of the royal family. Apparently the tomb belongs to the woman. Her baby according to the first scholar who studied the bones, Professor J. Musgrave, was fetus or newborn, so it is likely that the woman died in childbirth. The link with a woman reinforces both the thematic of the wall paintings -Abduction of Persephone, Demeter, Moires- and the grave goods found in the tomb -fragments of jewelry, perfume bottles, marble seashells-shaped vessels and the complete lack of weapons or weapons fragments.

It is not impossible that the woman was one of the first wives of the King of Macedon who is buried at the nearby Tomb II and identified by Manolis Andronikos with Philip II, an identification which is enhanced by all the latest excavation data from Aigai. Numerous explicit arguments, published in series of studies and articles from 2011 onwards by Greek and foreign archaeologists, historians and paleoanthropologists, like M. Hatzopoulos, A. Kottaridi, Robin Lane Fox, J. Musgrave et al. reinforce this identification with Philip II.
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Re: ' The lameness of king Philip II .'

Post by agesilaos »

Told you so :lol:

Several methodological errors here; ceramic and coin evidence can only ever provide evidence of the terminus post quem, which is to say that if you find a coin of Nero the tomb is not to be dated to Claudius (excluding intrusion). Here the evidence is held up as evidence ante quem which is nonsense. Just what the point of simply claiming that Bartsiokis et al had not examined all the bones is, without further demonstrating that those they did not see undermine or refute their conclusion, I cannot see. Nor is a list of moderns proof of anything but the commonness of that interpretation, without the evidence of the leg bones one suspects.

The grave robber theory is undone by the fact that the owner of the leg was crippled and had been for enough time to allow the bone to heal and without infection (something that suggests high status, though not necessarily royalty, of course). And that healing is the rub for all counter suggestions; the Gauls did not lug a cripple around with them as a good luck charm and the injury is too old to reflect an impromtu interment post proelium. What remains is a later burial of a cripple in the tomb.

The Tomb is associated with the Heroon, if the Greek Council would care to list the number of females worshiped as heroes I will gladly supply the postage stamp upon which it can be written :lol: The tomb belonged to a man Amyntas is a possibility as is Philip II, unless one insists that there is no evidence for a cult of Philip (but there is only one scholium mentioning that of Amyntas).

Certainly, the fact that this was an interment and not a cremation must give us pause and I think it has to be a long pause but one that is matched by the poser of who would have owned a leg like this? Seemingly pierced by a shafted weapon (round hole), yet healed without infection but not splinted or re-aligned (due to the march back? I would expect better from an army doctor that knew to clean the wound well enough to avoid infection; or maybe is just the natural resilience of the wine-soaked :D [in fact alcohol imbibed lowers resistance :( ]).
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Re: ' The lameness of king Philip II .'

Post by Taphoi »

agesilaos wrote:Told you so :lol:

Several methodological errors here; ceramic and coin evidence can only ever provide evidence of the terminus post quem, which is to say that if you find a coin of Nero the tomb is not to be dated to Claudius (excluding intrusion). Here the evidence is held up as evidence ante quem which is nonsense. Just what the point of simply claiming that Bartsiokis et al had not examined all the bones is, without further demonstrating that those they did not see undermine or refute their conclusion, I cannot see. Nor is a list of moderns proof of anything but the commonness of that interpretation, without the evidence of the leg bones one suspects.

The grave robber theory is undone by the fact that the owner of the leg was crippled and had been for enough time to allow the bone to heal and without infection (something that suggests high status, though not necessarily royalty, of course). And that healing is the rub for all counter suggestions; the Gauls did not lug a cripple around with them as a good luck charm and the injury is too old to reflect an impromtu interment post proelium. What remains is a later burial of a cripple in the tomb.

The Tomb is associated with the Heroon, if the Greek Council would care to list the number of females worshiped as heroes I will gladly supply the postage stamp upon which it can be written :lol: The tomb belonged to a man Amyntas is a possibility as is Philip II, unless one insists that there is no evidence for a cult of Philip (but there is only one scholium mentioning that of Amyntas).

Certainly, the fact that this was an interment and not a cremation must give us pause and I think it has to be a long pause but one that is matched by the poser of who would have owned a leg like this? Seemingly pierced by a shafted weapon (round hole), yet healed without infection but not splinted or re-aligned (due to the march back? I would expect better from an army doctor that knew to clean the wound well enough to avoid infection; or maybe is just the natural resilience of the wine-soaked :D [in fact alcohol imbibed lowers resistance :( ]).
The Greek Ministry statement is perfectly sensible and effectively refutes the association of the crippled male skeleton with Philip II. The skeleton was articulated, so had been deposited with flesh still in place. Yet it lay wholly within deposits associated with the robbing of the tomb many decades after its creation. If the woman and the newborn baby were the only bones lying entirely beneath the robbing deposits, then it follows that they are the only significant candidates for the original occupants. The fact that the paintings have female themes and no traces of weaponry were found underlines this conclusion.
I do not see why the creation of the Heroon should not be associated with Tomb II and therefore later than Tomb I. Philip II was seemingly awarded divine honours, so this would make perfect sense.
The Greek Ministry is saying that if Tomb I is later than 350BC, then its builders filled it with exclusively antique clay pots. They are right that that would be weird.
If more were needed, Philip II was wounded in femore (in the thigh) and not in the knee. The spear must have gone through the fleshy part and not through the bone, else it is very strange that it retained enough impetus to kill Philip's horse.

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Re: ' The lameness of king Philip II .'

Post by Matthew Amt »

Taphoi wrote:...The skeleton was articulated, so had been deposited with flesh still in place.
The *knee* was articulated, or rather fused together. From what I'm seeing in the full PNAS article and its supplementary material, no, the rest of the bones and fragments were NOT "articulated". There was an obvious process by the investigators of fitting the loose bones together to establish how many individuals were represented, their sex, etc.
Yet it lay wholly within deposits associated with the robbing of the tomb many decades after its creation. If the woman and the newborn baby were the only bones lying entirely beneath the robbing deposits, then it follows that they are the only significant candidates for the original occupants.
From "The lameness of King Philip II and Royal Tomb I at Vergina, Macedonia" by Antonis Bartsiokasa, et al., PNAS Early Edition, July 20, 2015 :

"We have established the presence of three individuals: two adults (Individuals
1 and 2) and one newborn (Individual 3). The bones were partially covered by
a reddish-brown sediment. This sediment is mentioned as covering Tomb I
and having been deposited into it as well, after the tomb was plundered (9)
(SI Appendix, Text S1). The bones were found at the bottom of the talus
cone a couple of meters thick that was formed after a hole in the roof of the
Tomb was opened in ancient times after a horizontal tunnel was dug from
the Heroon (1). The bones were touching the floor or were very close to it (SI
Appendix, Text S1), indicating that they belong to the original occupants of
the Tomb."

Sorry, I'm not seeing bones at different elevations, there. Perhaps the original excavation report differs--not surprising since it also seems to have missed that tiny detail of the HOLE IN THE GUY'S KNEE...
The fact that the paintings have female themes...
"The Rape of Persephone", was it? Popular one with the ladies, is it?
...and no traces of weaponry were found underlines this conclusion.
*Plundered* tomb. Any chance the robbers took the weapons?

I don't have time to read the entire article tonight, it's pretty dense scientific stuff. I'll have a go at it tomorrow, hopefully.

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Re: ' The lameness of king Philip II .'

Post by agesilaos »

The Greek Ministry statement is perfectly sensible and effectively refutes the association of the crippled male skeleton with Philip II.
Let's just do a Xenophon on that one (Matthew has already made some of these points, apologies,
1. Mr. A. Bartsiokas and Mr. Juan Luis Arsuaga examined part and not all of the bones found in the Tomb I.

As mentioned above , without stating how the unexamined bones contradict the findings this is just petulance.

2. The Tomb I of the Great Tumulus at Aigai, is a monument that has the form of a cist (box-shaped )and it is the smallest and less monumental tomb of the Royal Burial Cluster, which also includes two large unplundered Macedonian Tombs (Tomb II recognized

And so the bias is revealed

by Manolis Andronikos as the tomb of Philip II and Tomb III unanimously attributed to Alexander IV, son of Alexander the Great and Roxane) and a third Macedonian Tomb looted and heavily damaged ("The free standing columns Tomb"), dating to the early 3rd c. BC which is the latest dated of the cluster.

The only point is that the earliest tomb is the smallest is that a point against it being Philip II’s ?

3. The cist Tomb I, in the interior of which is preserved the fresco depicting the abduction of Persephone, was plundered, but it contained several clay vessels,

A puzzling claim when the excavator himself writes, ‘The few sherds found belonged to stamped black-glazed pots dating to around the middle of the fourth century BC.’ M. Andonikos, ‘Vergina; the Royal Tombs’, 1984, Athens. p87. So, only a few sherds from the same type of pot. Hardly conclusive evidence that all the wares contained therein were of a similar age. In Tomb II very little pottery was found but some dated to the mid fourth century and a tripod back to the mid fifth, so these fragments are not sound evidence of dating other than to show that a date after 350 is indicated.

safely dating the tomb and the original burial in the last decades of the first half of the 4th century. BC, with the upper limit in 350 BC

It contained ‘few sherds’ which is not a basis for a sound date, and seeminly some confusion over upper and lower dates; the ‘first half of the fourth century’ runs 399-350 yet an upper limit means the latest. So the dating must be to the last half of the fourth century, 350 -300

. However, as is well known from the ancient written sources, Philip II was assassinated in 336 BC, and his wife Cleopatra was executed a few months after his death. Thus there is a substantial period of time that is difficult if not impossible to bridge.

Not when you understand the terminology and do not exaggerate the evidence.

4. The bones of the deceased that this study attempts to link with Philip II, in particular the bones of the legs (shins and the ossicles of the foot) were not found on the floor of the tomb, like the bones of a woman and her neonate, but they were found about 20 cm higher of the original burial, on a layer containing stones and limestone fragments, within the soil of backfill that came into the grave after its looting.

Disturbed in the looting then; certainly a possibility. Nor does the description of how it was found match Bartsiokis’ Lacking the orignalexcavation report one is forced to choose between B, who certainly has an agenda, and the grossly inaccurate and biased rply from the Council, Hmmmh

The fact of finding bones in connection with each other, belonging to a shin , signifies "articulation", i.e. the presence of muscle tissue that hold them altogether, and eliminates the possibility that these bones came from the disturbance of the original burial

As Mathew has said and anyone can see the bones are fused, there was no need for skin and bone to hold them together. Clearly the Council have not seen ‘all of the bones found in the Tomb either!

(the woman's body was completely dissolved

Yet Bartsiokis identifies almost as much of the female skeleton as the male, neither had any flesh

and her bones were found mixed and gathered in two groups on the mortar of the floor). It is obvious that the body of the deceased to whom these bones belong are deposited or "rejected" in the grave after the looting of the tomb,

Yet not the man’s?

which, as the stratigraphy indicated, is associated with the destruction and plunder of the neighboring overground "Heroon".

Perhaps someone can tease a point from this it eludes me.

5. The destruction of the royal necropolis of Aigai is a historical fact attested by the ancient written sources and has absolutely confirmed by the archaeological excavations. It is a fact happened in 276/5 BC, when the Gauls mercenaries of Pyrrhus occupied the ancient Metropolis of the Kingdom of Macedon. As indicated by the findings of the debris (pottery, coins etc.), the Great Tumulus which covered the cluster of royal tombs and sealed the looted tomb I and the remains of "Heroon", which is right next to it, was built before the mid-3rd century BC . Thus, the incident with the dead man who was placed or "rejected" in the looted cist Tomb I must have happened between 276/5 and 250 BC.

Not likely,

It is worth noting that similar phenomena of "rejection" of dead men have been noticed in other looted tombs of royal clusters of Aigai

Surely, ‘rejection’ refers to the occupant being dug up and tossed away not an intrusion?

and has already been suggested by the excavators the possibility that such skeletons belong to tomb robbers.

An impossible explanation given the healed injury, this fellow might limp but was not crawling through any holes or climbing anywhere.

6. The dead is not cremated, however, as evidenced by the ancient sources and demonstrated by the very rich archaeological findsof Aigai, since the early 6th century BC, cremation in grand pyres with burial offers is the norm for the Macedonian kings, a custom which during the reign of Philip II and Alexander the Great expanded to the Royal Companions.

Finally a valid objection, so actually point1.

7. The argument on which Mr. A. Bartsiokas and Mr. Juan Luis Arsuaga support their interpretation is the claim that the person is about 45 years old with trauma to the leg. The average age or lameness are not exclusive identification characteristics of Philip II. On the contrary the data from the excavation make the proposed identification unlikely. The man, whose bones were found in the tomb I could not be Philip II or any other member of the royal family. Apparently the tomb belongs to the woman. Her baby according to the first scholar who studied the bones, Professor J. Musgrave, was foetus or newborn, so it is likely that the woman died in childbirth. The link with a woman reinforces both the thematic of the wall paintings -Abduction of Persephone, Demeter, Moires- and the grave goods found in the tomb -fragments of jewellery, perfume bottles, marble seashells-shaped vessels and the complete lack of weapons or weapons fragments.

More exaggeration Andronikos says that only one broken marble shell was found, op cit loc cit. He also says that the tomb robbers would have left iron weapons, but these were not Greeks looting for gold and silver alone but Gauls who had a cult of the sword. The Persephone motif is alluding to life after death, men were also initiates at Eleusis so the equation will not hold.

It is not impossible that the woman was one of the first wives of the King of Macedon who is buried at the nearby Tomb II and identified by Manolis Andronikos with Philip II, an identification which is enhanced by all the latest excavation data from Aigai. Numerous explicit arguments, published in series of studies and articles from 2011 onwards by Greek and foreign archaeologists, historians and paleoanthropologists, like M. Hatzopoulos, A. Kottaridi, Robin Lane Fox, J. Musgrave et al. reinforce this identification with Philip II.

A list of those thinking otherwise would represent no stronger evidence, nor had these scholars the evidence of this leg.

The point that has to be answered is how did the individual with the fused limb
a) Survive
b) Escape infection
c) End up in Tomb I
Bartsiokis has to arrive at a better explanation of Philip II being buried uncremated.
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Re: ' The lameness of king Philip II .'

Post by Taphoi »

Matthew Amt wrote:
Taphoi wrote:...The skeleton was articulated, so had been deposited with flesh still in place.
The *knee* was articulated, or rather fused together. From what I'm seeing in the full PNAS article and its supplementary material, no, the rest of the bones and fragments were NOT "articulated". There was an obvious process by the investigators of fitting the loose bones together to establish how many individuals were represented, their sex, etc.
Yet it lay wholly within deposits associated with the robbing of the tomb many decades after its creation. If the woman and the newborn baby were the only bones lying entirely beneath the robbing deposits, then it follows that they are the only significant candidates for the original occupants.
From "The lameness of King Philip II and Royal Tomb I at Vergina, Macedonia" by Antonis Bartsiokasa, et al., PNAS Early Edition, July 20, 2015 :

"We have established the presence of three individuals: two adults (Individuals
1 and 2) and one newborn (Individual 3). The bones were partially covered by
a reddish-brown sediment. This sediment is mentioned as covering Tomb I
and having been deposited into it as well, after the tomb was plundered (9)
(SI Appendix, Text S1). The bones were found at the bottom of the talus
cone a couple of meters thick that was formed after a hole in the roof of the
Tomb was opened in ancient times after a horizontal tunnel was dug from
the Heroon (1). The bones were touching the floor or were very close to it (SI
Appendix, Text S1), indicating that they belong to the original occupants of
the Tomb."

Sorry, I'm not seeing bones at different elevations, there. Perhaps the original excavation report differs--not surprising since it also seems to have missed that tiny detail of the HOLE IN THE GUY'S KNEE...
The fact that the paintings have female themes...
"The Rape of Persephone", was it? Popular one with the ladies, is it?
If the Greek Ministry of Culture says in an official statement that the bones were articulated, I would tend to give them the benefit of the doubt. They would be in a position to know the facts.

Your quote from the paper does not really deny the clear assertion of the Ministry that there were 20cm of post-robbing deposits underlying the leg bones. If so, and if the bones were indeed articulated, then it is quite certain that the bones are not from an original occupant and are therefore not Philip II.

I think perhaps that you are appealing to modern attitudes to rape in implying that a queen of Macedon would not wish to be associated with a scene alluding to the abduction of Persephone by Hades, but since we know that a chariot containing Hades and Persephone was the principal decoration of the throne of a queen of Macedon found in the same cemetery and from the same period, I fear that your argument is demonstrably anachronistic.

Best wishes,
Andrew
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Re: ' The lameness of king Philip II .'

Post by system1988 »

Since I have the opportunity to translate the following, here is a summary of what Bartsiokas replied to the Ministry of Culture's announcement with which the Ministry dismissed his thesis.

I will be laconic

1) Philip II is indeed and without a doubt burried in Vergina.
2) Philip II is burried in tomb I not tomb II. This means that the armor found in tomb II leads us to the incerdible conclusion that the armor of tomb II belongs to Alexander the Great which was worn last by Arrideos who was burried with it.
3) The hole on the leg bone of Philip's skeleton was the result of the spear that hurt him there and is the greatest scientific find in Vergina and should be on display. Andronikos himslef said that the one who finds a lame leg inside a tomb, that tomb will be the one to belong to Philip
4) Our team's research was published in teh Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences magazines which is greatly respected

Antonis Bartsiokas,
Paleoanthropologist, President of the Department of History and Ethnology of the Demokritios University of Thrace


Here is the link to the original full text

http://www.sigmalive.com/news/greece/25 ... politismou

Anyone who wants to add more in English (i was indeed laconic) feel free to do so.
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Re: ' The lameness of king Philip II .'

Post by agesilaos »

Thanks system , Taphers, old boy you need to remove your cranium from your pelvic girdle and just look at the photos of the fully fused note FUSED not articulated femur and tibia then you can see that your faith in the Ministry is misplaced, your eyesight is normally quite acute, I would not wish to have to suggest that you visit an optician :D
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Re: ' The lameness of king Philip II .'

Post by Taphoi »

agesilaos wrote:
4. The bones of the deceased that this study attempts to link with Philip II, in particular the bones of the legs (shins and the ossicles of the foot) were not found on the floor of the tomb, like the bones of a woman and her neonate, but they were found about 20 cm higher of the original burial, on a layer containing stones and limestone fragments, within the soil of backfill that came into the grave after its looting.
Disturbed in the looting then; certainly a possibility. Nor does the description of how it was found match Bartsiokis’ Lacking the orignalexcavation report one is forced to choose between B, who certainly has an agenda, and the grossly inaccurate and biased rply from the Council, Hmmmh
The fact of finding bones in connection with each other, belonging to a shin , signifies "articulation", i.e. the presence of muscle tissue that hold them altogether, and eliminates the possibility that these bones came from the disturbance of the original burial
As Mathew has said and anyone can see the bones are fused, there was no need for skin and bone to hold them together. Clearly the Council have not seen ‘all of the bones found in the Tomb either!
(the woman's body was completely dissolved
Yet Bartsiokis identifies almost as much of the female skeleton as the male, neither had any flesh

and her bones were found mixed and gathered in two groups on the mortar of the floor). It is obvious that the body of the deceased to whom these bones belong are deposited or "rejected" in the grave after the looting of the tomb,

Yet not the man’s?
The PNAS paper says
The distal femur and the proximal tibia are fused together. The whole structure was found broken in two pieces that perfectly refit together: the upper part, which is mainly the left femur, and the lower part, which is mainly the outgrowth with the tibia.
The Greek Ministry says that the leg bones were found in contact in the correct position (articulated) just as they were reassembled by the PNAS researchers. If nevertheless there was a physical break between them, then they must have been fleshed when deposited onto the post-robbing layer. The Greek Ministry's point about articulation remains valid despite the fact that the bones are fused, because of the physical break between them. The Ministry appears to be alluding to foot bones having been articulated with the leg bones too.

The Greek Ministry's point is that the woman's and infant's bones had been scattered then gathered into two piles on the actual tomb floor. Therefore they were there before the post-robbing layers arrived in the tomb. Hence they were probably the original occupants.

Best wishes,

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Re: ' The lameness of king Philip II .'

Post by agesilaos »

Unfortunately the break has to be post mortem; no healing, hence perfect fit. That means any time post mortem maybe even post excavation. Nor can we believe a bald statement from the Council, unless it is confirmed by the original excavation report, which must surely have noted a conjoined fused femur and tibia with a hole through it and made the same connection as Bartsiokis; more likely the bones were NOT found articulated but separated and the connection not made; after all, they cannot be of the occupant as they were not cremated according to the prevalent theory.

There is just too much mis-information and poor thinking in this release for me to accept their statements uncritically. I think I have an early report somewhere, let us not get drawn into bickering and investigate the original excavation report; Andronikos can be trusted in his presentation of the finds, even if one might doubt his interpretation :shock:

That leg needs explaining.
When you think about, it free-choice is the only possible option.
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