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I still favour an Antigonid mausoleum.
You are taking my comments out of context by ignoring my preceding post in the thread where I wrote:amyntoros wrote:Taphoi wrote: It is just a bit strange to get your information on Hephaistion's funeral from just one of the half dozen accounts and the briefest account by a notoriously bad epitomator too. Here's an idea: why not ignore modern historical re-writes by people who have not even bothered to read all the ancient accounts of Hephaistion's funeral and go and read all the ancient accounts instead and make up your own mind about what happened?So ... you know for a fact that the gentleman Efstathios refers to - and presumably all modern historical writers who disagree with your viewpoint - "have not even bothered to read all the ancient accounts of Hephaistion's funeral"? I'd love to know how you know that? No, really ... I would.Taphoi wrote: ...
I also quote all the sources that I know of (in English translation) on the subject of the death and funeral of Hephaistion.
The Latin sources had the problem that Pyra in Greek means a) the funeral pyre, b) the monument to the dead on the site of the funeral pyre and c) a fire altar (possibly commemorating a dead hero). Precisely how you translated it was therefore slightly ambiguous. The Greek sources seem to have used it to mean all three things (sometimes simultaneously).
So it was McKechnie that I meant had specifically not read one of the sources on Hephaistion's funeral. And one that is crucial to the matter of the wall demolitions on which he bases his hypothesis too.Even McKechnie does not say that Hephaistion was not cremated: he just wants to relocate the event to Ecbatana, even though Arrian, Diodorus and Polyaenus all explicitly place the funeral in Babylon and no ancient account puts it in Ecbatana. The reason McKechnie wants to do this is that he thinks that the tearing down of a stretch of wall in Babylon to make the pyre base and the removal of crenellations from the battlements of Ecbatana must be the same event. But he does not reference (has not noticed?) Plutarch, Pelopidas 34, where it is clear that the battlements were wrecked as a parallel to the hair shearing to make them look as dishevelled as the mourners and that it had nothing to do with building a pyre base.
Though generally as a result of mixing chemistry with physics! Prof. Mavroyiannis did say that this depends on how one translates the text. So he is aware of the translation issue. He made a hypothesis. I only quoted what he said. But tumulunque does not translate into pyra, if that was the case then tumulus that is the english word derived from the latin could also have the meaning of pyra, but you don't use that word do you? A tumulus is a mound of earth raised and stones raised above a tomb. In this case the original translator from latin to english did not "say" pyre but tomb. And it doesn't really matter who is the source as we are talking about a certain wording here that probably has nothing to do with the credibility of the author. We know that a "book" about Alexander's and Hephaestion's burials existed but it has not survived the ages. So Justin could have used that as his source for Hephaestion's tomb.Nevertheless, there is a suspicion that somebody who is choosing to highlight Justin as their principal source on Hephaistion's funeral and has not realised that he is translating pyra rather arbitrarily as tumulus has not properly read all the relevant material before pronouncing.
On the Amphipolis remains, there was the following news info on the 14th concerning moving the skeleton:Zebedee wrote:Prof. Brown and co. are very competent at dealing with ancient DNA. Prof.Brown very literally has written the textbook.Taphoi wrote: Hopefully, the people organising the DNA investigations understand the need to take DNA swabs of everyone who has handled the remains in order to build confidence that some random individual's DNA is not reported as belonging to Philip's family or the family of the Amphipolis tomb occupant.
So yes, everyone involved in the Amphipolis excavation/exhumation is obviously very competent. Didn't think it was in doubt.The discovery of a skeleton in the tomb at Amphipolis, at the last moment monopolized interest, obscuring the difficult task of the excavation team that uncovered the find.
The process to remove the bones and fragments was a very difficult undertaking, with the bone matter being treated surgically to avoid any contamination.
The bones were removed along with the surrounding soil, so that they would not be touched by human hands. The team members wore surgical gloves and took care to place the bones with the surrounding soil on trays that were then covered in plastic, and then taken to Amphipolis museum.
The bones will not be cleaned there, but at a specialized laboratory that will undertake to decode the DNA in order to synthesize some profile of the deceased.
According to statements by culture minister Kostas Tasoulas the examination of the skeleton from Amphipolis will be undertaken by a team of Greek scientists.
