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Fiona,

Sadly, I don't see either Perdiccas or Ptolemy being so sentimental.

Look at it this way, though. I doubt Alexander ever wanted to be forgotten. Any revelation about him would have been akin to a final victory--over the vagaries of time and the irrelevance it threatens with.

jan wrote:
Since he has so many inaccuracies I wonder if he is not trying to raise controversy amongst the followers of Alexander as Dan Brown did in his DaVinci Code. I don't think it will work

Certainly, we must not allow Steve Berry - or anyone else - to cause dissension in the ranks!
About the tombs, I'll come back to you on this, if I may, when I've finished the novel.
Fiona

Phoebus wrote: Look at it this way, though. I doubt Alexander ever wanted to be forgotten. Any revelation about him would have been akin to a final victory--over the vagaries of time and the irrelevance it threatens with.

That's a good point, Phoebus. I think you're right - he'd love being front-page news again, and any slight indignities suffered would be irrelevant compared to such a victory over time itself.
Thanks for that very cheering thought!
Fiona

I aim to please.

Gee, Fiona, I should have added spoiler, as I suppose that only in a book of fiction will anyone ever find Alexander's tomb...but as the mystery cannot be solved unless one finds the tomb, guess what...he has to have a conclusion...my point in that is that as King Alexander is a pharaoh of Egypt, I would expect to find him buried as one if such a thing were possible to find...

Gooch wrote:I know this post will be laughed at,but believe me a chance discovery was made recently I cant go into detail of the find spot but all I can say at present is that a sarcophagus was found which had a roofed lid , when this was removed the contents of the base was covered in glass, completly intact, this is the part you wont believe inside lay a body of a King which is in such state of preservasion similar to pictures of Stalin , I could not believe that I was possibly looking at the face of Alexander! Writers tell us that the gold sarcophagus was melted down to make coins and that his body was placed in a stone sarcophagus covered with glass. the embalming used on this King is unique to the world there are n other paralels.
I will give you a description of the hair and beard which looks to me to be a wig and false beard similar to depictions of the Archeminid Kings his eyes have been replaced with large semi precious stones and he wears a crown which has many white crystals and red and blue stones he also has a large golden fish with cuniform writing which has been placed on the chest, now you will ask Cuniform? well that is the mystery here but maybe they wanted to disguise the body so as to confuse.
there is much more to this but for now I will leave it at this please ask questions and I apologise that I can not go into to much detail at the mo but you must understand the importance of this discovery.

If this were true it would be exciting indeed, but as said before we don't know you since this is your first post and are skeptical. I would think something that major would be in the news. When you hear of discoveries from Egypt it's on the news pretty fast if it's something this big.

'Ware SPOILERS! (for the novel 'The Venetian Betrayal'.

jan wrote:but since you mentioned The Venetian Betrayal, you know that Alexander's tomb is the cause for the plot, and the need to find it. I read the description of the body when found, and am only too happy to realize that Steve Berry is as consistent with the legend of Alexander as he is with the story of Our Lady of Fatima in the book The Third Secret. His Catholic upbringing has caused him to at least confess the difference between the truth he copies, and the lies that he fabricates for his novels. So it is with Alexander and Hephaestion in this novel as everyone knows that Hephaestion was cremated on a pyre in the way that Achilles had been, and so Steve Berry's description of Alexander's body in the tomb is amusing to me.
But Hephaestion's tomb is even more amusing!

Hi Jan, I just remembered that I said I'd come back to you about the tombs when I'd finished the novel. I can see now why you could find it amusing - it's better than being annoyed by inaccuracies - and it does seem quite unbelievable that not only Alexander's body should have survived to be buried in this remote spot, but Hephaistion's too. And Steve Berry does, as you say, confess the difference between truth and lies - or could we just say fiction? - in his last section. That said, though, I have to admit I found the whole scene very moving and uplifting. It didn't annoy me or amuse me, just made me wish it might have been so. I admired the imagination that had gone into the furnishing of the scene - what wouldn't we give for just one of the treasures there described!
Also, I'd say that we don't know with 100% certainty that Hephaistion's body was cremated. Sure, it probably was - but if the pyra was intended as a lasting memorial, and not as something to be burned, then it's just possible that his body had been embalmed, ready for transfer to the place when it was finished. Then, when it wasn't finished, because Alexander's death brought a stop to all ongoing projects, then it's not impossible that Ptolemy could have got hold of the body, as he did Alexander's. I'm not saying this is likely! But from the point of view of a fiction writer, it's at least arguable as a possibility, and a lot more arguable than Alexander learning the secrets of life from the Scythians.
I enjoyed the book. It was a real page-turner, I thought it was very imaginative and well-crafted. The trouble with it was - and I'd say the same thing about 'The Alexander Cipher' - is that when these adventurers find the tomb, there's far too much going on! I feel like shouting, 'Oh, for goodness' sake, stop shooting each other! That's Alexander's tomb! Everybody keep still and let's savour the moment.'.
Fiona