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This Christmas I have posted a set of pdf's of several articles on Alexander's tomb written in Alexandria in the late 19th and early 20th centuries on my website http://www.alexanderstomb.com on the "Book Scans" page under the "Images" sub-menu.

1) An article on “Alexander the Great and His Tomb” by Evaristo Breccia, Director of the Graeco-Roman Museum in Alexandria (1904-1932), translated by me into English from the original Italian publication of June 1930 in La Lettura: Rivista mensile del Corriere della Sera.

2) Section of “L’Antique Alexandrie” by Mahmoud Bey El-Falaki on the subject of the Soma (Alexander’s tomb in Alexandria), published in 1872 (in French)

3) Section of “L’Ancienne Alexandrie” by the Alexandrian historian Neroutsos Bey on the subject of the Soma (Alexander’s tomb in Alexandria), published in 1888 (in French)

4) Alexandre-Max de Zogheb’s seminal chapter on Alexander’s tomb from his book of “Etudes sur L’Ancienne Alexandrie”, originally published in 1909, this edition 1912 (in French)

Best wishes,

Andrew

I have just finished reading a novel 'The Tomb of Alexander' by Sean Hemingway (grandson of Ernest).

He suggests that the body was removed from Alexandria in the middle of the 3rd century AD by an obscure Roman Emperor Trebonianus Gallus and placed in the Pantheon in Rome. From there, it was hidden by Pope Alexander VII in the 17th century in a secret chamber underneath the elephant and obelisk monument outside the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. Seems unlikely.

I wouldn't really recomend the novel to anyone. It doesn't seem to know what it is - thriller, semi-historial treatise (there are long passages of explanation), or personal memoir of time Hemingway (an archaeologist and curator at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art) spent excavating in Crete and visiting Rome. There is also some romantic rubbish thrown in, together with some stuff about reincarnation (and a fixation with coffee), that are not used to maximum dramatic effect.

Alexias wrote:I wouldn't really recomend the novel to anyone. It doesn't seem to know what it is - thriller, semi-historial treatise (there are long passages of explanation), or personal memoir of time Hemingway (an archaeologist and curator at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art) spent excavating in Crete and visiting Rome. There is also some romantic rubbish thrown in, together with some stuff about reincarnation (and a fixation with coffee), that are not used to maximum dramatic effect.

It won't be on my holiday reading list, then ...

Alexias wrote:I have just finished reading a novel 'The Tomb of Alexander' by Sean Hemingway (grandson of Ernest).

He suggests that the body was removed from Alexandria in the middle of the 3rd century AD by an obscure Roman Emperor Trebonianus Gallus and placed in the Pantheon in Rome. From there, it was hidden by Pope Alexander VII in the 17th century in a secret chamber underneath the elephant and obelisk monument outside the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. Seems unlikely.

Of course there is no evidence for this. Sean Hemingway is writing fiction, so inventiveness is welcome, although it is a pity that he has come up with a plot that contradicts known evidence insofar as Libanius wrote contemporaneously that Alexander's corpse was still on display in Alexandria over a century later in about AD390. It is a legitimate approach to ask the question of whether any ancient mummified corpses are reported to have appeared and been venerated in the middle of Alexandria just after the last mention of Alexander's body by Libanius. The answer is interesting in that just one such mummy appeared and apparently at the same time that the Emperor outlawed paganism throughout the Roman Empire in AD391-3, which made the worship of Alexander and his corpse illegal. That mummy ended up in Venice a few centuries later and is still there (is life stranger than fiction we may wonder?)

Alexias wrote:I wouldn't really recomend the novel to anyone. It doesn't seem to know what it is - thriller, semi-historial treatise (there are long passages of explanation), or personal memoir of time Hemingway (an archaeologist and curator at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art) spent excavating in Crete and visiting Rome. There is also some romantic rubbish thrown in, together with some stuff about reincarnation (and a fixation with coffee), that are not used to maximum dramatic effect.

There are quite a few other recent novels that involve the discovery of Alexander's tomb including The Venetian Betrayal by Steve Berry, which the author acknowledges to have been based on my own research.

Best wishes,

Andrew

When I shattered my elbow last year rugby tackling a motor car I picked up The Venetian Betrayal in the in hospital secondhand shop; I was immediately put off by the opening scene where Glaukias is pulled apart by trees at Babylon! One mistake may be considered unfortunate but two sheer carelessness. Well, this is three, if Glaukias was executed it was by hanging (or possibly crucifixion, the Greek can mean either) at Ecbatana the year before Babylon was reached for the second time.

Not a result of his research I'm sure; it's more of a James Bond world conspiracy set-up than anything more history based, did not make it to the Tomb, in fact, I don't think the chapter count reached double figures

I wonder if when St. John Chrysostom asks to "show me where is the tomb of Alexander", is it rhetorical flourish regarding Alexander's "god-hood" and the non-immortality of man against the eternity of Jesus's kingdom, or is it perhaps a more literal meaning with the body of Alexander having by then been removed from the Soma? Anyone familiar with when this sermon was said to be given (Corinthians)?