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Who Is Buried in Philip's Tomb?

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Who Is Buried in Philip's Tomb? HIST229x “Was Alexander Great?” Who is buried in Philip’s tomb? A Thought Exercise Before we follow Alexander across the Hellespont into Asia in search of the Persian King Darius, it is important to recount what happened in Macedon just after Philip’s death. This review is important because the events which followed the shocking murder of Philip II of Macedon in the theatre of Aegae bear directly on the answer to one of the most controversial archaeological questions of the 20th century: namely, who is buried in the astonishing tomb discovered by the Greek archaeologist Manolis Andronikos in Vergina (ancient Aegae) Macedon in November of 1977?1 The variety and beauty of the finely wrought armor, the small ivory portrait heads, and the exquisite gold crowns which Andronikos found in the tomb in 1977 brought to his mind the splendid gold masks and weapons discovered by the famous German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann in the shaft graves of Mycenae almost one hundred years before. Indeed, Andronikos’ altogether sensational finds aroused great interest both among archaeologists and the general public.2 Above all however, the two small funerary boxes made of gold (larnakes), which Andronikos discovered in the main chamber and ante-chamber of the tomb in Vergina captured the imaginations of both professional and amateur archaeologists. Each of the boxes had the characteristic radiate star of the Macedonian royal house carved on its top. Inside the smaller gold box were the bones of a young woman. The larger larnax held the bones of a man who had died when he was perhaps in his mid-forties. Whose bones were inside these extraordinary gold boxes in the tomb that Andronikos dated to the mid-to-late fourth century B.C.E.? Was the occupant of the main chamber of the tomb none other than Philip II of Macedon himself, the father of Alexander the Great? Or was it perhaps Philip’s son, Alexander’s half brother, Philip Arrhidaeus, who died in 317.? And who was the woman interred in the ante-chamber? Archaeologists, historians, and art historians have argued the case either for Philip II or Philip Arrhidaeus as the occupant of the main chamber in lengthy and learned articles and books ever since Andronikos’ discovery, and there is no sign that the scholarly controversy is abating.3 The identification of the woman interred in the smaller gold box has proved to be equally controversial. Andronikos himself originally guessed that the woman was Kleopatra, Philip’s last wife, but admitted that his guess was problematic in part because of the absence of jewelry in the antechamber.4 Other scholars, noting artifacts which showed that the woman buried in the ante-chamber was a warrior of some kind, have hypothesized that the woman was the daughter of a Scythian King, Atheas, who had been given to Philip in marriage.5 When the experts themselves disagree about such issues, the best procedure is to go back to the discovery and excavation of the tomb itself. The excavation The unplundered tomb Andronikos discovered in Vergina, now definitely identified as ancient Aegae, the capital of the Temenid Kings of Macedon, actually lay under the so-called Great Tumulus. The Great Tumulus was essentially a man-made mound of dirt fill, measuring 110 meters in diameter, with an elevation of about 12.5 meters. During the final days of the 1977 excavation season, after removing 18,000 cubic meters of earth from the Great Tumulus, Andronikos and his team noticed an older, smaller tumulus hidden under the southwest perimeter of the Great Tumulus.6 Digging deeper, Andronikos in fact discovered three structures next to one another. Two tombs were beneath the surface. The one above the surface was totally destroyed. Andronikos associated the structure which apparently had been destroyed in antiquity with the looting of the royal Macedonian tombs by Galatian mercenaries left at Aegae in 274/3. These Galatian mercenaries had been left as garrison troops by Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, who had invaded Macedonia, defeated Antigonas Gonatas, the then King of Macedon, (320-239), and captured many towns.7 The smaller of the two remaining tombs (3.5 x 2.09 meters) also had been plundered, but the frescoes on the upper parts of three of its walls were intact, and, to Andronikos’ eye, were of excellent quality. On the long, north wall was a depiction of “The Abduction of Persephone by Pluto”. Andronikos attributed this fresco to Nikomachos, one of the greatest Greek painters of the 4th century B.C.E.8 When Andronikos and his fellow excavators began to clear the wall of the neighboring structure (the third structure in the area of the southwest perimeter) they came upon a deposit of sherds, ashes, and burnt bones of small animals. The sherds, according to Andronikos, belonged to pots made before 320.9 Andronikos’ dating of these pottery sherds to the period before 320 was crucial to his attribution of the tomb to the burial of Philip II rather than that of Philip Arrhidaeus.10 On the façade of the tomb the excavators discovered a painted scene of a boar, and perhaps a lion hunt. Andronikos associated this painting with the fourth- century painter of a now-lost painting of Alexander’s victory at the battle of the Issos River.11 That lost fourth-century painting subsequently served as the artistic model and inspiration for the creation of the famous Alexander Mosaic (currently housed in the Archaeological Museum, Naples). The mosaic itself was executed by an unknown artist of c. 120-100 B.C.E. We will take a closer look at the Alexander Mosaic in our chapter about the battle of the Issos River. Realizing that it would be impossible to clear away all the earth from the entrance to the tomb before the end of the excavation season, Andronikos decided to enter the tomb from the top part of the door, acting upon the assumption that this barrel-vaulted tomb had been looted and that the door would be open. But it was not open, and thus Andronikos was delighted to learn that the tomb had not been looted. Andronikos therefore decided to enter the tomb through the keystone of the vault, as ancient tomb robbers frequently did. When the earth atop the vault was removed in the rear part of the roof, Andronikos discovered a mud-brick structure, which had collapsed under the weight of the dirt fill. In the pile of fill and debris Andronikos discovered two iron swords, the point of a sarissa (the long pike of the Macedonian infantryman) and many fragments of iron harnesses, all of which showed signs of burning. Andronikos speculated that the harnesses had been placed in a funerary pyre, and these remains brought to his mind the famous Homeric scene of Patroklos’ burial, where Achilles slung the bodies of four fine horses on the funeral pyre of his dear friend.12 The contents of the tomb Having removed the keystone of the vault on 8 November 1977, Andronikos then entered what turned out to be the main (larger, 4.46 x 4.46 m) chamber of the unplundered tomb. The coating of the walls of the main chamber appeared to be unfinished, as if it had been hurriedly applied. In the main chamber Andronikos then found essentially two groups of objects: bronze vessels and weapons in one corner and silver vessels in the other. On the floor there also was a pile of decomposed materials with interspersed sheets of gold and, directly below the opening, a rectangular marble slab, which covered a marble sarcophagus.13 Among the bronze vessels and weapons, Andronikos found many sarissae and javelin points of iron, as well as two greaves. There was also some sort of ceremonial shield and an iron helmet. The helmet had the typical crest of a Macedonian helmet and had a figure of Athena in relief on its front. There was a cuirass (metal breastplate) and a sword between the cuirass and the helmet, as well as a diadem of gold and silver and what appeared to be a scepter.14 Since Andronikos dated all of these finds to the period between 350 and 325, and only one Macedonian king died in Macedonia during this period, Andronikos immediately concluded that, if the deceased had been a king - and he had no doubt but that this was a royal tomb - the occupant of the tomb must be none other than Philip II, the father of Alexander the Great! Andronikos had found the tomb of one of the greatest kings in the entire history of the ancient world – a king who had raised Macedonia from the rank of a petty kingdom to that of the greatest and most glorious monarchy in the world.15 When Andronikos then removed the cover of the sarcophagus in the main chamber of the tomb he found a gold larnax measuring 40 cm. in length by 33.5 cm. in width, by 17 cm. in height (not counting its clawed feet). The gold larnax weighed c. 10.8 kilograms. On its cover there was a radiate star, the symbol of the Temenid royal house. Inside the larnax were cremated bones beneath a gold wreath of acorns and oak leaves.16 On top of some of the bones (and also underneath them) were the remains of some kind of purple cloth with which the bones apparently had been wrapped. In front of the sarcophagus Andronikos also discovered gold and ivory figures which had served as part of the decoration of some piece of wooden furniture.
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