While surveying a Swiss bog, two volunteer archaeologists discovered what may be two of the oldest Celtic coins ever found in the country, and they may have been offerings to ancient gods.

The two gold coins were minted almost 2,300 years ago, around the mid-third century B.C. "This makes them part of a very small group of just over 20 known examples of the oldest Celtic coins from Switzerland," Swiss archaeologists said in a translated statement released Dec. 18.

One coin is a stater that weighs 0.28 ounces (7.8 grams), and the other is a one-fourth stater with a weight of 0.06 ounces (1.86 grams). The term "stater" derives from ancient Greek coins. As mercenaries, the Celts of mainland Europe were increasingly given Greek coins as payment at the end of the fourth century B.C. These coins later served as inspiration for Celtic coinage at the beginning of the third century B.C., when the imitation started, as noted in the statement.

In this case, gold staters minted during the reign of Philip II of Macedon, the father of Alexander the Great, were imitated. Both coins showcase the profile of the Greek god Apollo on the "heads" side (obverse) and a two-horse chariot on the "tails" side (reverse).

However, the two newfound coins were modified slightly from their Greek originals. For example, on the smaller one's reverse, a triple spiral can be seen beneath the horses. This symbol, known as a triskele (also called a triskelion), appears frequently in Celtic art.

The rare coins were unearthed largely on a hunch. Between 2022 and 2023, volunteer archaeologists with Archaeology Baselland, the local archaeological department, discovered 34 Celtic silver coins found in the same area — the Bärenfels bog near the municipality of Arisdorf. This prompted Wolfgang Niederberger and Daniel Mona, also volunteer archaeologists with Archaeology Baselland, to do follow-up investigations there in spring 2025, when they discovered the two gold coins, according to the statement.

Offerings for the gods?

It's possible these two coins were deposited as an offering to the gods, according to the statement.

"Experts assume that Celtic gold coins were not used for everyday transactions. They were too valuable for that," the statement noted. Including salary payments, they may also have been used as diplomatic gifts, gifts to followers, to achieve political goals, or as dowries.

Celtic coins are frequently found near moors and bodies of water. This pattern is also evident in Arisdorf, where water-filled sinkholes form the Bärenfels bog. The Celts considered such places to be sacred and dedicated to gods, so it seems reasonable to assume that the coins were deliberately placed there as offerings, the statement noted.

Both coins will go on display together, along with the silver coins from the same site, in a special showcase in Basel starting in March 2026.

Celtic quiz: Test your knowledge about these fierce tribes once described by Julius Caesar

Workers at the Egyptian port city of Alexandria have recovered 22 massive stone blocks that were used thousands of years ago to build the city's famous lighthouse, one of the wonders of the ancient world.

The stone blocks were raised from the harbor floor at Alexandria, on the southeastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, and will now be studied and digitally scanned. The results will be added to digital records of more than 100 stones discovered underwater over the past decade, according to a statement from the Dassault Systems Foundation, one of the project's sponsors.

The research is led by French archaeologist and architect Isabelle Hairy and brings together the expertise of historians, archaeologists, architects and engineers to create a virtual 3D model of the ancient lighthouse, which had already been badly damaged by earthquakes when it collapsed in the 14th century.

The recently recovered stones include pieces of a huge doorway that weighed "70 to 80 tons," according to the statement. The workers also recovered parts of a massive Egyptian-style "pylon," or ceremonial gateway, that may have been a monument.

Ancient wonder

The Lighthouse of Alexandria — also known as the Pharos of Alexandria, after a small island at the mouth of the harbor where it stood — was built in about 280 B.C. on the orders of the Egyptian king Ptolemy II Philadelphus (who had been born in Macedonia) mainly to guide approaching ships safely to the harbor.

The city was founded by and named after the Macedonian king Alexander the Great, who seized Egypt from the Persian Empire in 332 B.C. Alexandria then became the Egyptian capital under the Hellenistic (Greek) Ptolemaic dynasty of pharaohs (the first, known as Ptolemy I Soter, had been one of Alexander's most trusted generals) and one of the wealthiest cities in the ancient world.

Related: Was Alexander the Great eaten by sharks? Inside the wild theories for what happened to the iconic ruler's body.

Alexandria's lighthouse was a technological marvel for its time. According to the statement, it was more than 328 feet (100 meters) high, making it one of the tallest structures in the ancient world, with a multitiered design of a square base, an octagonal middle section and a cylindrical top.

Its light was produced by a large fire, probably fueled by wood or oil, and it formed a concentrated beam that could be seen up to 30 miles (50 kilometers) away, according to ancient writers. The beam of light seems to have been created by reflecting the lighthouse fire with large, polished metal surfaces, perhaps of bronze or copper — although they have not survived, and little is known about them.

The Lighthouse of Alexandria was one of the ancient "wonders of the world" — a designation bestowed by ancient Greek writers. It was "highly celebrated" by the time of Pliny the Elder (lived A.D. 23 to 79) during the Roman Empire, who wrote about the lighthouse hundreds of years after it had been built.

Digital twin

The ruins of the Lighthouse of Alexandria were discovered underwater in 1994 by French archaeologist Jean-Yves Empereur, and the latest work at the site is the third research project there by academics from France.

Instead of physically rebuilding the collapsed lighthouse, however, the researchers are making a virtual reconstruction, or "digital twin," based on what they can learn from the ruins and historical records.

The newly recovered stone blocks will be digitally scanned, and the data will be given to volunteer engineers from the Dassault Systems Foundation, who will attempt to position them correctly in the reconstruction — "like pieces of a giant archaeological puzzle," according to the statement.

In addition to testing theories about its construction and collapse, the virtual model will "revive the lighthouse's original grandeur, allowing visitors to explore it as if they were on site," the statement said.

Ancient Egypt quiz: Test your smarts about pyramids, hieroglyphs and King Tut

A grand tomb that may have been built for Alexander the Great's best friend and bodyguard around 2,300 years ago has an astronomical secret: Its burial chamber is aligned so that sunlight enters it on the winter solstice, a new study proposes.

However, not everyone agrees with this interpretation. Some experts note that the ancient Macedonians used a lunisolar calendar, meaning the winter solstice's date would have moved from year to year.

The tomb, now called the Kasta monument (also known as the Kasta tomb or Kasta tumulus), is near the ancient city of Amphipolis in northern Greece. In 2014, archaeologists excavated the tomb's burial chamber and found the skeletal remains of at least five people. For whom the monument was built is a matter of debate, but Hephaestion (also spelled Haphaestion), whose death in 324 B.C. sent Alexander the Great into severe grief, is considered a leading candidate by some scholars.

In the new study, independent researcher Demetrius Savvides created a 3D model of the tomb and used Stellarium, an astronomical program that tracks how the positions of the sun and stars change over time, to re-create what the sky around the tomb looked like in 300 B.C.

He found that on Dec. 21, the date of the winter solstice, the sun's light would have fully illuminated the burial chamber between approximately 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. local time, Savvides wrote in a study published May 15 in the Nexus Network Journal.

Related: Was Alexander the Great eaten by sharks? Inside the wild theories for what happened to the iconic ruler's body.

Sunlight reaches other parts of the monument at different times, he found. Around late July, it touches the entrance. Throughout autumn, the sunlight gradually travels on and near two carved sphinxes and finally passes between them, fully illuminating the burial chamber on the winter solstice.

"It is highly probable that rituals were held within or in close proximity to the Kastas Monument, particularly on and around the winter solstice," Savvides told Live Science in an email.

Initially, when the tomb was being built, it had no orientation to the winter solstice. But during its construction, the design was changed to create the solstice alignment, Savvides wrote in the paper. An alignment like this would have symbolized "themes of renewal, life, and cosmic order," Savvides said in the email.

These themes are also seen in the tomb decoration, which shows a mosaic of Persephone, a goddess of vegetation and agriculture who is also queen of the underworld, Savvides noted. In addition, the tomb has a possible depiction of Cybele, a goddess who was associated with birth and fertility and was married to Attis, a god also associated with vegetation who died and was resurrected.

A link to Alexander's tomb?

One interesting question this research raises is whether Alexander the Great's tomb, which was constructed in Alexandria, had a burial chamber with an alignment like this, Savvides said. "The use of solar illumination and a consistent geometric design aligns with Hellenistic traditions where rulers, like Alexander the Great, used solar symbolism to reinforce their authority," Savvides said.

"If we were to locate Alexander's tomb, it might resemble the Kastas Monument," Savvides said. Alexander's tomb has never been found and might be underwater or underneath Alexandria.

Juan de Lara, a researcher at the University of Oxford who has investigated the alignments of ancient Greek buildings, had mixed reactions to the research.

"I think it's great that scholars are asking these questions and using this technology to generate new ideas. In the case of the tomb, the researcher presented daring hypotheses," de Lara told Live Science in an email. "However, we must remember to be very careful when relating such findings to 'solar' events, as the Macedonians used a lunisolar calendar — meaning that the dates shifted from year to year."

In other words, their winter solstice would have fallen on a different day each year, meaning this day of illumination might have been difficult to observe annually as the day changed. Additionally, de Lara noted that northern Greece is very cloudy in the winter and the effect may not have been noticeable.

Alexander the Great quiz: How well do you know the famous king and conqueror from the ancient world?

Archaeologists in Israel have discovered a 2,300-year-old gold ring set with a red gemstone — likely a garnet — that a youngster may have ritually buried as they left behind childhood and transitioned into adulthood.

The small ring dates to the Hellenistic, or Greek, period, and was found in the City of David in the Jerusalem Walls National Park. This is the second gold ring from the early Hellenistic period that archaeologists have found there in less than a year.

"This jewelry discovered now was likely buried then in the context of a well-known practice of that period, which symbolized the transition from childhood to adulthood," researchers with the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) and Tel Aviv University said in a statement.

Archaeologists found the ring during a routine dig.

"We sifted the dirt through a sieve, right near the excavation area, and suddenly Ben, who works with me, pulls a gold ring out of the dirt," Rivka Lengler, a City of David excavator, said in the statement. "At first, he was sure it must be a modern item dropped by one of our excavators, but when I examined the ring, I immediately assessed it as something ancient."

Related: Ancient 'hangover prevention' ring found in Israel

The archaeological layer in which the ring was found dates to the late third or early second century B.C., also known as the Second Temple period, which lasted while the Second Temple stood in Jerusalem from about 516 B.C. to A.D. 70, when the Romans destroyed it. This layer has yielded other valuable artifacts, including bronze earrings, a gold earring with a depiction of a horned animal, and a decorated gold bead.

The newfound ring was unearthed in the foundations of a large building, suggesting that whoever lived there was wealthy, the researchers said in the statement. And the fact that t several precious artifacts have been found in the area suggests that whoever buried them may have been following a custom.

"That the two small rings and the rest of the jewelry were all discovered under the building's floors raises the possibility that they were buried there on purpose," Marion Zindel, an archaeologist with the IAA who analyzed the ring, said in the statement.

The ring may have been buried as part of a coming-of-age ritual, which was a "well-known Hellenistic period custom," she said. "Betrothed women would bury jewelry and other childhood objects in the house foundations as a symbol of the transition from childhood to adulthood," Zindel explained.

The ring's gemstone also fits into trends from that time.

"Jewelry that combines gold with brightly colored precious stones, such as the garnet stone, were well-known from this period, in which fashion was influenced by Eastern countries such as India and Persia," the researchers said in the statement. "These fashionable influences were enabled thanks to Alexander the Great's conquests, and the consequent trade channels opening with these regions."

This is far from the only Hellenistic finding in Israel linked to Alexander the Great. In 2023, archaeologists announced they had found the roadside burial of a Greek courtesan who had been buried with an ornate bronze mirror. Researchers believe this woman was accompanying the Macedonian king's armies when she died 2,300 years ago.

An ancient tomb in Greece does not hold the remains of Philip II, the father of Alexander the Great, as some scholars think it does, a new study suggests. Instead, it contains the remains of a younger man who died before Philip II did, archaeologists propose.

The study, published in the July 2025 issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science, also revealed that the tomb is the burial place of a young woman and six infants. Prior to this study researchers knew of the existence of the man, woman and at least one infant in the tomb.

Archaeologists have long scrutinized the tomb, which was discovered in 1977 at the site of Vergina (also called Aigai), in northern Greece. Known as "Tomb I," it is located beneath a large tumulus (burial mound) that has a shrine on top. It's near several other tombs, which are thought to hold other members of Alexander the Great's family.

Some scholars have suggested that Tomb I held the burial of Philip II, although many other scholars believe that he was most likely buried in Tomb II, which was not studied in the newly published paper.

Given that Tomb I has no doorway and was sealed off in ancient times, it's likely that the man and woman were buried together, at the same time, the researchers noted. Radiocarbon dating of their remains indicates that the man and woman lived sometime between 388 and 356 B.C., the researchers wrote in the paper.

An analysis of their bones and teeth suggested that the man in the tomb was between 25 and 35 years old at the time of his death. Philip II, in comparison, was assassinated in 336 B.C., at about age 46. This suggests that the man buried in Tomb I is not Philip II, the researchers wrote in their paper.

The researchers also used radiocarbon dating to find that at least six infants were placed in the tomb sometime between 150 B.C. and A.D. 130, at a time when the Roman Republic or Roman Empire controlled the region. The dates mean that the infants are likely not related to the man or woman, the researchers wrote.

"There is evidence that disposing dead infants in old tombs, wells or underground voids is not an uncommon practice in the Roman period," study lead researcher Yannis Maniatis, a researcher at the laboratory of archaeometry, of the National Center of Scientific Research Demokritos in Greece, told Live Science in an email.

The tomb was robbed in ancient times, and the people who lived in the area would have seen the openings left by robbers and decided to use them for the burial of infants, the researchers wrote.

Who were the man and woman buried in the tomb?

The team's finds leave a number of questions unanswered. Namely, the researchers wondered, who are the man and woman buried in the tomb? To investigate, the team did a strontium and stable carbon analysis of the skeletal and tooth remains, which can provide information on a person's diet and where they lived as a child.

The man likely spent his childhood away from the Macedonian capital of Pella, which is about 20 miles (32 kilometers) northeast of Vergina, the isotopic tests revealed. The woman — who died between the ages of 18 and 25, according to an anatomical analysis — likely spent her childhood living in or near Pella. Although their identities remain unknown, the tomb's opulence indicates that they were elite.

"We assume that he must be a Macedon King who ruled and died decades before Philip II's assassination," Maniatis said. It's unclear which king that was, but candidates include Alexander II (reigned circa 370 to 368 B.C.) and Perdiccas III (reigned from 365 to 359 B.C.), the team wrote in the study. Both rulers had tumultuous reigns that dealt with war and infighting within the ancient kingdom of Macedon.

Where is Philip II buried?

Maniatis said the team is not certain where Philip II is buried. Many scholars have suggested that Tomb II at Vergina holds his cremated remains. Previous research done by other scholars has shown that Tomb II is a "two-chamber vaulted tomb found unlooted, with all the grave goods intact, containing the cremated remains of a male" who was around 44 years old when he died, Maniatis noted. However, he emphasized that Tomb II was not studied as part of this paper.

Antonis Bartsiokas, a professor emeritus of physical anthropology and paleoanthropology at the Democritus University of Thrace and one of the researchers who has suggested Philip II is buried in Tomb I, told Live Science that he and other supporters of this theory will reply in a journal article of their own and don't want to comment further at this time.

"We are going to answer first to the journal," Bartsiokas told Live Science in an email.

Alexander the Great quiz: How well do you know the famous king and conqueror from the ancient world?

Archaeologists working in North Macedonia may have discovered the remains of Lyncus, an ancient city that was the capital of the Kingdom of Lyncestis.

More analysis is needed to support the finding but, if confirmed, the discovery could reveal the location of the place where Alexander the Great's paternal grandmother was born.

Lyncestis was a small kingdom that flourished in North Macedonia, which was incorporated into the Macedonian Empire during the reign of King Philip II (359 to 336 B.C.). Eurydice I of Macedon, the mother of Philip II and grandmother of Alexander (who reigned from 336 to 323 B.C.), was likely born in Lyncus, according to historical accounts.

Archaeologists have known about the site, located near the village of Crnobuki, since 1966, and it was initially believed to be a military outpost rather than a city, according to a statement from California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt (Cal Poly Humboldt).

It wasn't until 2023 that a team of researchers conducted a lidar (light detection and ranging) survey, using aerial drones equipped with lasers to create a map of the site's topography. This technique can penetrate foliage covering an archaeological site and has been widely used throughout the world.

The survey revealed that the city had an acropolis that's at least 7 acres (2.8 hectares) in size. Besides the remains of a textile workshop and what appears to be a theater, the archaeologists also found a variety of artifacts, including pottery, coins, game pieces and even a theater ticket made of clay.

Until now, researchers thought that the city was built long after Alexander the Great's death, during the reign of Philip V (221 to 179 B.C.). But the discovery of a coin minted between 325 and 323 B.C. indicates that it was in use during Alexander's lifetime, according to the statement.

Moreover, the team of archaeologists unearthed axes and fragments of ceramic vessels at the site, which shows that this site has been occupied by humans as far back as the Bronze Age (3300 to 1200 B.C.). They plan to continue excavation.

The site's discovery may shed more light on an influential kingdom. Engin Nasuh, a curator at Macedonia's National Institute and Bitola Museum and one of the lead archaeologists, said in the statement that ancient Macedonia was "a civilization that played a major role in today's understanding of the world and the desire to connect different civilizations and cultures."

Editor's note: This story was first published on April 11, 2025.

Alexander the Great quiz: How well do you know the famous king and conqueror from the ancient world?

When Alexander the Great died in 323 B.C., 13 years after building one of the world's largest empires, he left what would become one of the biggest unsolved mysteries in archaeology.

Researchers have hotly debated where Alexander the Great is buried, with theories ranging from his homeland in Macedonia (now Greece) to Egypt.

Like the Holy Grail or the Ark of the Covenant, the tomb has taken on a mythical status that has captivated many archaeologists over the years.

"As long as his tomb isn't found, he lives on in a quasi-mystical limbo, forever sparking new ideas and theories and controversies," Nicholas Saunders, a professor emeritus in the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom and author of the book "The Life of Alexander the Great" (Brighter Child, 2006), told Live Science in an email.

Hundreds have hunted for the tomb, to no avail.

"I remember in 1963 when I was a student at Alexandria University, there was a Greek man who was doing excavations near the [train] station," Zahi Hawass, an archaeologist, Egyptologist and Egypt's former minister of antiquities, told Live Science. "I used to go and see his excavations. He found nothing, but he stayed five years, searching."

But have archaeologists made any progress on finding the tomb? Calliope Limneos-Papakosta, director and founder of the Hellenic Research Institute of Alexandrian Civilization, who is currently excavating in Alexandria, Egypt, thinks she's close.

The tomb may be hidden beneath the streets of modern-day Alexandria, at the intersection of two ancient thoroughfares, she said. An intriguing Hellenistic statue and other signs of ancient quarters from the right period point to a very promising location.

"I am at the crossroads, and I believe that I have more possibilities to find the tomb than anybody else," Limneos-Papakosta told Live Science.

Why finding the tomb is so difficult

One reason the tomb still hasn't been found is because Alexander's body was moved, and so he was buried more than once.

In addition, historical records of the tomb are scarce and were often written hundreds of years after the events they describe. Each of those sources had a political agenda or bias, said Paul Cartledge, a professor emeritus of Greek culture at the University of Cambridge.

"So, you have to take everything with a large pinch of salt," Cartledge, author of "Alexander the Great" (Overlook Press, 2004), told Live Science.

Compounding the difficulty is that there are no clear images of the tomb that could guide archaeological searches, Saunders added.

Finally, the modern city of Alexandria was largely built over the original.

"Modern Alexandria, especially the downtown area, was built completely above ancient monuments," Hawass said. "The theater was found while they were building houses. And catacombs were also found."

To find the tomb, archaeologists would have to dig up places where people live and work today, which is challenging without strong evidence that something important lies beneath.

What we know about Alexander's death and burial

We know from historians like Plutarch that, at age 32, Alexander died sometime between the evening of June 10 and the morning of June 11, 323 B.C., in Babylon (modern-day Iraq). His cause of death is controversial, with some proposing he died of diseases such as typhus or malaria or from drinking poisoned wine, and others arguing he was assassinated. (A few people even think he was declared dead prematurely.)

Related: How did Alexander the Great die?

Regardless of what killed Alexander, his body was mummified. Ptolemy I Soter, a Macedonian Greek general who was Alexander's close friend and bodyguard, was instrumental in moving the body.

"His corpse was taken en route via the Middle East through what is now Iraq to what's now Syria," Cartledge said. From there, over two years, it would travel almost 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) to Egypt.

Ptolemy had an agenda: Alexander had left no clear political heir (although his wife Roxana was pregnant with his son and he may have had an illegitimate heir), and building a tomb for Alexander was a way to cement Ptolemy's position as the legitimate successor to the Macedonian king, Cartledge said.

Alexander's body was then shipped to the Valley of the Kings near Luxor, Egypt, where many of the New Kingdom pharaohs were buried, while the newly founded city of Alexandria was being built.

"In 305 B.C., 18 years after he died, Alexander's corpse was brought to Alexandria, by which time there's a royal court, a palace and a museum," Cartledge said. "Having Alexander buried there would have been the icing on the cake" for the nascent city.

A few decades later, accounts by Greek geographer Strabo suggest Ptolemy IV Philopator, the fourth pharaoh of Ptolemaic Egypt and the great-grandson of Ptolemy I, moved Alexander's body to its final documented resting place: Soma, Alexandria's great mausoleum, according to the book "Alexander's Tomb: The Two Thousand Year Obsession to Find the Lost Conqueror" (Basic Books, 2006).

Related: 2nd-century Alexander the Great statue with lion's-mane hairstyle unearthed in Turkey

It was still there around 300 years later, when the first Roman emperor, Augustus (reigned 27 B.C. to A.D. 14), visited Alexandria.

"He was desperate to view the corpse of Alexander," Cartledge said. "Apparently it was so visible that when he bent down, he knocked the corpse's nose off."

After that, the historical record makes no reference to the tomb for hundreds of years. "It disappears from mention around A.D. 500," Cartledge said.

Big gaps in the timeline

What happened to the tomb during the large gaps in the historical record has been a source of fevered speculation and even outright conspiracy theories ever since. These time spans also make it difficult to focus on specific theories about the tomb's current location.

Saunders thinks these interludes in the timeline are strange.

"It was only some 300 years after Alexander's death that we get an account [of the tomb]," while most records come from 600 years later, Saunders told Live Science in an email. "So, what happened in the intervening period? Why the silence?"

For hundreds of years, the tomb was a "very well-known pilgrimage center across the ancient Mediterranean world," he added, so at the time, the "location was not a secret."

So it's possible that no one bothered to describe the tomb's location because everyone knew where it was. There also may have been a rivalry between Christians flocking to Christ's tomb and pagans worshipping at Alexander's tomb. So once Christianity had the upper hand, Church fathers may have "made sure traces of the tomb were removed/damaged/destroyed so that Christ's tomb could then become the preeminent pilgrimage center of the ancient world," Saunders said.

Limneos-Papakosta thinks the site's location may have been lost during the Alexandrian Crusade in 1365, which ransacked the city, though no historical records suggest the tomb or actual body was destroyed, she said. However, one possibility is tied to the worship cult that arose around Alexander the Great. While it ostensibly died out thousands of years ago, there may have been people left in Alexandria who, during the crusade, still felt called to protect Alexander's remains from the incoming crusaders, who would have despised the worship of pagan gods.

"I believe that the priesthood around the cult of Alexander protected the tomb," Limneos-Papakosta said. "He was considered a god, and they tried to protect him when they realized that destruction was coming by Christians. I believe that they hid his body and sarcophagus."

Because Alexander's last known resting place was in Alexandria, most researchers agree that his tomb is likely hidden somewhere in the Egyptian city.

"Alexander is buried in Alexandria, and we are sure about that because in the first century A.D., we have information about visitors to the tomb, including Roman emperors like Julius Caesar," Limneos-Papakosta told Live Science. "So, we know that the tomb was there."

But exactly where in Alexandria is the question.

Shallalat Gardens

Limneos-Papakosta has one theory. During a 2009 excavation, she discovered a sculpture of Alexander, according to an article she wrote for Newsweek.

"It was our last day at the site, and we were ready to end the season," she said. "But then we found the sculpture. It was kind of a miracle."

Topographical maps and ancient sources suggest the area where the statue was found is close to where his tomb was once located, Limneos-Papakosta said, and her team has been excavating in the area ever since. Now, she thinks she's getting close, narrowing it down to the Shallalat Garden area of modern-day Alexandria, located near the Alexandria National Museum, which contains the remnants of the city's walls. Ancient sources suggest the royal quarters were in this location during antiquity, she said, yet they had never been excavated, she said.

The dig site is next to a former ancient intersection mentioned by second-century Greek writer Achilles Tatius, who describes the tomb's location.

"He wrote that it was a few hundred meters west of the intersection of Alexandria's two main broad streets," she said. Thanks to the current excavations, "we already knew of one of the broad streets [known as Canopic Street], but now we know of the second, Royal Street."

Under the sea

But others think Limneos-Papakosta is on the wrong track.

Cartledge, for his part, speculates that the body must have been housed inside a large mausoleum that was part of a royal complex. And he thinks the royal quarters were located in a different location than Papakosta-Limneos does.

"A mausoleum conveys the notion that it's a very solid structure that should be locatable," Cartledge said. "The one in Rome, Augustus' mausoleum, is completely visible. Why isn't the mausoleum of Alexander visible? The simple answer is that the Brucheum of Alexandria, where the royal quarters were, abutted the sea," Cartledge said. (The Brucheum was a particular quarter of Alexandria.)

But sea levels have risen several meters since the time of Alexander, historical maps suggest, so large swaths of the historical city, including the royal quarters, probably sit underwater.

In recent years, divers have explored the city's coastline and found pieces that could belong to ancient structures.

But even if a mausoleum is found, there's no guarantee a body would be inside. "Unless he was in a coffin that preserved his body, he will never be found," Cartledge said. "My guess is that his body could've been eaten by a shark."

Mazarita district

Saunders thinks the tomb is still on dry land, likely beneath the bustling streets of the modern Mazarita district, an area that was once the ancient city's hub and housed its palaces.

"Unless and until new building projects require demolition and clearance to a deep level, it is unlikely to be discovered," Saunders said. "For me, it is all but inconceivable it could be anywhere else."

Hawass doesn't have one site in mind, but he's optimistic that the tomb will be found one day.

"Can we say that the tomb can be discovered?" Hawass said. "Yes."

But it probably won't be found by archaeologists who are searching for it. The theater, catacombs and many of ancient Alexandria's monuments were found by accident, thanks to modern construction.

"The tomb will never be discovered by scholars — at all," Hawass said. "I really believe that by accident one day, the tomb of Alexander the Great will be discovered."

Alexander the Great died in June 323 B.C. in Babylon, in what is now Iraq, at age 32. By that time, he had conquered an empire that stretched from the Balkans to India. This empire collapsed shortly after his death, with his generals and officials carving it up into different kingdoms.

But how did Alexander the Great die? The answer has been a long-standing mystery in history and archaeology, but historical texts provide a few possibilities.

Related: Was Alexander the Great eaten by sharks? Inside the wild theories for what happened to the iconic ruler's body.

There are a number of ancient accounts of Alexander's death, but most come from centuries later. The writers Plutarch (who lived circa A.D. 46 to 120) and Arrian (who lived circa A.D. 88 to 160) both said that after a night of drinking, Alexander had a fever that gradually worsened in the days leading up to his death. An account written by Diodorus Siculus (who lived during the first century B.C.) claims that Alexander fell seriously ill after drinking and died shortly afterward.

Quintus Curtius Rufus, a writer who lived in the first century A.D., reiterates that Alexander died shortly after a night of drinking. Curiously, he stated that seven days after Alexander's death, his body had shown no sign of decay.

However, the surviving accounts of Alexander's death were written centuries after he died.

"We can never take our sources completely at face value, in part because all our surviving biographies about Alexander were composed hundreds of years after he died," Jeanne Reames, director of the ancient Mediterranean studies program at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, told Live Science in an email.

The ancient writers had access to "sources that were closer to the time — and which have since become lost — but they were not 'cut-and-pasting,'" Reames said, noting that all of the ancient writers and the sources they used had their own agendas.

What killed Alexander?

The mystery of what killed Alexander the Great is complicated by another factor: His body has never been found. That means there's little physical evidence that scientists can study to figure out how he died.

However, modern-day scholars have provided a wide range of theories to explain what killed Alexander. In a paper published in 2019 in the journal Ancient History Bulletin, Katherine Hall, a senior lecturer at the Dunedin School of Medicine at the University of Otago in New Zealand, proposed that Alexander the Great died of Guillain-Barré syndrome, a neurological disorder in which a person's immune system attacks their peripheral nervous system.

This condition could have left Alexander in a deep coma, which ancient doctors may have mistaken for death, Hall noted, adding that this may have been why Alexander's body didn't decay for so long. She also noted that accounts written by Plutarch and Arrian claim that Alexander was cognizant enough to be issuing orders until shortly before he fell unconscious. This is also common in people who have this disorder, Hall noted.

Another theory is that Alexander died of typhoid fever, a disease caused by the bacterium Salmonella enterica Typhi. The illness described by Plutarch and Arrian is similar to that of typhoid fever, Ernesto Damiani, a professor of physiopathology at the University of Padova in Italy, told Live Science in an email. Some historical records also suggest that at times, Alexander was in a stupor, which is "a state of drowsiness from which the subject can be awakened by elementary stimuli such as questions but into which he immediately falls again," Damiani said, noting that this is also commonly seen in typhoid fever patients.

Reames notes that Alexander's general health "was poor, thanks to multiple wounds, including one that almost killed him in India and probably left him with a partially collapsed lung." While his general health was poor Reames thinks that Typhoid fever is the best culprit for this death with malaria also being a possibility.

There are many more theories as to what killed Alexander, including pancreatitis, West Nile virus and chronic traumatic encephalopathy.

Was Alexander the Great poisoned?

Another theory is that Alexander was poisoned. Adrienne Mayor, a research scholar at Stanford University who has written extensively about Alexander, thinks this is the most likely cause of death. "Poisoning was immediately suspected by [Alexander's] closest companions, according to all the ancient historians who described [Alexander's] death" Mayor told Live Science in an email, noting that Alexander's mother, Olympia, also believed that he was poisoned.

Historical records don't mention anyone else falling ill, Mayor said. If Alexander had an infectious disease, others in Babylon also should have gotten sick at around the same time. Mayor says that the symptoms Alexander experienced matched poisoning from strychnine, these include high fever, which is mentioned by both Plutarch and Arrian. It also includes speechlessness caused by the jaw muscles being extremely stiff. Both Arrian and Plutarch mention that before Alexander lost consciousness he couldn’t speak, noting that Alexander’s commanders walked by with Alexander watching them but unable to talk. Another symptom that matches is paroxysmal contractions of muscles causing great pain. Diodorus Siculus mentions how Alexander suffered great pain after drinking from a cup of wine. Strychnine is a plant that grows in the highlands of India and Pakistan, so this poison could have arrived at Babylon through trade routes, Mayor said.

Paul Doherty, an independent scholar who has researched and written extensively on Alexander, also thinks poison killed Alexander. "My belief is that Alexander the Great was deliberately poisoned," Doherty told Live Science in an email. Historical records indicate that "Alexander was growing increasingly despotic and paranoid," Doherty said. Arsenic may have been the poison of choice, Doherty noted, and Ptolemy I Soter, who ruled Egypt after Alexander's death, may have been the culprit.

Will any new evidence emerge?

Although it's unlikely that Alexander's body will be found, more ancient historical records may emerge.

"The most promising possible source of new material is the virtual unravelling of the rolls from the Library at Herculaneum," Hall said in an email. These are scrolls that became carbonized after Mount Vesuvius erupted in A.D. 79. Technologies such as high-resolution CT scans and artificial intelligence are being used to read and decipher these scrolls.

There are "thousands of these rolls, so new documents might still arise," Hall said, but the process of scanning the rolls and reading them "is very slow and painstaking and might take decades to complete."

Test your knowledge of Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great is one of the most famous generals of the ancient world. By the age of 32 he had conquered a massive empire that stretched from the Balkans to modern-day Pakistan.

We know about Alexander through many historical texts, including those from the Greek historians Plutarch and Diodorus of Sicily. But Alexander and his forces also left behind a trove of artifacts and clues about their lives in the places they founded, such as Alexandria in Egypt, and the places they conquered and destroyed, such as Persepolis, ancient Persia's capital in what is now Iran.

Much has been written about the Macedonian general and his empire, but how much do you really know? Take our quiz to find out. If you need a hint, hit the yellow button. Good luck!

Related: Lost site of Alexander the Great's famous battle against ancient Persians discovered in Turkey

More science quizzes

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—What do you know about Jesus Christ, the man? Test your knowledge of biblical archaeology

An iconic Alexander the Great mosaic found at Pompeii got its roughly 2 million pieces from quarries that extended far beyond Alexander's ancient kingdom, a new study finds.

While Alexander's empire stretched from the Balkans to modern-day Pakistan, these bits of stone and mineral, or tesserae, came from quarries across Europe — including in Italy and the Iberian Peninsula — as well as from Tunisia, according to the study, which was published Wednesday (Jan. 15) in the journal PLOS One.

What is the Alexander Mosaic?

The roughly 2,000-year-old mosaic was buried in Pompeii when Mount Vesuvius erupted in A.D. 79. It was discovered in 1831, when archaeologists unearthed it in a wealthy family's "domus" known as the House of the Faun, and it's now on display at the National Archaeological Museum of Naples.

The Alexander Mosaic is considered "the most important mosaic of the Roman age," the authors wrote in the study. It depicts Alexander, who ruled from 336 to 323 B.C., and the Macedonian army triumphing over the Persian king Darius III and his forces. The lone tree in the background hints that this is the Battle of Issus, which took place in 333 B.C. by what is now the Turkish-Syrian border. According to Arab and medieval texts, including from Marco Polo, this battle was known to locals as the "battle of the dry tree" (or "the solitary tree"), the researchers wrote in the study.

Related: Why didn't Alexander the Great invade Rome?

In 2020, the National Archaeological Museum of Naples launched a restoration project that entailed noninvasively studying the mosaic. The team employed several techniques, including portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF), which uses X-rays to help identify elements within an object. They found that the "tesserae were composed of ten types of colors masterfully combined to enhance artistic effects characterizing the Alexander Mosaic," the researchers wrote in the study.

The 10 colors included shades of white, brown, red, yellow, pink, green, gray, blue, black and vitreous (glassy), which had a large range of micro-textures that were "masterfully combined to enhance artistic effects of the artworks," the researchers wrote in the paper.

Ancient artisans paid particular attention to Alexander's face, the team noted. It is "composed of several shades of pink tesserae with appreciable changes in luminescence effects likely related to different chemical composition of the tesserae," they wrote in the study. Details like this explain why this is "perhaps the most iconic and well-known representation of his face in ancient art," they noted.

As for the origins of the tesserae, the scientists looked at quarries that were used in Roman times. For instance, "Some of the white tesserae could be related to the Marmor Lunensis [white crystalline limestone] from the Apuan Alps quarries (Italy), which started to be mined for marble in the 1st century BCE and was no longer used starting from the 3rd century CE," the team wrote in the study.

Meanwhile, the intense pink tesserae may have come from Portugal, some of the yellow blocks may have come from the Roman city of Simitthus in what is now Tunisia, and dark red pieces may be from Cape Matapan, Greece, they wrote.

The team also detected traces of natural wax and the mineral gypsum, which were likely applied as a protective layer during restoration projects in the modern era, the team wrote in the study.

An endoscopic investigation on the mosaic's backside showed "many empty portions" that were likely missed by the gypsum-based substances, which were likely added to support the structure during its transit from Pompeii to the museum. "These potential areas of weakness should be taken into due consideration during restoration," the researchers wrote in the study.

Researchers may have finally identified the site where Alexander the Great fought the Battle of the Granicus against the Persian Empire.

The site is about 6 miles (10 kilometers) north of the city of Biga in northwest Turkey. In 334 B.C. Alexander's forces defeated the Persians at the battlefield, which enabled them to establish a foothold in Persian territory and push deeper into the Middle East.

"The Battle of Granicus was not only one of the most significant turning points in Alexander's life, later earning him the epithet 'the Great,' but [was] also a pivotal moment in world history," team leader Reyhan Körpe, an archaeology professor at Canakkale Onsekiz Mart University, told Live Science in an email.

The discovery is not entirely new. Körpe noted that Heinrich Kiepert, an archaeologist who worked in the region in the 19th century, had suggested that the same area could be the location of the battlefield. But Körpe's team has now uncovered additional evidence supporting the suggestion.

Notably, the team identified the remains of the ancient city of Hermaion, which ancient records indicate was the location of Alexander's last encampment before the battle. The researchers then conducted geomorphological tests to reconstruct what the nearby landscape looked like when the battle was fought. They found that the path of the Granicus River had changed little since Alexander's time. They also found that some areas were marshy in Alexander's time and therefore don't match the description of the battlefield, enabling the team to rule out these locations.

Related: What if the Persians had defeated Alexander the Great?

Ancient records say that Alexander stationed Persian Greek mercenaries on a hill, and the team identified a promising hill site where local farmers had found graves with weapons that may date to Alexander's time. For example, in 2024, farmers uncovered the remains of human bones during plowing near the southern slope of the hill. The researchers examined the bones and found that they are from an adult male.

"The lack of typical grave markers or artifacts indicated these were not part of a formal cemetery," Körpe said. However, more tests need to be done to determine when this individual dates to and how they died.

Live Science contacted scholars not involved with the researchers to get their thoughts. Graham Wrightson, a history professor at South Dakota State University, said that the team's finds are interesting. "It is exciting that they believe it has been identified," Wrightson told Live Science in an email. "We'll have to wait more years now to see what artifacts come out of the annual digs."

Körpe said that the team plans to conduct geophysical surveys and excavations to get a better idea of what lies beneath the ground.

Alexander the Great built an empire that stretched from the Balkans to India in just 13 years, when he was king of Macedonia. His conquest started in Persia, where he battled King Darius III's forces in what is now Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Egypt. After defeating the Persian Empire he moved further east, conquering land in what is now Afghanistan and Pakistan. After entering what is now India his troops mutinied. Alexander then turned back but became ill and died unexpectedly in Babylon, in what is now Iraq, in 323 B.C.

When his empire fell apart after his unexpected death, his officials and generals took over parts of it, and Greek language and culture thrived across the Middle East for centuries.

But what if Alexander had been defeated by the Persians from the get-go? How would history have unfolded? Historical records indicate that this nearly happened. In the first major battle Alexander fought, at the Granicus River in Turkey, a Persian satrap (commander) named Spithridates nearly landed a blow to Alexander's head, Frank Holt, a professor emeritus of ancient history at the University of Houston, told Live Science in an email.

So what would have happened if Alexander had failed and the Persians triumphed?

Related: Why didn't Alexander the Great invade Rome?

If Alexander the Great had been defeated, we'd live in an unrecognizable world

"In short, if the Persians defeated Alexander, the world might be unrecognizable," Nikolaus Overtoom, an associate professor of history at Washington State University who has studied and written about Alexander extensively, told Live Science in an email.

He noted that Alexander's conquests and the time period afterward ushered in the "Hellenistic" age. "This was a period of immense cultural, economic, and geopolitical exchange, change, and growth, where Greek civilization had a major influence on developing societies from Spain to India," Overtoom said.

People in that region used a common language known as Koine Greek, which became the "lingua franca of the Hellenistic Age to facilitate the exchange of communication, commerce, and ideas," Overtoom said.

If Alexander had failed, would Christianity have spread?

If Alexander had been defeated, Christianity — which did not appear until more than three centuries after Alexander's death — may have died off before it could spread widely. "Koine Greek was the language used to write down and share the early teachings and thoughts of Christianity, and it was used to rapidly share the messages of Christianity across the Mediterranean and Middle East," Overtoom said.

"If there is no Hellenistic Age, then Koine Greek does not become the lingua franca of antiquity," he said. "If Koine Greek is not available to the early Christians because of this, then they have to use a less effective and well-known language for their writings and preaching, and if that is the case, then Christianity is not nearly as successful and perhaps does not become a world religion." In fact, it may not have even survived in a highly competitive intellectual and spiritual space in the first to fourth centuries, he added.

Other scholars agreed that Christianity may not have become as widespread, and Larry Tritle, a professor emeritus of history at Loyola Marymount University, said that Christianity may not have survived until present day if the Persians had defeated Alexander.

Many other changes

History would have changed in myriad other ways if Alexander had been defeated by the Persians. "A 'Pax Persica' [Persian Peace] renowned for its tolerance" likely would have prevailed from the borders of Greece to India," Holt said, as Persia would have continued to control much of the Middle East with people free to practice their own religions and cultural customs. The Persian Empire's capital, Persepolis, which Alexander's forces captured and razed, "would rival Rome and Athens as the greatest of ancient cities, its ruins one of the wonders most visited today by wide-eyed tourists," Holt added.

"There would have been no scattering of Greek settlers into cities across the east — no Alexandria in Egypt, no Kandahar, etc.," Holt said. "The so-called Hellenistic world, that extraordinary amalgam of histories and cultures, could not be created without these new settlements drawing the Greeks ever eastward in droves."

The Ptolemies, who led a dynasty in Egypt that lasted nearly three centuries, would never have taken over Egypt, and Cleopatra VII would not have been a famous queen, according to Holt.

What if Alexander the Great had been defeated by the Persians — but a bit later

If Alexander were defeated by the Persians at the Battle of Gaugamela, which took place in northern Iraq in 331 B.C., then history would still be dramatically, but not completely, altered, Holt noted. By then, Alexander had taken Egypt and founded Alexandria, and this city may have still thrived, he said.

If the defeat had come later still — such as when Alexander was fighting against Bessus, who became the self-proclaimed Persian king after Darius III was killed — then history would also have been different.

"Could Bessus have rebuilt Persepolis or regained control of Egypt and the Levant?" Holt wondered. The Levant is a land in the eastern Mediterranean and includes what is today Israel and Lebanon as well as parts of Syria, Jordan and other nearby areas.

It's also possible that a defeat by Bessus could have caused political power in the Middle East to become more fragmented than it did. If the region had remained divided, Rome might have taken advantage of that weakness both before and after it became an empire in 27 B.C. "The fragmentation of Eurasia could have accelerated the imperial expansion of Rome beyond our imagining," Holt said. "Can you picture Nero on an elephant in India?"

The remains of a garment from an ancient tomb in Greece may be a tunic that was once worn by Alexander the Great, a scholar claims in a new study.

The garment was found in a tomb that many scholars believe belonged to Alexander’s father, Philip II. It's next to two other tombs thought to hold other royal members of Alexander's family.

The new study, however, claims that this particular tomb doesn't belong to Alexander's father, but to Alexander's half-brother, Philip III (also known as Arrhidaeus). The study also claims that the cotton cloth found in the tomb was once part of a tunic worn by Alexander that, after his death, was passed to Arrhideus and buried with him in this tomb.

The tunic was sacred because only Alexander the Great was allowed to wear it, said Antonis Bartsiokas, professor emeritus of physical anthropology and paleoanthropology at the Democritus University of Thrace and author of the study, published Oct. 17 in the Journal of Field Archaeology. By the time of Alexander's death, some people considered him a god, Bartsiokas told Live Science in an email.

However, not all of the scholars Live Science spoke with supported the findings, with one scholar saying that it is not a tunic at all.

Related: Did Alexander the Great have any children?

A king's tomb

The garment was found in 1977 in a gold chest in a tomb near the town of Vergina (formerly the capital of Macedonia) in what is now Greece. The tomb has two skeletons that are, according to Bartsiokas, those of Arrhidaeus and his wife Eurydice.

After Alexander died in 323 B.C., Arrhidaeus became king of Alexander's empire. Historical records indicate that Arrhidaeus lived with some form of mental disability and was unable to rule. Alexander's officials and generals fought for power, and the empire disintegrated with the killing of Arrhidaeus in 317 B.C.

Bartsiokas contends that after Alexander died, this tunic was given to Arrhidaeus and, after Arrhidaeus was killed, was buried with him. In his paper, Bartsiokas cites evidence for this idea, such as the art on the tomb's walls, studies of the skeletons found in the tomb, and an analysis of ancient historical records. Bartsiokas also looked at past tests done on the garment, including energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, a technique that analyzes X-rays to determine what an object is made of, and fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, which uses infrared light to analyze objects.

Alexander's tunic?

Bartsiokas contends that tests done by other scholars show that the garment was a sarapis, or a tunic. The tunic is made of three layers. Two of the layers are made of cotton that has been dyed purple. Between the two layers of cotton there is a flexible layer of a mineral called huntite. Purple was worn by kings in the ancient world, he noted, and cotton was grown in Persia, but not in Greece, during Alexander's time. Ancient historical records indicate that "cotton was introduced to Greece and Europe by Alexander’s army following the conquest of the Persian Empire," Bartsiokas wrote in his paper.

Bartsiokas also cited ancient records claiming that the king of Persia wore a tunic that used cotton and huntite and that Alexander wore a tunic like this after he conquered Persia. He noted that Philip II was not a ruler of Persia and would not have worn a tunic that used cotton or huntite.

In addition, the artwork on the wall of the tomb — an illustrated group of hunters — depicts Alexander wearing a tunic similar to the one found, Bartsiokas said, and the artwork's details suggest the artist was familiar with Persia's landscape and wildlife.

Related: Where is Alexander the Great's tomb?

Additionally, the painting is done in a complicated style that would have taken a long time to complete, meaning the burial likely didn't belong to Philip II. That's because Philip II was assassinated in 336 B.C. and Alexander went on a military campaign shortly afterward, which means the artist would not have had time to create it before Philip II's funeral, Bartsiokas explained.

Another reason the garment didn't belong to Philip II, Bartsiokas said, is that the king suffered a wound to his right eye, but neither skeleton in the tomb has an indication of such a wound.

Controversy

The scholars Live Science spoke with had mixed reactions to Bartsiokas' paper.

Hariclia Brecoulaki, a senior researcher at the National Hellenic Research Foundation's Institute of Historical Research in Greece, said there is no evidence to support the idea that this garment was a tunic. "The textile, according to the excavators, looked more like a piece of scarf that served to wrap the bones of the deceased," Brecoulaki told Live Science in an email.

Athanasia Kyriakou, director of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki's excavation project at Vergina, also criticized the paper. "This article is full with faulty understandings due to a lack of the relevant background," Kyriakou said in an email. Bartsiokas did not conduct tests on the materials himself, Kyriakou noted, adding that Bartsiokas "has not even seen the materials."

Other scholars were more supportive of the paper and its findings. "I am sympathetic to Antonis Bartsiokas's arguments that it belongs to Philip III," Susan Rotroff, a professor emerita of classics at Washington University in St. Louis, said in an email. "If the textile in question really is cotton, it is hard to support a date before the time of Alexander the Great."

Richard Janko, a classical studies professor at the University of Michigan, was cautiously supportive. "This is a very exciting piece of research," Janko told Live Science in an email. "The original identification of the male occupant of the extraordinarily rich Tomb II at Vergina as Philip II, the father of Alexander, is far from secure."

However, Janko noted that the cotton used to make the garment could have been imported through trade from Persia, which means that it could have been acquired and used by Philip II.

David Gill, a fellow at the University of Kent's Centre for Heritage, commended the paper's findings. "Some years ago I published the weight inscriptions from Tomb II — and I argued that they had to post-date Philip II," Gill told Live Science in an email. Several objects in the tomb, such as silver plates, have their weights inscribed on them.

He found the paper's arguments that the garment was a tunic used by Alexander the Great to be strong. "It is likely that this was an item that was worn by Alexander the Great," Gill said.

Metal detectorists have unearthed a miniature bronze portrait of Alexander the Great on an island in Denmark.

Finn Ibsen and Lars Danielsen made the discovery while conducting survey work in a field outside Ringsted, a city on the Danish island of Zealand, and surrendered the artifacts to Museum West Zealand, Danish news outlet TV2 Øst reported.

The bronze fitting, known as a bracket, measures approximately 1 inch (2.7 centimeters) in diameter, is cast of bronze alloy and includes an engraved portrait of a wavy-haired man wearing a crown of twisted ram horns, according to a statement from Museum West Zealand.

Based on the imagery, archaeologists immediately knew they were looking at the face of Alexander the Great, the legendary leader of the ancient kingdom of Macedon whose empire stretched from the Balkans to modern-day Pakistan by the time he died at age 32.

The piece "has the typical attributes of Alexander the Great, such as his distinct, wavy hair and ram horns," Freerk Oldenburger, an archaeologist at Museum West Zealand, told Live Science. "The image is almost identical to another bracket portrait found years ago that contains the same stylized image."

Related: Ancient tomb really does hold Alexander the Great's father, controversial study claims

That piece, also a metal bracket, was found by a different group of archaeologists in Jutland, Denmark. It was hidden among a stockpile of weapons and likely served as an "ornament worn on a silver shield mount — it was a way to show off," Oldenburger said.

"It's quite a remarkable piece," Oldenburger said. "When it showed up on my desk, I nearly fell out of my chair because it's almost the exact same portrait as the other, but this one is a little more coarse and is made of cast bronze and not gilded silver. The bronze alloy also contains a high lead content and was made using an alloy often found in [Roman] bronze statuettes. It's possible that a statuette was melted down to make this portrait."

While researchers remain unsure of the piece's function, they know that the fitting dates to around A.D. 200 and could have been worn as a "decorative disc for a shield" or as a bracket affixed to a sword belt, according to the statement. 

"This was around the same time as Caracalla," a Roman emperor who reigned from A.D. 198 to 217, Oldenburger said. "We know that he was completely obsessed with Alexander the Great and was interested and inspired by him, since he was the greatest conqueror of that time period," he added.

In fact, Caracalla was so enamored of the Greek ruler that he often "dressed with the same style and believed he was Alexander the Great reincarnated," he said. "Caracalla is also the only emperor of his time to be depicted with a shield containing a portrait of Alexander the Great."

Archaeologists may have finally identified the remains of Alexander the Great's father, half-brother and son in a trio of tombs at a necropolis in Greece. 

Researchers have long debated which members of the Macedonian royal family were buried in each tomb. Now, a controversial new review suggests that researchers previously got the tombs mixed up and claim they have identified the actual occupants of each tomb.

Known as the "Great Tumulus," the burial site in Aegae, the original Macedonian capital (modern-day Vergina, a town in northern Greece), contains three tombs that were built during the fourth century B.C., according to a review published in the December 2023 issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.

Researchers initially discovered the tomb complex in the 1970s and proposed that the crypts, known as Tombs I, II and III, contained the remains of several royals who were closely related to Alexander the Great, the Macedonian leader who reigned from 336 B.C. until his death in 323 B.C. Those individuals included Alexander the Great's father, King Philip II; his son, Alexander IV, whom he had with his wife Roxana; and his older half-brother, King Philip III Arrhidaeus.

However, there's been ongoing debate about which royal is interred in each tomb. 

Related: 2nd-century Alexander the Great's tomb with lion's-mane hairstyle unearthed in Turkey

To determine the identities of the skeletons, the archaeologists behind the new review looked at ancient writings about each individual, including any injuries or skeletal anomalies that could help identify them, and compared these to X-rays of each skeleton.

"It was like a fascinating detective's ancient story," review lead author Antonios Bartsiokas, professor emeritus of anthropology and paleoanthropology at the Democritus University of Thrace in Greece, told Live Science in an email. 

Bartsiokas and colleagues identified King Philip II as the occupant of Tomb I based on the male skeleton's fused knee joint. The injury was "consistent with the historic evidence of the lameness of King Philip II," according to the review. He was buried alongside one of his wives, Queen Cleopatra, and their newborn child, the researchers suggested.

"This was the only newborn in the Macedonian dynasty to have died shortly after it was born," Bartsiokas said. "The age of the female skeleton at 18 years old was determined based on the epiphyseal lines [which show when the bone stopped growing] of her humerus. [This number] coincides with the age of Cleopatra from the ancient sources."

However, experts have long argued that King Philip II was actually buried in Tomb II, and not in Tomb I as the review concluded. 

Because no physical trauma was found on the male skeleton in Tomb II, the new review concluded that he was King Philip III Arrhidaeus, who ruled Macedonia following Alexander the Great’s death. He was buried with his wife, Adea Eurydice, a "warrior woman who was leader of the army," Bartsiokas said. Her skeleton was surrounded by several pieces of weaponry, according to the review.

"His skeletal evidence and the pattern of his cremated bones have been shown to be consistent with the circumstances of the death of King Arrhidaeus and his wife," Bartsiokas said. "Tomb I was a very small and poor tomb and Tomb II was very big and rich. This ties with the historical evidence that Macedonia was in a state of bankruptcy when Alexander started his campaign and very rich when he died. This is consistent with Tomb I belonging to Philip II and Tomb II belonging to his son Arrhidaeus."

Moreover, the skeleton in Tomb II didn't have a tell-tale sign that has been associated with Philip II: an eye injury. Previous studies determined that the male skull in Tomb II showed a traumatic injury on the right side of the skull, but those claims have been refuted in several studies, including in this new review. 

"Philip II is known from ancient sources to have suffered an eye injury that blinded him," Bartsiokas said. "I was surprised to find [the] absence of such an eye injury in the male skeleton of Tomb II, which was initially widely described as a real injury that identified Philip II. In other words, this was a case of a description of a morphologic feature that did not exist."

This detail also helped the researchers determine that Tomb II didn’t house Philip II’s remains. Of note, the part of the skull that would have held the eye injury in Tomb I was not preserved.

Lastly, researchers identified the occupant of Tomb III as Alexander IV, Alexander the Great's teenage son who was killed in a power struggle following his father's death — a conclusion that "most scholars agree" upon, the authors wrote in the review.

Ian Worthington, a professor of ancient history at Macquarie University in Sydney who was not involved in the review, told Live Science in an email that the "fascinating" review contained "rich analysis of forensic examinations and some historical context and mention of opposing views," but that he still thinks Philip II was buried in Tomb II.

"Among other things, crucially, is that the two chambers of Tomb II were built at different times, whereas the burial of Philip III and Eurydice was a planned double one, meaning the construction of both tombs should be contemporaneous," Worthington said. 

Worthington also concluded that there is evidence of eye trauma in the skull fragments. 

"There is also the significant issue of the trauma around the right eye of the skull from Tomb II, which is consistent with the wound that Philip suffered at Methone in 354 [B.C.] when a bolt from the ramparts struck him in the eye," Worthington said. "Even the undecorated walls of the tomb (in contrast to Tomb I) lean toward Philip II being the occupant, as we know that his son and successor Alexander III [had] to bury his father quickly to deal with a revolt of the Greeks and conduct a purge against opponents. Alexander planned to revisit the tomb and make it one to rival the pyramids, but he never did."

Bartsiokas, however, disagreed, saying that while Tomb II has undecorated walls, it has an elaborate facade on its front wall, an impressive antechamber and dual cremated burials, all of which would have taken a while to complete and making it a good candidate for being the tomb for Alexander's half-brother and sister-in-law. He also took issue with the idea that Tomb II had chambers built at different times, as previous research showed that "the remnants of the pyre were found on the roof of both chambers of Tomb II," he told Live Science in an email.

Worthington added that while we will likely not know for sure who the occupants are, Philip II is the most likely candidate. "Ultimately, no identification of the deceased in Tomb II can ever be 100% compelling in light of present evidence, analysis and reasoned historical argument, but on balance, the tomb is most likely that of Macedonia's greatest king, Philip II."

Editor's note: Updated at 12:33 p.m. EST on Feb. 15 to include an additional quote from Antonis Bartsiokas.

Editor's note: Updated at 4:39 p.m. EST to note that the skull in Tomb I did not preserve the portion that would have held the eye injury.

The past is hiding beneath our feet and in our genes. And each new discovery from yesteryear (or yester-millennia) — be it tools, crafted treasures or DNA within our buried remains — reveals just how advanced humans were throughout the ages and how far they traded and traveled.

Kentucky man finds over 700 Civil War-era coins

The year 2023 was a breakout year for archaeological discoveries. It's no surprise that our most read story in this channel was a bright and shiny finding: that of a Kentucky man who unearthed a bumper crop of Civil War-era coins in his cornfield, all of which have already been sold at auction. It's intriguing to read about a gold hoard, but I think that these stories also give us a smidgen of hope that we, too, can find buried treasure.

How accurate are facial reconstructions?

Facial reconstructions also took readers by storm. One of the most striking was a reconstruction of a Bronze Age woman whose remains were found in a crouching position in a 4,200-year-old grave in Scotland. Reconstructions can help bring the past alive, and in this case the forensic artist Oscar Nilsson sculpted the woman's face so that she appeared to be looking at museum-goers, rather than off into the distance.

But how accurate are these reconstructions? Our recent investigation pointed out that they're only as good as the data they're based on, which can include everything from skeletal, clothing and DNA remains to educated guesses. These reconstructions also have a subjective element, especially if they're given a facial expression or are based on incomplete information. Due to their partial or even total inaccuracy, I know that some scientists wish the reconstruction field would go away. But I appreciate these pictures of the past as long as the caveats are made clear — for instance that this Bronze Age woman's DNA couldn't be recovered, so the artist had to guess her ethnic heritage, including her skin, eye and hair color.

Burial of possible Alexander the Great courtesan unearthed

Other 2023 findings that resonated with readers include the burial of a Greek courtesan who may have accompanied Alexander the Great's army. I completely get the appeal of Alexander the Great; I took a semester-long class on the Macedonian king at university. Everything about Alexander was riveting, from his rise to power and conquering streak, to the paranoia that led him to kill his allies, and even his eventual sickness and death. We're still learning about Alexander and his contemporaries, as is evidenced by this courtesan who was buried with a bronze mirror 2,300 years ago on the road to Jerusalem.

Other popular archaeological discoveries this year included:

• A still-gleaming "octagonal" sword from the Bronze Age of Germany
• The largest-ever genetic family tree reconstructed for Neolithic people in France, which was based on ancient DNA
• The Zapotec "entrance to underworld," which archaeologists discovered under a Catholic church in Mexico thanks to cutting-edge ground-scanning technology

I can't wait to see what 2024 brings as we continue to delve into our recent and ancient past.

Archaeologists in Iraq have unearthed twin temples built on top of each other. The newer, Hellenistic temple dates to the fourth century B.C. and may have a link to Alexander the Great.

The temple contained a fired brick with an Aramaic and Greek inscription that references "the giver of two brothers" — a possible reference to the Macedonian king, who conquered much of the known world during his 13-year-reign from 336 B.C. to 323 B.C.   

Archaeologists from the British Museum in London discovered the older temple while conducting excavations at Girsu, a Sumerian city now known as Tello in southeastern Iraq. The excavations are part of an ongoing venture conducted by the museum known as The Girsu Project that focuses on learning more about the city’s storied history.

Remnants of the older, Sumerian temple were found buried "on the exact same spot" as the newer construction, which was dedicated to the "Greek god Hercules and his Sumerian equivalent, the hero god Ningirsu [also known as Ninurta]," Sebastien Rey, an archaeologist and curator of Ancient Mesopotamia at the British Museum who led the excavation, told Live Science in an email.

The fact that a temple was raised on the same site where one stood 1,500 years earlier was no coincidence, and the site must have held some significance to the people of Mesopotamia, the researchers said.

Related: 2nd-century Alexander the Great statue with lion's-mane hairstyle unearthed in Turkey

"It shows that the inhabitants of Babylonia in the [fourth] century B.C. had a vast knowledge of their history," Rey said. "The legacy of the Sumerians was still very vibrant."

While exploring the dual temple site, archaeologists discovered a silver drachm (an ancient Greek coin) buried beneath an altar or shrine, as well as a brick with the two brothers inscription.

"The inscription is very interesting because it mentions an enigmatic Babylonian name written in Greek and Aramaic," Rey said. "The name 'Adadnadinakhe,' which means 'Adad, the giver of brothers,' was clearly chosen as a ceremonial title on account of its archaizing tone and symbolic connotations. All the evidence points to the fact that the name was extraordinarily rare."

The inscription itself is a nod to Zeus, the Greek sky god, who is often symbolized by a lightning bolt and an eagle. Both of these symbols can be found on the coin, which would've been struck in Babylon "under Alexander the Great's authority," Rey said. "It shows Hercules in a youthful, clean-shaven portrait that strongly recalls conventional representations of Alexander on one side, with Zeus on the other."

Zeus also "famously acknowledged Alexander as his son through the agency of the Ammon oracle,” Rey said. "He became quite literally the 'giver of brothers' because he affirmed a fraternal bond between Alexander and Heracles."

However, researchers don't yet know whether the Macedonian king actually visited the site.

"But he might have had the opportunity to go there, either during his stay in Babylon, or by taking a detour on the way to [the city of] Susa," he said. "Significantly, he was able to pay his soldiers after taking Babylon because the city's coffers were surrendered to him. This meant that Alexander and his generals had control of the region's wealth, and they presumably used Babylonian silver to mint the many coins that were struck in the city."

In addition to the artifacts, researchers also found offerings normally given after a battle, including clay figurines of soldiers.

"The recovered figurines, which originated in a range of places in the Hellenistic world, must in many instances have been carried to the temple by visitors," he said. "Among these are the Macedonian riders on horseback, which have strong associations with Alexander. However, they could also be associated with a cult of warlike heroism. 

"Combined with the clear signs of an Alexandrian presence in the shrine, this raises the intriguing possibility that Alexander was directly and actively instrumental in [the temple's] re-establishment, and (or) that it came to include a memorial to the departed Macedonian after his early death," Rey concluded.

Alexander the Great conquered a massive empire that stretched from the Balkans to modern-day Pakistan. But if the Macedonian king had turned his attention westward, it's possible he would have conquered Rome, too, feasibly smiting the Roman Empire before it had a chance to arise.

So why didn't Alexander the Great try to conquer Italy? The answer may be that he died before he got the chance.

The king of Macedonia ruled from 336 B.C. to 323 B.C., when he died of an unknown illness in Babylon at age 32. Alexander's empire fell apart shortly after his death. Had he not died, however, it's possible that Alexander would have targeted Rome and, with his substantial forces, defeated the Eternal City.

Some ancient texts suggest that Alexander the Great was planning a military campaign in the West that involved conquering parts of Italy, among other locations along the Mediterranean. The Roman historian Quintus Curtius Rufus, who lived in the first century A.D., claimed that Alexander the Great had planned a series of conquests that, if successful, would have expanded his empire all the way to what is now the Strait of Gibraltar. Alexander planned to build 700 ships to support this invasion, Rufus noted. Other ancient writers made similar claims.

"The Romans were convinced that Alexander would have attempted the conquest of Rome, but for modern historians, it is impossible to say," Nikolaus Overtoom, an associate professor of history at Washington State University, told Live Science in an email.

Related: Where is Alexander the Great's tomb?

Some ancient writers claimed that after Alexander died, his secretary, Eumenes, gave one of Alexander's senior generals, Perdiccas, plans that included the conquest of part of Italy, Robin Waterfield, an independent scholar with a background in classics, told Live Science in an email.

"Now, some scholars believe that the [plans] are not genuine — perhaps a forgery by Eumenes, or perhaps the whole story arose years, even decades later," Waterfield said. However, "I think the balance of evidence is that they're genuine."

How would the invasion have gone?

It's ultimately unclear what would have happened if Alexander the Great had tried to invade Italy. The Romans were so strongly convinced that Alexander would have attempted the invasion that the historian Livy (lived circa 59 B.C. to A.D. 17) wrote a text speculating how the invasion would have ended, with Livy predicting that the Romans would have defeated Alexander. Livy noted that Alexander's uncle, Alexander I of Epirus, who ruled a kingdom of the same name, tried to conquer part of Italy but was killed in battle in 331 B.C.

Waterfield noted that descriptions of Alexander's plans indicate he would have invaded other locations in the Mediterranean before landing on the Italian mainland. This suggests that Alexander's forces would have been overwhelming, even if the Romans had any allies in their fight against him.

"By the time he reached Italy and faced the Roman Republic he would have had the resources of the entire Mediterranean at his command — a vast mercenary army, and he'd have commanded all the supply routes," Waterfield said. The "only thing that could have stopped him was internal rebellion or mutiny by his Macedonian troops."

Philip Freeman, a humanities professor at Pepperdine University in California, said that if Alexander had invaded Italy, he likely would have succeeded, noting that there were a number of Greek colonies in Italy that might have supported Alexander's rule.

"The Romans were tough and would have resisted, but they were not yet the powerful force of later centuries," Freeman told Live Science in an email. "If Alexander had invaded, I think there would have been no Roman Empire since Roman power would have been nipped in the bud, so to speak."

The head of a marble statue of Alexander the Great unearthed in Turkey shows the enduring popularity of the ancient ruler hundreds of years after his death, experts say.

The object was found amid the ruins of the upper levels of a Roman-era theater at Konuralp, north of Düzce and near Turkey's northwest coast, and is thought to date to the second century. Alexander the Great died in 323 B.C, so the statue may have been made more than 400 years after his death.

The remains of other marble statues, including heads of the Greek god Apollo and the mythical monster Medusa, have also been found in the ruins of the theater, the Düzce Municipality wrote in a statement in Turkish.

Alexander was a popular figure in the ancient world long after his untimely death at age 32 at Babylon beside the Euphrates river, historian Paul Cartledge, a professor at the University of Cambridge and the author of "Alexander the Great: the Hunt for a New Past" (Overlook Press, 2004), told Live Science.

One reason for Alexander's enduring popularity was that his successors promoted him as an ideal ruler whom they hoped to emulate. "The contenders for his throne, and therefore his empire, used his name and said 'he was terrific,'" said Cartledge, who wasn't involved in the new discovery.

It also became common for later rulers to make coins containing Alexander's image as a way to legitimize their reigns, he said.

Macedonian king

After analyzing the marble head, historical experts determined it was a portrayal of Alexander, according to the statement.

"[He] is depicted with deep and upward-looking eyes … and a slightly open mouth that barely reveals its teeth," Düzce Municipality officials said in the statement, which also noted the distinctive hairstyle on the statue. "The two tufts of hair in the middle of the forehead, which are separated to the back and sides, are like a lion's mane," they said in the translated statement. "This depiction is a hairstyle unique to Alexander the Great."

Alexander was one of the most famous rulers of the ancient world. Born in 356 B.C., he became the king of Macedonia, a territory north of Greece, in 336. His father, Philip II of Macedon, had already succeeded in uniting Greece under his rule.

Although not born in Greece, Alexander was enamored of Greek culture and spread it as he began a campaign of military conquests to the south and east, which culminated in his defeat of the powerful Persian Empire in a series of battles between 334 B.C. and 331 B.C.

Mighty empire

At its height, Alexander's empire stretched from Greece and Egypt to Bactria, roughly in what's now Afghanistan, to the Punjab in what's now Pakistan. But his army refused to go any farther, and Alexander returned to Babylon, where he died a few years later — probably from an illness, but possibly from drinking too much or because he was poisoned, Cartledge said.

When the Romans conquered much of the ancient world — including the kingdom of Bithynia, in the region where the new statue was found — they, too, regarded Alexander the Great as an ideal ruler.

Indeed, Alexander's habit of shaving his face — as opposed to sporting beards, like most past rulers did — influenced Roman emperors and led Romans to shave, because it was thought to be the correct thing for rulers to do, Cartledge said. Alexander seemed to have taken up the habit because he wanted to be seen like the Greek god Apollo, who was portrayed without a beard.

For the same reason, many statues of Alexander portrayed his eyes looking upward, toward the gods, Cartledge said, and upward-looking eyes are one feature of the statue discovered at Konuralp.

Editor's note: An earlier version of this story said Alexander was "technically not a Greek." But although he was born in Macedonia, he was descended from Greeks on his father's side. 

A roadside burial discovered in Israel may hold the cremated remains of an ancient Greek courtesan who accompanied Alexander the Great's armies on their campaigns.

The woman, who was buried with an ornate bronze mirror, was laid to rest 2,300 years ago on the road to Jerusalem and far from any settlement, suggesting she may have been a professional escort, or "hetaira," traveling with military men — the first discovery of its kind, archaeologists said in a statement shared with Live Science.

"It is most likely that this is the tomb of a woman of Greek origin who accompanied a senior member of the Hellenistic army or government," the researchers said in the statement. Her client may have fought in one of Alexander the Great's campaigns, they added, or in a series of conflicts called the Wars of the Diadochi, which saw Alexander's generals battle to succeed him after he died in 323 B.C.

The woman was 20 to 30 years old when she died, researchers told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, and her remains indicate she was cremated before being buried alongside a "very precious" bronze mirror and four iron nails.

Related: Did Alexander the Great have any children? 

The mirror is enclosed in a folding box of a type previously found in Greco-Hellenistic burials, hinting at the woman's Greek origin. While these accessories often feature engravings or reliefs of idealized female and goddess figures, the newly discovered object is decorated on the outside with a simpler pattern of concentric circles.

"This is only the second mirror of this type that has been discovered to date in Israel," Liat Oz, an archaeologist who led the recent excavation in Jerusalem's Talpiot neighborhood on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, said in the statement. The hetaira may have received it as a gift from her powerful client, the researchers said.

Women also acquired bronze mirrors as part of their dowry — but married women at the time seldom left their homes in Greece, let alone joined their husbands on military campaigns, the researchers added.

Historic records indicate courtesans were present during Alexander the Great's campaigns, the researchers told Haaretz. They provided sexual services, but were also literate and entertained their clients with poetry, dance and acting performances.

"We know that some joined generals or rulers on their campaigns — famously, the hetaira Thaïs joined Alexander on the road and he didn't like her to be far," Guy Stiebel, an archaeologist at Tel Aviv University who participated in the recent excavation, told Haaretz. 

The iron nails discovered in the roadside grave were likely credited with "magical powers," he added, such as warding off the evil eye and preventing the deceased from rising again. Nails are frequently found in ancient Greek and Roman graves, as well as in Jewish burials from the time.

The researchers hope that a more detailed analysis of the bronze mirror will reveal clues about the woman's background, as well as about the man she accompanied.

Alexander the Great ascended the Macedonian throne at age 20 and died just 12 years later, having conquered one of the largest empires in the ancient world. During that time, did he father any children, and, in the power vacuum following his death, what happened to these heirs?

In a word: yes. Alexander had one and possibly even two children — both sons. One, known as Alexander IV, was his son with his wife Roxana. The other, known as "Heracles of Macedon," was his son with Barsine, his mistress. 

Roxana was the daughter of a chief in Bactria, an area in Central Asia. Alexander's forces captured her while campaigning in the region and she married him in around 327 B.C., wrote Ian Worthington, a professor of ancient history at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, in his book "Alexander the Great: A Reader" (Routledge, 2012). But Alexander didn't live to see their son; She was pregnant with Alexander IV when Alexander died in Babylon in 323 B.C. 

"Heracles of Macedon" was born to a mistress named Barsine, a Persian noblewoman, around 327 B.C., making him about four years older than Alexander IV. Some scholars in modern times question whether Alexander was actually the father of Barsine, as Alexander never formally acknowledged the child. But there appears to be a consensus among some modern scholars that Heracles was his biological son. 

"[A] few historians are skeptical of Alexander's paternity, but I do not share their view," Joseph Roisman, an emeritus professor of classics at Colby College in Maine, told Live Science in an email. 

Why didn't they become king? 

After Alexander the Great died of a mysterious illness at age 32, there was no clear successor for his massive empire, which stretched from the Balkans to modern-day Pakistan. His wife was pregnant with Alexander IV, although at the time it was not known if the child was a boy or girl. 

Heracles of Macedon was not legitimate, making his claim to the throne more difficult. "The boy was never a contender to succeed him because he was illegitimate and the son of a mistress," Worthington told Live Science in an email. 

Additionally, both Roxana and Barsine were of Asian ancestry, which some of Alexander's troops did not like. "According to the ancient [Roman] Alexander historian Quintus Curtius, both sons were proposed as potential heirs to the throne in a meeting of the generals and cavalry class, but the army rank and file — infantry — rejected both because the mothers were Asian," Carol King, an associate professor of classics at the Memorial University of Newfoundland, told Live Science in an email. 

Arrhidaeus, the half brother of Alexander the Great, became king and Alexander IV was made a co-ruler after he was born. However, "neither 'king' could rule in practice, of course," King said. Arrhidaeus had some form of mental impairment that made it difficult for him to exercise power while Alexander IV was just an infant. As a result, "all became pawns in the wars of the successors, Alexander's powerful generals, as they fought each other for control of the empire; and all were murdered," King said, referring to Arrhidaeus and Alexander's children. 

Alexander the Great's mother, Olympias, took on a significant role in the power struggle. In 317 B.C., she agreed to become the guardian of Alexander IV and, with the help of an army led by a general named Polyperchon, captured Arrhidaeus and had him killed, wrote Robin Waterfield, an independent scholar with a background in classics, in his book "Dividing the Spoils: 'The War for Alexander the Great's Empire" (Oxford University Press, 2011). However, a force led by a general named Cassander attacked Olympias and captured her along with Alexander IV in 316 B.C. and had Olympias killed. 

Alexander IV and Roxana then found themselves captives of Cassander, who effectively controlled Macedonia as a king. Cassander didn't want any competition for the throne, so he had Alexander IV and Roxana killed around 309 B.C., to prevent the teenage heir from coming of age and potentially taking power. 

Heracles of Macedon didn't fare any better. The general Polyperchon took Alexander's illegitimate son captive, and, after reaching a deal with Cassander, had him killed shortly after Alexander IV's death, Waterfield wrote. 

By the age of 32, Alexander the Great had conquered an empire that stretched from the Balkans to modern-day Pakistan, making him the sovereign of one of the largest empires in the ancient world. Despite his success and fame, it's impossible to pay respects to him today, as the location of his final resting place is a mystery. 

But based on ancient writings, legends and recent discoveries, are there any clues as to where Alexander the Great is buried?

The great Macedonian general died in Babylon in 323 B.C., and his empire collapsed shortly afterward as his generals and officials fought for control. One of his generals, Ptolemy, got control of Alexander the Great's body and brought it to Memphis, Egypt, in 321 B.C., Chris Naunton, an Egyptologist who is director of the U.K.-based Robert Anderson Research Charitable Trust, wrote in his book "Searching for the Lost Tombs of Egypt" (Thames & Hudson, 2018). 

Historical records suggest that Alexander the Great's body was likely kept in Memphis (an ancient city located near Cairo) until a tomb was built in Alexandria and his body was moved to the tomb. It's not clear when this happened, but it may have taken as long as a few decades, Naunton wrote. Historical records indicate that in the late third century B.C., another tomb for Alexander, known as the "Sema" or "Soma," was built in Alexandria, and this seems to have been the last tomb that Alexander was placed in, Naunton wrote. 

It's not clear where, exactly, this final tomb is located. "The location of the tomb could now be underwater — [the ancient Greek historian] Strabo indicates that it was in the 'palaces district,' part of which is certainly underwater now. But it could have been further inland — the sources don't allow us to be certain about this," Naunton told Live Science in an email. 

Related: Where is Attila the Hun's tomb?

Andrew Erskine, a classics professor at The University of Edinburgh in the U.K., also noted this uncertainty. "The ancient sources tell us that [the] tomb of Alexander was alongside that of the Ptolemies in the palace complex at Alexandria, but where exactly is not clear," Erskine told Live Science in an email.

Naunton told Live Science that there is a good chance that Alexander the Great's tomb will not be found. "It probably hasn't survived to any great extent — centuries of man-made and natural destruction, and the presence of the modern city which completely covers the ancient one now, has probably ensured that," Naunton said. Even if remains of the tomb are found, it may not be possible to identify the tomb as that of Alexander the Great, he added. Historical texts provide little information on what the tomb looked like, and an inscription on the tomb may be necessary to identify it, Naunton said. 

Although the location of his final tomb is unknown, there are two surviving locations where Alexander the Great's body may have been placed for a time. One is in a tomb in eastern Alexandria known as the "alabaster tomb." There is no inscription on it, but it is sizable; it's possible that it could have been the tomb that Alexander was kept in after his body was first moved to Alexandria, Naunton said. It appears to date to around the third century B.C. and some parts of its design are similar to other ancient tombs in Macedonia. 

Additionally, there is a sarcophagus that was constructed for Nectanebo II, a pharaoh who was forced to flee Egypt around 343 B.C. when the Persians invaded. There is a long-standing legend that it held Alexander's body for a time, possibly after it was first brought to Memphis from Babylon. It is now in the British Museum in London.

In an article published in fall 2020 in the Egyptology magazine Kmt, Andrew Chugg, an independent researcher, made an argument for why this sarcophagus temporarily held Alexander's body. He noted the ancient story where Nectanebo II made his way to Macedonia and impregnated Alexander's mother, making him the father of Alexander the Great. While this story is likely fictional, it shows a connection between Nectanebo II and Alexander, Chugg wrote. 

Additionally, Chugg has identified a block with a star shield (a symbol associated with Alexander), which is now in the St Apollonia stone museum in Venice, Italy, that he believes was part of the sarcophagus. "I have shown that it is an exact fit to the long side of the Nectanebo II sarcophagus," Chugg told Live Science in an email, noting that "the chance of this fit happening by accident is only about 1%."

Some scholars believe that the final tomb will be found. Chugg has identified a few areas in Alexandria that hold promise. Zahi Hawass, a former Egyptian antiquities minister, told Live Science that he thinks the tomb is located in an area now known as the Latin cemetery at El-Shatby, in Alexandria, and that Alexander the Great's burial could be found in the future. 

A 2,000-year-old "lost book" discussing the dynasties that succeeded Alexander the Great may finally be deciphered nearly two millennia after the text was partially destroyed in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79 and, centuries later, handed off to Napoleon Bonaparte.

The reason for the breakthrough? Researchers are using machine learning, a branch of artificial intelligence, to discern the faint ink on the rolled-up papyrus scroll. 

"It's probably a lost work," Richard Janko, the Gerald F. Else distinguished university professor of classical studies at the University of Michigan, said during a presentation at the joint annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America and the Society for Classical Studies, held in New Orleans last month. The research is not yet published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Only small parts of the heavily damaged text can be read right now. "It contains the names of a number of Macedonian dynasts and generals of Alexander," Janko said, noting that it also includes "several mentions of Alexander himself." After Alexander the Great died in 323 B.C., his empire fell apart. The text mentions the Macedonian generals Seleucus, who came to rule a large amount of territory in the Middle East, and Cassander, who ruled Greece after Alexander's death. 

The lost book is from the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum, a city that was destroyed alongside Pompeii when Mount Vesuvius erupted after the turn of the first millennium. The villa, named for its vast scrolls of papyri, contains numerous writings from the philosopher Philodemus (lived circa 110 B.C. to 30 B.C.). These papyri were carbonized when the volcano erupted. At some point, the text was found, and it was given to Napoleon Bonaparte in 1804. He gave it to the Institut de France in Paris, where it now resides. In 1986, an attempt to unroll the papyrus resulted in further damage, Janko said. 

Related: Battle site of 'Great Revolt' recorded on Rosetta Stone unearthed in Egypt

Revealing the text

Janko has been studying the papyrus with help from a team led by Brent Seales, director of the Center for Visualization and Virtual Environments at the University of Kentucky. 

To uncover the papyrus's secrets, Seales' team has been using machine learning: They've trained a computer program how to detect ink on papyri by letting it analyze ancient scrolls with computed tomography (CT) scans, which take thousands of X-rays to make 3D digital images. "They have visible writing, so we can match up the ink locations with the exact place to search for that ink in the micro-CT," Seales told Live Science in an email. 

During the presentation, Janko noted that the team's work is gradually making more of the text legible. "With each iteration of his [Seales] work, the ability to read more of these fragments is getting better every time," Janko said.

Many mysteries

However, much about the scroll remains a mystery. The author of the text is unknown. It's also unclear why it was inside the villa. Janko noted that many of the texts in the villa were written by Philodemus and discuss philosophy, not history. 

Janko hypothesized that the text may have been borrowed and not returned. One possibility is that Philodemus himself used it as a reference to write his work "On the Good King According to Homer," Jeffrey Fish, a classics professor at Baylor University in Texas, told Live Science in an email. In this work, Philodemus compares post-Alexander kings with those who reigned earlier, casting the post-Alexander kings in a negative light. 

The patron of Philodemus was a man named Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, a Roman governor of Macedonia. "I think Philodemus is showing Piso that the example of Homer's good kings can help him as governor of Macedon surpass the decadent Hellenistic rulers who preceded him," Fish said.

The famous Rosetta Stone is a black granite slab inscribed with three ancient texts — two Egyptian and one Greek. It ultimately helped researchers decipher ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, whose meaning had eluded historians for centuries. But why did ancient scribes include three different kinds of writing, or scripts, on this iconic stone in the first place?

The reason the stone has a trio of scripts ultimately stems from the legacy of one of Alexander the Great's generals. The Greek text on the stone is linked with Egypt's Ptolemaic dynasty, founded by Ptolemy I Soter, a Greek-speaking Macedonian general of Alexander’s. Alexander conquered Egypt in 332 B.C., and Ptolomy I Soter seized control of the country nine years later following Alexander's death. (Cleopatra, who died in 30 B.C., was the last active ruler of the Ptolemaic line.)

The stone isn't associated with Ptolemy I Soter, but with his descendant Ptolemy V Epiphanes, whose priests had the inscribed message composed in three different scripts that each played important social roles during the Ptolemaic dynasty.

Related: How do we decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics and other ancient languages?

A French military expedition that was part of Napoleon's invasion of Egypt unearthed the Rosetta Stone in 1799 during construction of a fort at the town of Rashīd, according to the British Museum in London. Rosetta is the French name for Rashid, according to Oxford University Press.

The stone isn't complete, however; it's a broken part of a larger slab. But even though it's missing a big chunk of the hieroglyphs from its long-lost top section, the stone has the same message carved into it in three different kinds of writing — ancient Greek; Egyptian hieroglyphs; and Egyptian demotic script —  a cursive script that Egyptians used between the seventh century B.C. and the fifth century A.D., according to Britannica.

Egyptian demotic script was used for "the contemporary language used in everyday speech as well as administrative documents," Foy Scalf, head of research archives and a research associate at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, told Live Science. In contrast, "the grammar of the hieroglyphic section imitates Middle Egyptian," the phase of the Egyptian language associated with Egypt's Middle Kingdom period, which spanned from about 2044 B.C. to 1650 B.C., he explained. "By the Ptolemaic period, Middle Egyptian was often used for very formal inscriptions, as Egyptian scribes considered it a classical version of their language whose imitation added authority to the text."

Ancient Greek grew to become widely used in ancient Egypt among the educated class during the Ptolemaic dynasty, and there were modern scholars who still understood it at the time of the Rosetta Stone's discovery. As such, the stone helped researchers decipher the Egyptian hieroglyphs and demotic script, which are two different scripts for one language, according to the American Research Center in Egypt. (The use of hieroglyphics began to die out after the Romans took over Egypt in 30 B.C., with the last known Egyptian hieroglyphic writing appearing in the fourth century A.D., Britannica noted.)

The message on the Rosetta Stone was likely written by a council of priests in the Egyptian city of Memphis, an ancient capital about 15.5 miles (25 kilometers) south of Cairo, according to Britannica. The priests carved the stone in 196 B.C., during the ninth year of the reign of Ptolemy V Epiphanes (lived from 210 B.C. to 180 B.C.), who inherited the throne at age 5 and was officially crowned at age 13. It celebrates his coronation as ruler of Egypt.

The message on the Rosetta Stone was likely written by a council of priests in the Egyptian city of Memphis, an ancient capital about 15.5 miles (25 kilometers) south of Cairo, according to Britannica. The priests carved the stone in 196 B.C., during the ninth year of the reign of Ptolemy V Epiphanes (lived from 210 B.C. to 180 B.C.), who inherited the throne at age 5 and was officially crowned at age 13. It celebrates his coronation as ruler of Egypt. 

The inscription of the decree on stones set up throughout Egypt followed a previous pattern for official pronouncements. "Similar trilingual decrees had been promulgated before, such as those by Ptolemy IV Philopator after the battle of Raphia in 217 B.C., and by Ptolemy III Euergetes in the Canopus Decree of 238 B.C.," Scalf said. "Thus, while such a decree was not necessarily a standard matter, it followed a well-established precedent."

The context in which the decree was inscribed sheds light on why it was written in three different scripts, Scalf said. When the priests assembled in Memphis to carve the stone, the political situation in Egypt was complicated. 

"Ptolemy V Epiphanes was only a small child when his father Ptolemy IV Philopator died in 204 B.C., leaving the Egyptian empire to be run by regents," Scalf said. "The transition of power came at an unfortunate time for the royal administration."

Related: Is the ancient Egyptian 'mummy's curse' real? 

The Seleucid Empire of western Asia — founded by the Macedonian general Seleucus I Nicator in 312 B.C. — took advantage of the power vacuum following Ptolemy IV Philopator's death and invaded areas on the western Mediterranean coast to undermine Ptolemaic control there, Scalf noted. Simultaneously, Egypt was dealing with a major revolt of native groups that had begun late in Ptolemy IV Philopator's reign.

Given the complex politics that Ptolemy V Epiphanes faced, the assembly of the priests at Memphis for his coronation was likely rich with several layers of meaning.

"Memphis was the traditional capital of the pharaonic empire, and thus a coronation there held symbolic value for the king and his court," Scalf said. "The gathering for the coronation at Memphis likely served as an important connection with the past, an intentional symbol of the consolidated rule of Ptolemy V Epiphanes over Egypt, as well as an acquiescence to the Egyptian priesthood's desire to meet in their sacred city of Memphis rather than Alexandria (the capital of Ptolemaic Egypt)," he noted.

The Rosetta Stone catalogs some of Ptolemy V Epiphanes' accomplishments, such as gifts to temples, tax cuts and the quelling of a portion of Egypt's internal revolts. In return for these services to Egypt, the priests pledged a number of actions to support Ptolemy V Epiphanes, such as constructing new statues, adding better decorations to his shrines, and holding festivals for his birthday and day of accession to the throne, Britannica noted.

"The decree helped him flex his influential and propagandistic muscle by depicting him as the legitimate king who fights on behalf of the Egyptians and portraying the Egyptian priesthood as supporting him," Scalf said.

Among the most important outcomes of the decree "was establishing a number of benefits for the powerful Egyptian priesthood in exchange for their support of the young king," Scalf said. "These benefactions demonstrate the power negotiations at play between the ruling house and other invested parties such as the priesthood, who had significant influence in the public's perception of the king."

Originally published on Live Science.

The famous library of Alexandria, Egypt, was one of the most important repositories of knowledge in the ancient world. Built in the fourth century B.C., it flourished for some six centuries, was the cultural and intellectual center of the ancient Hellenistic world, and was rumored to contain half a million papyrus scrolls — the largest collection of manuscripts in the ancient world — including works by Plato, Aristotle, Homer, Herodotus and many others. Some of the most brilliant minds of the period worked, studied and taught at the library. 

By the fifth century A.D., however, the library had essentially ceased to exist. With many of its collections stolen, destroyed or simply allowed to fall into disrepair, the library no longer wielded the influence it once had. 

The story of the Alexandrian Library's rise and demise is still being fleshed out through scholarship and archaeology. But what we do know of this tale is as complex and dramatic as any Hollywood movie. 

Library of Alexandria's age and origins

Alexander the Great founded the city of Alexandria, Egypt, at the northwestern end of the Nile delta around 331 B.C. When he died eight years later, his empire was divided among his generals. One of them, Ptolemy I Soter, became the ruler of Egypt and established his capital at Alexandria. Under his reign and the reign of his descendants, the city grew into one of the greatest and most prosperous cities of the Hellenistic period (323 B.C. to 30 B.C.) — a thriving commercial hub and Mediterranean seaport. 

"The library was probably created quite soon after the founding of Alexandria around 331 B.C.," said Willeke Wendrich, a professor of Egyptian archaeology and the Joan Silsbee chair of African cultural archaeology at the University of California, Los Angeles. "But it is unclear whether the library was founded by Alexander, Ptolemy I or [his son] Ptolemy II, but it seems likely that it came to fruition under the latter, who ruled from 284 to 246 B.C." 

A persistent legend, however, holds that the library began when one of Ptolemy I's subjects, an Athenian named Demetrius of Phalerum, proposed constructing a building to house all the world's known manuscripts, according to according to Britannica. Demetrius' grand design was to erect a place of learning that would rival Aristotle's famous Lyceum, a school and library near Athens. Ptolemy I apparently approved the plan, and soon, a building was erected within the palace precincts. 

"It was called the Museion, or 'Place of the Muses,'" Wendrich said; it was named after the muses, the nine Greek goddesses of the arts. (The word "museum" is derived from "museion.") 

Zenodotus of Ephesus was reputed to be the first chief librarian, according to Britannica. He was a Greek scholar and poet who served as chief librarian under both Ptolemy I and Ptolemy II. He was responsible for creating the first critical edition of Homer, a work that attempted to determine which parts of the Iliad and the Odyssey were original and which were added by later writers. Zenodotus also edited the work of Hesiod, Pindar and other ancient poets, as well as producing his own poetry. 

Library of Alexandria's architecture

The library expanded in size and scope over the years as the Ptolemaic rulers saw the advantages of promoting a center of learning and culture within their city. Generous royal subsidies led to the creation of a complex of buildings surrounding the Museion. Although the precise layout of the library is not known, at its height the library was reputed to have included lecture halls, laboratories, meeting halls, gardens, dining commons and even a zoo, according to the ancient historian Diodorus Siculus. There was also a medical school whose students practiced the dissection of human cadavers — a unique skill that was rarely practiced in Europe before the 15th-century Renaissance. 

"The Museion was not a museum in the modern sense of the term, but much more like a university," Wendrich told Live Science. "Here, literary works were recited and theories discussed." 

The library's archive, where the manuscripts were held, may have been a separate building from the Museion, though it is not entirely clear. It is possible that, at its height, the library housed upward of half a million separate written works, according to World History Encyclopedia. These written works, called scrolls, were made out of papyrus, a reed that grew along the Nile River. According to Dartmouth College, the reeds were pounded flat to form paper and dried in the sun; the different papers were attached to one another with glue to form a long, continuous paper that could be rolled up. 

"The subject of these scrolls contained the totality of knowledge of the ancient [Western] world, ranging from literary works, to philosophical tractates, to scientific explanations," Wendrich said. There were also texts containing religious, mythological and medical subjects.

Library of Alexandria's collections: books and scrolls

The archives contained works by many of the famous Greek writers of classical antiquity, including the philosophers Plato, Aristotle and Pythagoras and the dramatic poets Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. The works of Aristotle were especially prized possessions, according to Britannica. They were, by one account, bought by Ptolemy II, who paid a considerable price for their acquisition. There were also medical texts by Hippocrates; poetry by Sappho, Pindar and Hesiod; and scientific tracts by Thales, Democritus and Anaximander. 

The librarians also collected the work of other cultures. According to Britannica, ancient Egyptian, Babylonian, Persian, Assyrian and Indian texts were included in the library. There were also Jewish, Zoroastrian and Buddhist texts. 

The Ptolemaic rulers wanted to collect all the world's manuscripts, and to this end, they sent out agents all over the known world in search of papyri. These agents were given explicit orders to find and purchase whatever manuscripts they could find, preferably the oldest and most original, according to Ancient History. Price was not a limitation; the Ptolemaic rulers were willing to pay vast sums for quality manuscripts. 

The hunger for manuscripts was so voracious that, according to a popular story noted in World History Encyclopedia, under the reign of Ptolemy III Euergetes, the son of Ptolemy II, all sailing vessels entering the city's harbor were required to hand over any manuscripts they happened to have onboard. The Alexandrian scribes copied these, keeping the originals and sending the copies back to the ships. 

Organizing the scrolls was a gargantuan task. Much like a library today, the scrolls were organized so they could be readily found and accessed by scholars. According to Britannica, the task of organizing the scrolls was given to a man named Callimachus, who worked under the reign of Ptolemy II. He devised a system, called the Pinakes, or "Tables," that classified the scrolls into divisions based on each scroll’s topic. These topics included, for example, natural history, history, poetry, law, rhetoric, medicine and mathematics. The system was akin to a library catalog or bibliography and, according to Britannica, became a model on which other systems of library organization were subsequently based. In addition, each scroll contained a tag that specified the title, author, subject and whether the work contained a single text or multiple texts. 

When the scrolls became so numerous that they could no longer be housed in a single building, the ancient Egyptian rulers built a second library, called the Serapeum, according to World History Encyclopedia, which reportedly held over 40,000 scrolls. It was erected near the royal palace in Alexandria sometime between 246 B.C. and 222 B.C. and was dedicated to the Greco-Egyptian god Serapis. 

As the library expanded over the centuries, it attracted many of the ancient world's most renowned scholars, philosophers and scientists. These included, among many others, Eratosthenes of Cyrene, Aristarchus of Samos, Euclid of Alexandria and Apollonius of Rhodes. Eratosthenes — a mathematician, geographer and astronomer — was the first person known to calculate the circumference of Earth. He also became the chief librarian of the library under the reign of Ptolemy III Euergetes, according to Britannica. Aristarchus of Samos was an ancient Greek astronomer and mathematician who first put forward the heliocentric model that placed the sun, rather than Earth, at the center of the known universe. In about 300 B.C., Euclid, known as the "father of geometry," wrote the famous book "Elements," one of the world's most influential works of mathematics. Apollonius of Rhodes was famous for writing a long poem based on the classical tale of Jason and the Argonauts. 

The library's burning and demise

Julius Caesar was accused by historians such as Plutarch and Seneca of starting a fire in Alexandria that burned the library to the ground, and for a long time modern historians accepted this version of events. The conflagration occurred during Caesar's occupation of the city in 48 B.C., a time when Caesar was fighting a civil war against his political rivals. According to the story, Caesar, besieged by his rivals, ordered his troops to set fire to enemy ships in the harbor. The historian Plutarch wrote, "Caesar was forced to repel the danger by using fire, which spread from the dockyards and destroyed the Great Library."

But the story is likely exaggerated, most historians now agree. There was a fire during Caesar's occupation, but it is believed that the library was largely unaffected, though some scrolls may have been burned. The Roman historian Cassius Dio, for example, wrote that a warehouse with scrolls located near the docks was burned during this conflict but that the library was untouched. Historians further cite evidence that the library survived by pointing to the writings of later visitors, such as the scholar Strabo, who mention using the library collections in their research. 

Wendrich characterized the destruction of the Library of Alexandria as a "slow decay" that "took place over centuries." Indeed, most scholars today are in general agreement that the library suffered a prolonged, painful decline rather than an abrupt, dramatic death. As its influence waned over time, many of its collections were sold or destroyed, and its buildings were ultimately razed or converted into other facilities, such as churches or mosques. 

However, this decline was hastened by a number of dramatic events, each of which played a role in lessening the importance of Alexandria as an intellectual center. One such event occurred when the ruler Ptolemy VIII (182 B.C. to 116 B.C.) expelled several scholars, including the chief librarian Aristarchus of Samothrace (not to be confused with Aristarchus of Samos), who had supported Ptolemy VIII's political rival, according to World History. Ptolemy VIII also ordered the expulsion of all non-Alexandrian scholars from the city. This unstable and hostile political environment led to a diaspora of scholars to such places as Athens and Rhodes. 

A second event occurred in A.D. 391, when the Roman emperor Theodosius I, who was a devout Christian, issued a decree allowing for the destruction of pagan temples in the empire. Theophilus, the bishop of Alexandria, acted upon this decree by destroying the Serapeum and ordering a church to be built on the ruins, according to World History Encyclopedia. 

These and other incidents — such as the Roman emperor Diocletian's siege and sack of the city in A.D. 297 — played roles in further destroying the library and its associated buildings. According to the Coptic bishop John of Nikiu, Diocletian, "set fire to the city and burned it completely." 

But perhaps the greatest influence leading to the demise of the library was simply the decline of Alexandria as an intellectual center. Around this time, Rome and Athens gained influence as powerful academic centers, each with their own renowned libraries. This loss of prestige occurred hand in glove with the decline of the city as an important cultural and commercial center. Political and economic problems, coupled with social unrest, prompted many later Ptolemaic rulers to invest fewer resources and less energy in maintaining the library. 

"From its heyday in the third century B.C., the intellectual climate fluctuated," Wendrich said. "Some rulers were supportive [of the library], others less so." 

In the long term, this meant the gradual dissolution of the library as construction projects halted, other academic institutions attracted scholars and the fortunes of the city waned. Indeed, by the seventh century A.D., when the Arab Caliphate of Omar (also spelled Umar) conquered the city, the library was merely a memory, according to World History Encyclopedia. However, the Christian bishop Gregory Bar Hebraeus, writing in the 13th century, argued that Caliph Omar played a final role in the destruction of the library. When the Muslim army took the city, a general reportedly asked the caliph what was to be done with all the surviving scrolls. The caliph is reputed to have answered, "they will either contradict the Koran, in which case they are heresy, or they will agree with it, so they are superfluous," according to ehistory from The Ohio State University. Consequently, the scrolls were allegedly burned in several great conflagrations that were used to heat the city's bathhouses. However, this story has now largely been discounted by scholars.

Historians and scientists have long lamented the loss of the Great Library of Alexandria — and the destruction of so much knowledge. It is difficult to say for certain what information might have been lost, because there has never been a full accounting of what exactly the library held in its archives. 

Editor's note: Originally published on Jan. 17, 2022.

Additional resources

—Read the ehistory entry about the Library of Alexandria from The Ohio State University. 

—Learn about the library's demise at My Modern Met. 

—Watch a TED-Ed video about the Great Library of Alexandria. 

Bibliography

Greatest Greeks, "Demetrius of Phalerum." Demetrius of Phalerum — Greatest Greeks (wordpress.com). 

University of Chicago, "Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, Book III." https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/3C*.html 

World History Encyclopedia, "What Happened to the Great Library at Alexandria?" February 1, 2011. What happened to the Great Library at Alexandria? - World History Encyclopedia

Britannica, "Library of Alexandria." Library of Alexandria | Description, Facts, & Destruction | Britannica

Britannica, "Eratosthenes." Eratosthenes | Biography, Discoveries, Sieve, & Facts | Britannica

World History, "Aristarchus of Samothrace," March 29, 2015. Aristarchus of Samothrace (worldhistory.biz)

History of Information, "Bibliotheca Ulpia." Bibliotheca Ulpia, Probably the Greatest, and Certainly the Longest Lasting of the Roman Libraries : History of Information

World History Encyclopedia, "The Library of Hadrian, Athens," November 5, 2015. The Library of Hadrian, Athens - World History Encyclopedia

Early Church Fathers, "The Chronicle of John, Bishop of Nikiu." https://www.tertullian.org/fathers/nikiu2_chronicle.htm 

Livius.org, Articles on Ancient History, "Plutarch on Caesar's War in Alexandria." https://www.livius.org/sources/content/plutarch/plutarchs-caesar/war-in-alexandria/ 

Britannica, “Strabo, Greek Geographer and Historian.” https://www.britannica.com/biography/Strabo

University of Chicago, "Roman History by Cassius Dio." https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/42*.html 

The Persians, the ancient inhabitants of what is now Iran, created one of the ancient world's largest and most powerful empires that flourished from 550 B.C. to 330 B.C. At its height, the Persian Empire, also known as the Achaemenid Empire, stretched from the eastern Mediterranean Sea to the western border with India and included a diverse array of cultures and ethnic groups. It was finally conquered by Alexander the Great during his invasion of Asia in the fourth century B.C. 

"The Achaemenid Empire was something drastically different from its predecessors," said Touraj Daryaee, the Maseeh chair in Persian Studies and Culture at the University of California, Irvine, and the editor of "Excavating an Empire: Achaemenid Persian in Longue Dureé" (Mazda Publishers, 2014). "It was the first world empire. It's an Afro-Eurasian empire because it included parts of Africa, Asia and Europe."

Who were the ancient Persians?

The ancient Persians were an Indo-Iranian people who migrated to the Iranian plateau during the end of the second millennium B.C., possibly from the Caucasus or Central Asia. Originally a pastoral people who roamed the steppes with their livestock, they were ethnically related to the Bactrians, Medes and Parthians. In the fifth century B.C. the Greek historian Herodotus described them as being divided into several different tribes, the most powerful of which was the Pasargadae, of whom the Achaemenid clan was a part.

"We first hear of the Persian people from Assyrian sources," an ancient ethnic group indigenous to the Middle East, Daryaee told Live Science.

The ninth-century B.C. Assyrian king, Shalmaneser III, recorded encountering a people who were settled in the area that is now southwestern Iran and went by the name Parsua. This reference, written in cuneiform, appears on his "Black Obelisk," which was found in 1846 and commemorates and records Shalmaneser III's deeds and  military campaigns. Scholars suggest the limestone obelisk was probably engraved in 825 B.C., according to the British Museum. The translated reference to the Persians reads as follows:

"Moving on from the land Namri, I received tribute from twenty-seven kings of the land Parsua. Moving on from the land Parsua I went down to the lands Mēsu, Media (Amadāiia), Araziaš, (and) Harhār, (and) captured the cities Kuakinda, Hazzanabi, Esamul, (and) Kinablila, together with the cities in their environs."

The Persian Empire, rise and fall

By the first millennium B.C., the Persians were well established in southwestern Iran, with their capital at Anshan, an old city of the Elamites, an ancient ethnic group from the Iranian plateau. The Persians were ruled by kings who claimed descent from a semi-mythical king named Achaemenes. For several centuries, the Assyrians and later the Medes, an Indo-Iranian people who were settled in northwestern Iran, dominated the Persians, according to World History Encyclopedia. But during the mid-sixth century B.C., an ambitious and capable ruler named Cyrus came to power. Later known as Cyrus the Great, he revolted against the Medes, conquered them, and then embarked on a campaign of conquest, adding the kingdoms of Lydia, Elam and Babylon to his burgeoning empire. At the time of his death in 530 B.C., his Achaemenid Empire stretched from the Balkans in Europe to India, and, as previously discussed on Live Science, is considered to have been one of the largest empires, both geographically and in terms of population, in the ancient world.

Herodotus is one of the main sources of information on Cyrus's life. In Book I of his Histories, Herodotus depicted the early life of the Persian king, recounting in mythological terms how a series of dreams led Astyages, the king of the Medes, to attempt to kill the infant Cyrus. But Cyrus survived these murder attempts, grew into manhood and overthrew the Medes. According to Britannica, this story of Cyrus's infancy is likely a fabricated tale designed to show that Cyrus's reign was destined and ordained. 

Xenophon, a Greek soldier and writer (c. 430 B.C. to 350 B.C.), is another important source of information on Cyrus's life, according to Britannica. In his work on Cyrus, called the Cyropaedia, he described the Persian king as "the most handsome in person, most generous of heart, most devoted to learning, and most ambitious, so that he endured all sorts of labor and faced all sorts of danger for the sake of praise." 

In addition to being a successful general, Cyrus proved to be a successful administrator and was known for his benevolent nature and generosity, Daryaee said. Cyrus was famous for showing mercy to the nations he conquered, allowing them to retain their own traditions, religions and rights instead of forcing his subjects to adopt his culture (like most other ancient rulers). In the Hebrew books of Isaiah and Ezra, for example, Cyrus is revered as a liberator and is responsible for freeing the Jews from the Babylonians and helping them rebuild the Second Temple in Jerusalem.

This sense of justice and mercy might have stemmed from Cyrus's childhood experiences and the place he grew up, Daryaee noted. "Cyrus was brought up in a multicultural setting in the city of Anshan," he said. "He was privy to all these different religions, cultures and languages. This gave him a great understanding about how to deal with people."  

Cyrus realized that to successfully rule a vast empire, a ruler needed to exercise a certain amount of benevolence and understanding, Daryaee said. The Persians had learned from the Assyrian and Babylonian empires that terror and intimidation were not successful long-term strategies. Instead, Daryaee said, the Persians were guided by the concept of "vispadana," a term that is translated as "many people." Vispadana is the recognition not only that the empire is composed of many different cultures but that those cultures are, in fact, a benefit to the empire because of the different skills and capacities their people possess. 

"When we compare the Assyrian Empire, which was the preceding empire, we see that the king is depicted as a great conqueror," Daryaee said. "But if you look at the royal carvings at Persepolis, you are getting a completely different perception of how things should be."

Parts of Persepolis, the ancient capital of the Achaemenid Empire, which is near modern-day Shiraz, Iran, are protected today as a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site. Several murals found at Persepolis depict the Persian king as a uniter. His subjects, the representatives of many different nations and cultures, are arrayed around him in thankful poses rather than portrayed as captives or victims. "His subjects, such as Medes, Persians and others, are holding hands," Daryaee said. "It's an acknowledgement that this is a multicultural, multi-lingual empire."

Cyrus's son Cambyses II added ancient Egypt to the empire but proved to be a less-capable ruler than his father. After his death, which is attributed to an accident during his Egyptian campaign, Cambyses' younger brother Bardiya ascended the throne, according to Britannica. His reign was short-lived, however; soon after becoming king he was assassinated in 522 B.C. by a Persian noble named Darius, who subsequently took the throne.

The Achaemenid Empire then reached its zenith under Darius. He consolidated the Egyptian conquests and added parts of India and Thrace (in the Balkans) to his empire. He also reformed the empire’s legal code, initiated several massive building projects, created a postal service, and standardized the Persian system of weights, measurements and currency, according to World History Encyclopedia.

The Greco-Persian Wars

It was also during Darius' reign that the famous Greco-Persian Wars began. These were a series of wars that pitted several Greek city states, most prominently Athens and Sparta, against the Persian Empire. The first phase began when a few Anatolian Greek cities, such as Miletus, revolted against the Persians. Athens and Eretria supported the revolt, but it ultimately proved unsuccessful. In retaliation, Darius sent an army to punish those Greek cities. Darius's forces burned the city of Eretria but were defeated in 490 B.C. at the Battle of Marathon by a force of Athenian hoplites (heavily armed foot soldiers) who, though outnumbered, managed to outflank the Persian force. 

Darius' son Xerxes continued the war his father had prosecuted; he amassed a huge war fleet in 480 B.C. and invaded Greece in what was known as the Second Greco-Persian War. But like the first endeavor, this invasion also ended in Persian defeat. Darius' fleet was destroyed by the Athenians at the Battle of Salamis, and then later his land forces were defeated at the Battle of Plataea by an army of allied Greek cities led by Sparta, according to the World History Encyclopedia.

The end of the Persian Empire

In 334 B.C., the young Macedonian ruler Alexander the Great crossed the Hellespont (today known as the Dardanelles Strait in Turkey) and invaded the Persian Empire. In a series of brilliantly planned and executed battles, the young king defeated the armies of the Persian king, Darius III. Alexander went on to burn Persepolis, but in a stunning change of heart, he gave the fallen king a magnificent burial and married his daughter Stateira, according to Ancient Origins. From then on, Alexander adopted many Persian customs and affectations, such as dressing in Persian clothes. This stance put him at odds with many of his Greek and Macedonian compatriots. He also kept the Persian administrative system intact, according to Britannica, and ordered many of his Macedonian officers and generals to take Persian wives in order to forge a union between the two cultures. 

When Alexander died in 323 B.C., his empire was divided among his generals. Much of the former Persian Empire came under the influence of the Ptolemaic and Seleucid kingdoms, according to Britannica. However, native Persian rule was eventually restored in the second century B.C. under the Parthians.

Additional resources

• Watch a video about the Persian Achaemenid Empire (550 B.C to 330 BC).
• Read National Geographic magazine's article about Cyrus the Great.
• Learn about the polytheistic ancient Persian religion.

Bibliography

University of Chicago, "Herodotus, Book I: Chapters 45-140." https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Herodotus/1b*.html

Archive.org, "Assyrian rulers of the early first millennium B.C., 858-754 B.C." https://ia801602.us.archive.org/15/items/AssyrianRulersOfTheEarlyFirstMillenniumBc858-754Bc/A._Kirk_Grayson_Assyrian_Rulers_of_the_Early_FirBookFi.org.pdf 

Britannica, "Elam." https://www.britannica.com/place/Elam 

Britannica, "Cyrus the Great." https://www.britannica.com/biography/Cyrus-the-Great 

Britannica, "Xenophon, Greek Historian." https://www.britannica.com/biography/Xenophon 

Iran Chamber Society, "Cyropaedia of Xenophon; The Life of Cyrus the Great." https://www.iranchamber.com/history/xenophon/cyropaedia_xenophon_book1.php 

World History Encyclopedia, "Darius I." https://www.worldhistory.org/Darius_I/ 

Live Science, "Sixteen epic battles that changed history." https://www.livescience.com/42716-epic-battles-that-changed-history.html 

Britannica, "Xerxes." https://www.britannica.com/biography/Xerxes-I 

World History Encyclopedia, "The Battle of Salamis." https://www.worldhistory.org/Battle_of_Salamis/ 

Live Science, "Alexander the Great: Facts, biography and accomplishments." https://www.livescience.com/39997-alexander-the-great.html 

Britannica, "Alexander the Great: King of Macedonia." https://www.britannica.com/biography/Alexander-the-Great 

Alexander the Great was king of Macedonia from 336 B.C. to 323 B.C. and conquered a huge empire that stretched from the Balkans to modern-day Pakistan. 

During his reign, Alexander the Great had a massive impact in his time and sent ripples into the future. "In a reign of 13 years Alexander shot across the Greek and Middle Eastern firmament like a meteor, transforming whatever he — often brutally — touched and ensuring the ancient world and so eventually our world could never be the same again," Paul Cartledge, A.G. Leventis professor of Greek culture at Cambridge University, wrote in All About History magazine.

Alexander's triumphs also made him a legendary figure and an inspiration for future generations. "Until the internet age, Alexander the Great was probably the most famous human being who ever lived," Cartledge wrote. "His astounding career of conquest inspired not just Caesar and Augustus but also Mark Antony, Napoleon, Hitler and other would-be world conquerors from the West."

Related: Has the tomb of Alexander the Great's mom been found? 

Yet, despite his military accomplishments, ancient records say that he failed to win the respect of some of his subjects, wrote Pierre Briant, emeritus professor of history at Collège de France, in "Alexander the Great and His Empire" (Princeton University Press, 2010) and, furthermore, he had some of the people closest to him murdered.

"The personality of Alexander the Great was a paradox," Susan Abernethy of The Freelance History Writer told Live Science. "He had great charisma and force of personality but his character was full of contradictions, especially in his later years (his early 30s). However, he had the ability to motivate his army to do what seemed to be impossible."

Where was Alexander the Great from?

Alexander was born around July 20, 356 B.C., in Pella in modern-day northern Greece, which was the administrative capital of ancient Macedonia. He was the son of King Philip II and Olympias (one of Philip's seven or eight wives) and was brought up with the belief that he was of divine birth. "From his earliest days, Olympias had encouraged him to believe that he was a descendent of heroes and gods. Nothing he had accomplished would have discouraged this belief," wrote Guy MacLean Rogers, a professor of classics at Wellesley College, Massachusetts, in his book "Alexander" (Random House, 2004). 

Alexander's father was often away, conquering neighboring territories and putting down revolts. Nevertheless, King Philip II of Macedon was one of Alexander's most influential role models, Abernethy said. "Philip ensured Alexander was given a noteworthy and significant education. He arranged for Alexander to be tutored by Aristotle himself … His education infused him with a love of knowledge, logic, philosophy, music and culture. The teachings of Aristotle [would later aid] him in the treatment of his new subjects in the empires he invaded and conquered, allowing him to admire and maintain these disparate cultures."

Alexander watched his father campaign nearly every year and win victory after victory. Philip remodeled the Macedonian army from citizen-warriors into a professional organization, wrote Ian Worthington, professor of history and archaeology at Macquarie University, in "Philip II of Macedonia" (Yale University Press, 2010). Philip suffered serious wounds in battle, such as the loss of an eye, a broken shoulder and a damaged leg, according to Worthington.

Philip decided to leave his 16-year-old son in charge of Macedonia while he was away on campaign, Cartledge wrote in his book "Alexander the Great" (Overlook Press, 2004). Alexander took advantage of the opportunity by defeating a Thracian people called the Maedi and founding "Alexandroupolis," a city he named after himself. 

"Alexander felt the need to challenge his father's authority and superiority and wished to out-do his father," Abernethy said. 

Ancient records, such as Plutarch's "Lives," indicate that Alexander and Philip became estranged later in Alexander's teenage years. "Alexander may have resented his father's many marriages and the children born from them, seeing them as a threat to his own position," said Abernethy. At one point his mother Olympia was exiled to Epirus in western Greece.

Philip was assassinated in 336 B.C. while celebrating the wedding of his daughter Cleopatra (not the famous Egyptian pharaoh). The person who stabbed him was said to have been one of Philip's former male lovers, named Pausanias. While the ancient Greek historian Cleitarchus pointed to jealousy and betrayal as the motive, as outlined by Diodorus Siculus in "Library of History," other ancient sources like Justin in "Epitome of the Philippic History Of Pompeius Trogus" suspected that Pausanias may have been part of a larger plot to kill the king — one that may have included Alexander and his mother. 

At the time of his death, Philip was contemplating invading the Persian Empire, also known as the Achaemenid Empire, which at its peak stretched from the Balkan peninsula to modern-day Pakistan and had repeatedly attempted to conquer the Greek world. Philip’s dream was passed onto Alexander, partly via his mother Olympias, according to Abernethy. "She fostered in him a burning dynastic ambition and told him it was his destiny to invade Persia."

Upon his father's death, Alexander moved quickly to consolidate power. He gained the support of the Macedonian army and intimidated the Greek city states that Philip had conquered into accepting his rule. After campaigns in the Balkans and Thrace, Alexander moved against Thebes, a city in Greece that had risen up in rebellion. He conquered it in 335 B.C. and had the city destroyed.

With Greece and the Balkans pacified, he was ready to launch a campaign against the Persian Empire.

Conquering the Persian Empire

While Alexander may have had his own reasons for expanding eastward, "his official reason for wanting to conquer the Achaemenid Persian Empire… was to lead the allied Greeks in a war of liberation: to free forever from Persian control the Greek cities along the Anatolian coast and on the island of Cyprus, and in so doing also to exact revenge for the Persians' invasion of Greece under Great King Xerxes in 480-479 BCE," Cartledge wrote. 

But ironically, Alexander often fought Greek mercenaries while campaigning against Darius III, the king of Persia. Even more ironically, Sparta, a city that had famously lost its king and 300 warriors in the Battle of Thermopylae during a Persian invasion attempt, also opposed Alexander, going so far as to seek Persian help in the Spartans’ efforts to overthrow him, according to Siculus.

Nevertheless, Alexander was hugely successful against Persia. The first major battle he won against the Perisans was in 334 B.C. at the Battle of Granicus, fought in modern-day western Turkey, not far from the ancient city of Troy. The ancient Greek historian Arrian wrote that Alexander defeated a force of 20,000 Persian horsemen and an equal number of foot soldiers. He then advanced down the coast of west Turkey, taking cities and depriving the Persian navy of bases.

The second key battle he won — and perhaps the most important — was the Battle of Issus, fought in 333 B.C. near the ancient town of Issus in southern Turkey, close to modern-day Syria. In that battle, the Persians were led by Darius III himself. Arrian estimated that Darius had a force of 600,000 troops (probably wildly exaggerated) and initially positioned himself on a great plain where he could mass his force effectively against Alexander, who hesitated to give battle.

Darius is said to have thought this as a sign of timidity. "One courtier after another incited Darius, declaring that he would trample down the Macedonian army with his cavalry," Arrian wrote. So, Darius gave up his position and chased Alexander. At first this went well, and Darius’s soldiers got in the rear of Alexander's force. However, Darius’s army had been led to a narrow spot where the Persians could not use their superior numbers effectively, and at that point Alexander moved his force against the Persians. Alexander’s experienced army proved too strong for the Persian force, and eventually Darius fled, along with his army.

In his haste, Darius left much of his family behind, including his mother, wife, infant son and two daughters. Alexander ordered that they be "honored, and addressed as royalty," Arrian wrote. After the battle, Darius offered Alexander a ransom for his family and alliance, through marriage.

Arrian wrote that Alexander rebuked Darius in writing, saying "in the future whenever you send word to me, address yourself to me as King of Asia and not as an equal, and let me know, as the master of all that belonged to you, if you have need of anything." 

Pharaoh of Egypt

Alexander then moved south along the eastern Mediterranean, continuing a strategy designed to deprive the Persians of their naval bases. Many cities surrendered, but some, such as Tyre, which was on an island in modern-day Lebanon, put up a fight and forced Alexander to lay siege.

In 332 B.C., after Gaza was taken by siege, Alexander entered Egypt, a country that had experienced on-and-off periods of Persian rule for two centuries. On its northern coast, he founded Alexandria, the most successful city he ever built. Arrian wrote that "a sudden passion for the project seized him, and he himself marked out where the agora was to be built and decided how many temples were to be erected and to which gods they were to be dedicated…".

Alexander claimed the title of pharaoh, and according to Cartledge, looked to attach himself to the line of Egyptian rulers through a traditional ceremony. "Almost certainly he had himself crowned pharaoh in the old Egyptian capital of Memphis, thereby not only ingratiating himself with the Egyptian masses but also enfolding the old and still powerful Egyptian priesthood in the embrace of his new Egyptian monarchy," Cartledge wrote.

Battle of Gaugamela

With the eastern Mediterranean and Egypt under his control, Alexander successfully deprived the Persians of naval bases and was free to move inland to conquer the eastern half of the Persian Empire.

At the Battle of Gaugamela, fought in 331 B.C. in northern Iraq near present-day Erbil, Alexander faced as many as 1 million troops, according to Arrian (modern scholars' estimates vary but put the total closer to 100,000 against roughly 50,000 soldiers for Alexander). Darius brought soldiers from all over his empire, and even beyond. Scythian horsemen from the Persian Empire’s northern borders faced Alexander, as did "Indian" troops (as the ancient writers called them) who were probably from modern-day Pakistan.

The battle soon became a war of nerves. "For a brief period the fighting was hand to hand, but when Alexander and his horseman pressed the enemy hard, shoving the Persians and striking their faces with spears, and the Macedonian phalanx, tightly arrayed and bristling with pikes, was already upon them, Darius, who had long been in a state of dread, now saw terrors all around him; he wheeled about — the first to do so — and fled," Arrian wrote. From that point on the Persian army started to collapse and the Persian king fled, with Alexander in hot pursuit.

Darius was later betrayed by one of his satraps, or regional governors, named Bessus (who then claimed kingship over what was left of Persia), and was killed by his own troops in 330 B.C.

Alexander wanted a peaceful transition of power in Persia following Darius’s defeat. He needed to have the appearance of legitimacy to appease the people, so Alexander provided a noble burial for Darius.

"[Providing noble burials] was a common practice by Alexander and his generals when they took over the rule of different areas of the empire," Abernethy said.

Alexander was influenced by the teachings of his tutor, Aristotle, whose philosophy of Greek ethos did not require forcing Greek culture on the colonized. "Alexander would take away the political autonomy of those he conquered but not their culture or way of life. In this way, he would gain their loyalty by honoring their culture, even after the conquest was complete, creating security and stability. Alexander himself even adopted Persian dress and certain Persian customs," Abernethy said.

Wishing to incorporate the most easterly portions of the Persian Empire into his own, Alexander campaigned in central Asia from 330 and 327 B.C. It was a rocky, frost-bitten conflict, which raised tensions within his own army, and led to Alexander killing two of his closest friends.

Why did Alexander kill his friends?

Alexander killing Parmenio, his former second in command, and Cleitus, the Macedonian king’s close friend who is said to have saved his life at the Battle of Granicus, may be seen as a sign of how Alexander’s men were becoming tired of campaigning, and how Alexander was becoming increasingly paranoid.

At some point during Alexander's campaign in central Asia, Parmenio's son, Philotas, allegedly failed to report a plot against Alexander's life. The king, incensed, decided to kill not only Philotas and the other men deemed conspirators, but also Parmenio, even though he apparently had nothing to do with the alleged plot.

According to the first-century A.D. writer Quintus Curtius (as found in "Alexander The Great: Selections from Arrian, Diodorus, Plutarch, and Quintus Curtius," Hackett Publishing, 1800), Alexander tasked a man named Polydamas, a friend of Parmenio, to perform the deed, holding his brothers hostage until he murdered Parmenio. Arriving in Parmenio's tent in the city where he was stationed, Polydamas handed him two letters: one from Alexander and one from Parmenio’s son.

When Parmenio was reading the letter from his son, a general named Cleander, who aided Polydamas with his mission, "opened him (Parmenio) up with a sword thrust to his side, then struck him a second blow in the throat…" killing him, Quintus Curtius wrote. 

A second casualty of Alexander's fury was his friend Cleitus, who was angry at Alexander for adopting Persian dress and customs. After an episode where the two were drinking, Cleitus scolded the king, telling him, in essence, that he should follow Macedonian ways, not Persian customs.

Cleitus lifted up his right hand and said, "this is the hand, Alexander, that saved you then (at the Battle of Granicus)," according to Arrian. Alexander, infuriated, killed him with a spear or pike.

Alexander took his act of murder terribly. "Again and again, he called himself his friend's murderer and went without food and drink for three days and completely neglected his person," Arrian wrote.

Alexander's final battles

Alexander's days in central Asia were not all unhappy. After his troops had captured a fortress at a place called Sogdian Rock in modern-day Uzbekistan in 327 B.C. he met Roxana, the daughter of a local ruler. The two married, and they had an unborn son at the time of Alexander’s death.

Despite his men’s fatigue, and the fact that he was far from home, Alexander pressed on into a land that the Greeks called "India" (what is now present-day Pakistan). Plutarch explained in "The Life of Alexander the Great" that he made an alliance with a local ruler named Taxiles, who agreed to allow Alexander to use his city, Taxila, as a base of operations. He also agreed to give Alexander all the supplies he needed — which was very useful given Alexander's long supply lines.

In exchange, Alexander agreed to fight Porus, a local ruler who set out against Alexander with an army that reportedly included 200 elephants. The two armies met at the Hydaspes River in 326 B.C. Alexander bided his time; he scouted the area, built up a fleet of ships and lulled Porus into a false sense of security.

When Porus mobilized his forces he found himself in a predicament; his cavalry was not as experienced as Alexander's. As such, he put his 200 elephants — animals the Macedonians had never faced in large numbers — up front.

Alexander responded by using his cavalry to attack the wings of Porus's forces, quickly putting Porus's cavalry to flight. The result was that Porus's cavalry, foot soldiers and elephants eventually became jumbled together. Making matters worse for Porus, Alexander's soldiers attacked the elephants with javelins, and the wounded elephants went on a rampage, stomping on both Alexander and Porus's troops.

With his army falling apart, Porus stayed until the end and was captured. Arrian wrote that Porus was brought to the Macedonian king and said, "treat me like a king, Alexander." Alexander, impressed with his bravery and words, made him an ally.

The journey home

In 324 B.C., Alexander's close friend, general and bodyguard Haphaestion died suddenly from fever. Haphaestion's death caused a drastic change in Alexander's personality, Abernethy said. "Alexander had always been a heavy drinker and the substance abuse began to take its toll. He lost his self-control and his compassion for his men. He became reckless, self-indulgent and inconsistent, causing a loss of loyalty by his men and officers. He had always had a violent temper and been rash, impulsive and stubborn. The drinking made these traits worse."

Under such conditions, many of his men insisted that Alexander turn back home, according to Abernethy. Sailing south down the Indus River, he fought a group called the Malli and was severely wounded after he led an attack against their city wall. After reaching the Indian Ocean he split his force in three. One element, with the heavy equipment, would take a relatively safe route to Persia, the second, under his command, would traverse Gedrosia, a largely uninhabited deserted area that no large force had ever crossed before. A third force, embarked on ships, would support Alexander's force and sail alongside them.

The Gedrosia crossing was a miserable failure, and upto three-quarters of Alexander's troops died along the way. His fleet was unable to keep up with the main force due to bad winds. "The burning heat and the lack of water destroyed a great part of the army and particularly the pack animals," Arrian wrote.

Why Alexander chose to lead part of his force through Gedrosia is a mystery. It could simply be because no one had ever attempted to bring such a large force through it before and Alexander wanted to be the first.

Return to Persia and death

Alexander returned to Persia, this time as the ruler of a kingdom that stretched from the Balkans to Egypt to modern-day Pakistan. In 324 B.C., he arrived in Susa in present-day Iran, where a number of his innermost advisers got married.

Alexander got married to two other women, in addition to Roxana, whom he had married in central Asia. One was Barsine, daughter of Darius III, and the other was a Persian woman Arrian identified as Parysatis. Roxana likely did not take kindly to her two new co-wives and, after Alexander's death, she may have had them both killed, Plutarch wrote.

In 323 B.C., Alexander was in Babylon in modern-day Iraq, and his next major military target was apparently to be Arabia on the southern end of his empire. In June 323 B.C., while he was readying troops, he caught a fever that would not go away. He soon had trouble speaking and eventually died, with some suggesting he was poisoned. However, his death may have been announced prematurely, according Katherine Hall, a senior lecturer in the Department of General Practice and Rural Health at the University of Otago in New Zealand.

Shortly before his death, Alexander was supposedly asked who his empire should go to. His answer was said to be "to the strongest man," although he had an unborn son. However, there was nobody strong enough to hold his empire together. "Alexander's untimely death, without any provision having been made for a smooth succession (if such were indeed possible), opened the floodgates for two generations of warfare among his marshals, generals and lieutenants for their slice of his hypertrophied empire," Cartledge wrote.

Alexander's legacy

"Perhaps the most significant legacy of Alexander was the range and extent of the proliferation of Greek culture," Abernethy said. "The reign of Alexander the Great signaled the beginning of a new era in history known as the Hellenistic Age. Greek culture had a powerful influence on the areas Alexander conquered."

Many of the cities that Alexander founded were named Alexandria, including the Egyptian city that is now home to more than 4.5 million people. The many Alexandrias were located on trade routes, which increased the flow of commodities between the East and the West. 

Alexander's legacy remains alive today, according to Cartledge, and is reimagined and reinterpreted by each generation; "There have been many Alexanders, as many as there have been observers, enemies, admirers, worshippers or serious students of the man, and hero, and god."

Additional reporting by Jessie Szalay, Live Science contributor, and Jonathan Gordon, Editor of All About History.

A researcher claims to have identified the long-lost tomb of Olympias, the mother of Alexander the Great. But other scholars are skeptical it's really her burial. 

Archaeologists first discovered the tomb in 1850, not far from the Greek archaeological site of Pydna. The tomb has been studied at times by archaeologists since then. Recently, Athanasios Bintas, an emeritus professor of Greek studies at the University of Niš in Serbia, examined the tomb and now says it was used to bury Olympias. Made of stone, the tomb is 72 feet (22 meters) long and contains multiple chambers. The tomb's design has led archaeologists to date it to the late fourth to early third century B.C. As the tomb was robbed in ancient times, no bodies or grave goods have been found inside. 

Alexander the Great conquered a vast empire that stretched from Macedonia to Afghanistan. After he died in 323 B.C., his empire fell apart, with his generals and officials fighting over who would control it. Amidst this chaos, Alexander's mother Olympias was in Macedonia trying to protect Alexander IV (the young son of Alexander the Great) and the boy's mother Roxane, one of Alexander's wives. An official named Cassander tried to gain power in Macedonia and sought to kill or kidnap Alexander's son and wife, according to ancient historical records. 

Related: 10 reasons Alexander the Great was, well … great!

Forces loyal to Olympias tried to defeat Cassander, but they were forced to surrender after they ran out of food during a siege carried out at Pydna in 316 B.C. Shortly after that surrender, Cassander had Olympias killed. Then in 309 B.C., Cassander had Alexander IV and Roxane killed. 

Though historical sources say that Cassander did not allow Olympias a proper burial, Bintas stands by his claim that her remains were interred in this elaborate stone tomb. "A dead queen was no longer dangerous for Cassander," Bintas told Live Science. The tomb was likely a more modest structure at the time of burial; but in 288 B.C. when Olympias' nephew Pyrrhus became king of Macedonia, he expanded her tomb. 

The tomb's large size, its age and its proximity to Pydna (where Olympias was defeated) all support the claim that it was Olympias' tomb, Bintas said. Inscriptions found not far from the tomb contain lines that appear to mention Olympias' tomb, suggesting that it is likely nearby, he said. The inscriptions were described by the scholar Charles Edson in 1949 in the journal Hesperia and are now lost. Bintas has not yet published his arguments in an academic journal.

Scholars react

Five scholars not affiliated with the research were either skeptical about the claim or wanted more information on Bintas' research before putting forward their opinion. 

Related: Bones with names: Long-dead bodies archaeologists have identified

"It is far too soon to say [whether this is the tomb of Olympias], especially on the basis of so little specific evidence," said Elizabeth Carney, a professor of humanities at Clemson University, in South Carolina, who has conducted extensive research on Olympias. 

Ian Worthington, a professor of ancient history at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, expressed doubts that this is the tomb of Olympias. Ancient sources, Worthington noted, were clear that Cassander did not allow Olympias a proper burial; and since Cassander was afraid of rebellions, he would have barred such a tomb that could be used to rally Cassander's opponents. By the time Cassander died in 297 B.C., almost 20 years had passed since Olympias' death; Worthington said he doubts that someone would go to the trouble of building an elaborate tomb by that point. 

Additionally, Worthington notes that just because the tomb is large does not mean that whoever was buried in it was noble. In fact, he said, a large tomb could be had by anyone with enough wealth to build it. "You could be wealthy but not necessarily noble," said Worthington. Another problem is that Olympias was originally from Epirus, in northwestern Greece. If someone wanted to give her a proper burial, Worthington thinks that it's more likely they would have brought her home to Epirus rather than bury her close to where she was killed. 

Another scholar, Robin Lane Fox who is an emeritus fellow of classics at Oxford University, was even more doubtful. "There is no new evidence here," Fox said. "The tomb is well-known and was excavated in the 1850's [and] has been restudied since," with a recent "attempt to reconstruct it digitally," said Fox, also noting that Olympias might not have been given a proper burial in the first place. 

"Nobody in the official Archaeological Ephorate [the government organization in charge of archaeology] is believing this allegation about Olympias," Fox said. "This conjecture of his [Bintas] is not at all persuasive."

One supporter of Bintas' claim, Liana Souvaltzi found a tomb in the 1990s in the Siwa Oasis in Egypt that she believes is that of Alexander the Great. Her claim garnered little support among scholars. In remarks published on the website Greek City Times, Souvaltzi commented on Bintas' claim, saying that "I was impressed by the size of this tomb, from which one understands that it must have belonged to a great person," adding that it "is a miniature" version of the tomb that Souvaltzi found in the oasis. 

Originally published on Live Science.

The British royal family is plenty familiar with scandals and depravity, from Prince Charles' affair with his current wife Camilla Parker Bowles, to Prince Harry being photographed wearing a Nazi costume to the extreme coldness and racism alluded to in the Oprah Winfrey interview with Duchess Meghan Markle, wife of Prince Harry. 

But a great number of kings and queens throughout history have been complicit in evil-doings and just bad choices, including palace assassinations and serial marriages. Castle walls have seen it all.

1. Cleopatra's bloody beginning

Cleopatra is famous for her suicidal ending. What's less known is her bloody beginning — and the familial drama that brought her to power.

After her father's death, Cleopatra's younger brother Ptolemy XIII inherited the throne. She was meant to marry him, inbreeding being one way ancient royal families kept a grip on power. But her ambitions threatened him, and he had her exiled, according to Stacy Schiff's "Cleopatra" (Little, Brown and Company, 2010). So Cleopatra allied with Julius Caesar, retaking the throne with her other younger brother, Ptolemy XIV. That younger brother later died; Cleopatra may have poisoned him. She also had her younger sister Arsinoe IV, another rival, killed in 41 B.C.  

Deadly sibling rivalry was common in the Ptolemy dynasty, according to Schiff. The complex family trees occasioned by inbreeding caused succession crisis after succession crisis, typically with deadly results. 

"It was rare to find a member of the family who did not liquidate a relative or two," Schiff wrote.

2. Macedonian mayhem

Another surefire way to rile up a royal family is to have lots and lots of wives, all of which would like to see their own children installed on the throne. Alexander the Great's father, Philip II of Macedon, probably had seven wives, including Alexander's mother, Olympias.

Olympias may have had something to do with Philip II's assassination by a bodyguard in 336 B.C., according to some ancient historians, but the truth is fuzzy. According to a later account by the historian Cleitarchus, the bodyguard was a former lover of Philip II, who had taunted the king's new, younger, lover into suicide. Philip II's uncle-in-law allegedly sexually assaulted the bodyguard in retaliation, leading the bodyguard to kill Philip II in his own quest for revenge.

Whatever really happened, the Macedonian family dysfunction did not end with Philip II's generation. Alexander quickly started putting rival family members to death to secure his ascension to the throne, and Olympias had Philip II's last wife and her children killed. After Alexander died in 323 B.C., leaving a pregnant wife but no sure heir, his mentally disabled half-brother Philip III Arrhidaios (also spelled Arrhidaeus) was installed on the throne. Philip III's wife Eurydice attempted to turn this figurehead king into a real ruler; this put her in competition with Olympias in the ensuing wars of succession. Ultimately, Philip III was executed on Olympias' orders, and Eurydice forced to commit suicide. Their bodies were buried and then dug up about 17 months later for a royal cremation and funeral.

Olympias would not escape the succession wars unscathed. Captured not long after she had Philip III and Eurydice killed, she was stoned to death by relatives of people she had ordered executed.

3. Murder of a pharaoh

Harems are all fun and games until somebody gets their throat slit, as Ramesses III learned the hard way. This pharaoh ruled Egypt from 1186 B.C. to about 1156 B.C. — until somebody slashed his neck so deeply that modern archaeologists say he would have died instantly.

Ancient papyrus texts reveal that one of Ramesses III's minor wives, a woman named Tiye, was behind the plot; she was trying to get her son Pentaweret installed on the throne. Dozens of co-conspirators were sentenced to death, according to contemporary records, including Pentaweret. Archaeologists reported in 2012 they may have found the prince's mummy. The corpse in question has an agonized expression and overinflated lungs, consistent with death by suffocation or strangulation. He may have been forced to commit suicide, or he may have been buried alive. [In Photos: The Mummy of Ramesses III]

4. War of brothers

A conflict called the War of the Two Brothers can signal just one thing — a serious family meltdown. In 1527, the Inca king Huayna Capac died, leaving his kingdom to two of his sons, Atahualpa and Huáscar. (The two men had different mothers, as Inca rulers took multiple wives and concubines.)

Joint rule did not work out so well for the two new kings. By 1529, war broke out. Things got personal: According to Kim MacQuarrie's book "The Last Days of the Incas" (Simon & Schuster, 2008), Atahualpa at one point made a drinking cup out of the skull of one of Huáscar's generals.

The Inca civil war would hurry along the downfall of this civilization. In 1532, Francisco Pizarro's Spanish conquistadors appeared just as Atahualpa was declaring victory over his brother. The conquistadors captured Atahualpa and held him for ransom, though Atahualpa was able to get out an important order to his people: Execute my brother. 

Atahualpa wouldn't outlive Huáscar by much. The Spanish executed him in 1533. [Related: 10 epic battles that changed history]

5. The passive-aggressive emperor

Ever get the sense Mom and Dad like your brother or sister more? The kids of the Wanli Emperor had no doubt. Wanli, the 13th emperor of China's Ming dynasty, had two official consorts and a great many concubines. His favorite concubine, Lady Zheng, had two sons, one of whom Wanli desperately wanted to follow him on the throne.

But the emperor's ministers wouldn't stand for this son — Wanli's third — as heir. Ultimately, they prevailed, and Wanli was forced to declare his first son by his consort Lady Wang the crown prince. 

And then the emperor did something very strange. He stopped working. Wanli had once been a strong ruler, handling internal rebellions and Japanese invasions with panache. The last 20 years or so of his reign, however, were like an extended lame-duck period. In a passive-aggressive protest, Wanli spent decades ignoring meetings, memorandums and all other royal duties, according to a 2011 article in the New York Times. Unsurprisingly, this undermined the country. Many historians attribute the crumbling of the Ming dynasty in 1644 largely to the self-sabotage of Wanli's rule.

6. Captive brother

William the Conqueror, the first Norman king of England, had four sons. One died before him; William split his kingdom for his eldest remaining sons. Robert was given Normandy upon his father's death, and William got the throne of England.

That left the youngest son, Henry. He may not have been granted a kingdom, but Henry knew how to grab an opportunity. In 1100, William the younger died in a hunting accident while Robert was away on a crusade. Within three days, Henry had himself crowned king of England (as Henry I), beating his absent brother to the punch, according to the official histories of the British monarchy.

Robert attempted to take England for himself, but Henry I beat him back — and then, a few years later, took Normandy, too. Robert was captured, and Henry I kept him imprisoned for the rest of his life.

7. A murder mystery

Richard III, the last Plantagenet king of England, was recently exhumed from underneath a parking lot in Leicester. The occasion was heralded by Richard's fans as an opportunity to better understand a king remembered mostly as a Shakespearian villain. But questions remain about Richard's rise to power.

When King Edward IV died in 1483, he left behind two young sons. The eldest, Edward V, was only 12, so Richard III was declared his protector. After a 68-day reign, Edward and his younger brother Richard of Shrewsbury were sent to the Tower of London and then were never heard from again. Meanwhile, Richard III took the throne.

No one knows what happened to the boys, now known as "the Princes in the Tower." A widespread theory holds that Richard III had them murdered. But no one has ever found definitive proof of the princes' deaths (though two small skeletons were excavated from the tower in 1674), and Richard himself died in battle only two years later, taking his secrets to his hastily dug grave.

8. The many wives of Henry VIII

Divorced, beheaded, died. Divorced, beheaded, survived.

Those were the fates of Henry VIII's six wives. Family matters came to dominate the reign of this Tudor king, who could not seem to secure himself a male heir. Originally, Henry married Catherine of Aragon, his brother's widow. When the king's eye roved to the witty Anne Boleyn in the 1520s, his argument for divorce focused largely on whether Catherine had ever had sex with his brother.

The divorce case rocked the Catholic Church, triggering the English Reformation. Henry got his divorce, but Anne proved no more able to produce sons than Catherine (some modern physicians suspect that Henry may have had a genetic disorder that caused his wives' many miscarriages). She was executed on trumped-up charges of treason, adultery and incest, accused of sleeping with her own brother.

Henry would go on to marry four more times and would have one more of his wives, Catherine Howard, killed for adultery. Ultimately, Henry's efforts to install a son on the throne were for naught; his one male heir died as a teenager, only about six years into his reign. Henry's great-niece Lady Jane Grey then took the crown for a mere nine days before being overthrown by his daughter by Catherine of Aragon, Mary I. After Mary I died five years into her reign, Anne Boleyn's daughter Elizabeth I ruled. Her reign was marked by tumult, but Henry's fear that a woman could not hold the throne of England turned out to be quite unfounded: According to the official history of the British Monarchy, the "Virgin Queen" was extremely popular, and the date of her accession to the throne became a national holiday. 

Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitterand Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook& Google+. Original article on Live Science.

Archaeologists have discovered a stunning, albeit noseless, bust of Alexander the Great, but not from an ongoing excavation located in Alexander's ancient, sprawling empire.

Rather, the marble statue was found sitting, "lost in a dark corner of the warehouse" at the Archaeological Museum of Veroia, in Greece, according to a July 31 Facebook post by Angeliki Kottaridi, a director at the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports. [Top 10 Reasons Alexander the Great Was, Well ... Great!]

The bust likely dates to the second century B.C., about 200 years after Alexander the Great died at age 32 in 323 B.C., Kottaridi said.

Curators were taking stock of the warehouse when they spotted the sculpted head resting "between crates with ceramic, half under old mortars and pollutants," Kottaridi wrote in the post (translated from Greek with Google Translate). "I saw him … despite the wounds left on his beautiful face by the ages and ignorance," she said, noting the detail to his wild hair and "dream eyes."

The statue had undergone wear and tear over the years (hence, the broken nose). "It was sprinkled with mortar because it had been used on a wall — sometime in the 18th [to] 19th centuries — as building material," Kottaridi said, according to the Athens-Macedonian News Agency (AMNA).

Upon finding the statue in the rubble of a Greek village, archaeologists collected it, put it in storage and promptly forgot about it. "No one recognized that it was Alexander," Kottaridi said, according to AMNA.

But Kottaridi said she immediately knew the approximately 2,100-year-old statue was the great conqueror, whose vast empire stretched from the Balkans to modern-day Pakistan. She and her colleagues had the statue cleaned and plan to put it on display at the end of 2020 in the Museum of Royal Tombs of Aigai, in Vergina, where Kottaridi is the director.

• Photos: Ancient Greek Shipwreck Yields Antikythera Mechanism
• Photos: Mysterious Ancient Tomb in Amphipolis
• Photos: The Largest Underwater Sculpture

Originally published on Live Science.

Alexander the Great may have been killed by Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rare neurological condition in which a person's own immune system attacks them, says one medical researchers.

The condition may have led to a mistaken declaration of the king's death and may explain the mysterious phenomenon in which his body didn't decay for seven days after his "death."

Alexander the Great was king of Macedonia between 336 and 323 B.C. During that time, he conquered an empire that stretched from the Balkans to modern-day Pakistan. In June 323, he was living in Babylon when, after a brief illness that caused fever and paralysis, he died at age 32. His senior generals then fought each other to see who would succeed him. [Top 10 Reasons Alexander the Great Was, Well ... Great!]

According to accounts left by ancient historians, after a night of drinking, the king experienced a fever and gradually became less and less able to move until he could no longer speak. One account, told by Quintus Curtius Rufus, who lived during the first century A.D., claims that Alexander the Great's body didn't decay for more than seven days after he was declared dead, and the embalmers were hesitant to work on his body.

Ancient historians reported that many people believed that Alexander the Great was poisoned, possibly by someone working for Antipater, a senior official of Alexander's who was supposedly quarreling with the king. In 2014, a research team found that the medicinal plant white hellebore (Veratrum album) could have been used to poison Alexander.

Guillain-Barré syndrome

Based on the symptoms recorded by ancient historians, Katherine Hall, a senior lecturer in the Department of General Practice and Rural Health at the University of Otago in New Zealand, believes that it's possible that Alexander actually died of Guillain-Barré syndrome. The condition, Hall said, may have left Alexander in a deep coma that may have led doctors to declare, mistakenly, that he was dead, something that would explain why his corpse supposedly didn't decompose quickly, noted Hall in her paper published recently in the journal Ancient History Bulletin. [Family Ties: 8 Truly Dysfunctional Royal Families]

The syndrome "is an autoimmune disorder where the patient's own immune system has become confused in differentiating between an invading organism, such as a bacteria, virus, or (very rarely) vaccine products, and the patient's own body," Hall wrote in her paper.

While globally it occurs in, at most, one out of every 25,000 people per year, the incidence rate is higher in modern-day Iraq, particularly during spring and summer, Hall wrote in her paper, noting that Babylon is in modern-day Iraq and that Alexander died in June.

There are several more clues that point to Guillain-Barré syndrome in Alexander's death, Hall wrote. "The most striking feature of Alexander the Great's death is that, despite being extremely unwell, he was reported to have remained compos mentis [sane] until just before his death," she wrote, noting that this is something seen in people suffering from Guillain-Barré . The gradual paralysis that Alexander supposedly experienced is also seen in patients with that syndrome.

Reactions

Live Science talked to several scientists not involved with the research who discussed their thoughts on Hall's claim.

It's "an interesting idea" that Alexander was killed by Guillain-Barré syndrome said Hugh Willison, a professor at the University of Glasgow College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences, Institute of Infection, Immunity and Inflammation. "Although from the historical evidence available, it is not possible to establish this with any degree of certainty," he added.

Another professor, Michael Baker, said: "Based on a quick scan [of the article] I think the theory is quite plausible," Baker, a professor in the Department of Public Health at the University of Otago, told Live Science. To say anything more definitive, Baker said he'd need more time to review the paper.

The theory is "very interesting," said Pat Wheatley, a professor of classics at the University of Otago. Hall took some of Wheatley's classes, and the two have been discussing the theory for about a year, Wheatley said. However, Wheatley urged caution when looking at the accounts left by ancient historians, noting that the surviving accounts date to well over a century after Alexander's death, and some of the details may be inaccurate. Still, the "the theory is certainly worth floating," Wheatley said.

• Bones With Names: Long-Dead Bodies Archaeologists Have Identified
• The 25 Most Mysterious Archaeological Finds on Earth
• Gallery: In Search of the Grave of Richard III

Originally published on Live Science.

A mysterious, black, granite sarcophagus discovered in Alexandria, Egypt, dating to a time after Alexander the Great conquered the area in 332 B.C., has been opened.

There was speculation at the time the discovery was announced earlier this month that the massive coffin held the remains of Alexander and that opening the sealed and foreboding-looking box would unleash a curse. Neither seem to be true … unless stinky sewage causes some sort of torment.

Along with the sewage, archaeologists found the remains of three skeletons inside the sarcophagus. These may be those of soldiers, Egypt's antiquities ministry said in a statement issued today (July 19) in Arabic. [See Photos of Mummies Discovered at an Ancient Egyptian Cemetery]

Pictures released by the ministry show the sarcophagus full of the liquid sewage, which must have seeped in at some point. Analysis of the skeletal remains is ongoing, but initial results suggest that one of the individuals found in the sarcophagus suffered a blow from an arrow, the ministry said in the statement. No inscriptions or works of art have been found on the outside or inside of the sarcophagus so far. It's also unclear what artifacts, if any, were buried with the skeletons, the researchers said. An alabaster head of a man was found near the sarcophagus when it was discovered.

The sarcophagus, which is nearly 9 feet long, 5 feet wide and 6 feet tall (2.7 by 1.5 by 1.8 meters) — the largest found in Alexandria — was discovered with a thick layer of mortar covering much of it, Mostafa Waziri, secretary general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, said in a statement released by Egypt's antiquities ministry. The mortar led Waziri to suggest that the sarcophagus was never opened after it was buried in Alexandria. It's uncertain if that suggestion is accurate.

The sarcophagus was discovered by archaeologists from the Ministry of Antiquities who were inspecting an area of land in the Sidi Gaber district of Alexandria before construction took place. Researchers opened the sarcophagus at the site where it was discovered.

New mysteries

The opening of the sarcophagus creates a series of new mysteries for Egyptologists to tackle: Who were these three people? When exactly did they live? What killed them? Why were they buried in such a giant sarcophagus? What were they buried with (if anything)? And how did so much liquid sewage get into the sarcophagus?

After the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C., a line of pharaohs descended from one of Alexander's generals ruled Egypt for centuries. Once the last pharaoh, Cleopatra VII, killed herself in 30 B.C., the Roman Empire took over Egypt. These pharaohs were involved in numerous wars and conflicts, and it's possible the three individuals found in the sarcophagus were killed in one of these squirmishes. One of skeletons shows signs of an arrow injury, suggesting the three may have died in battle. The exact age of the skeletons is unclear.

Why three skeletons, which may be those of soldiers, were buried in a sarcophagus so massive — Waziri said it may be the largest ever found in Alexandria — is also unknown. In ancient Egypt, it was not uncommon for a sarcophagus to be reused, the bodies of its former occupants removed and new occupants put inside. Whether that occurred with this sarcophagus is unknown.  

It's also unclear what artifacts, if any, were buried with the skeletons. Any objects placed in the sarcophagus could have been destroyed by the sewage or may be found later, when the object is studied in more detail. After the sarcophagus was opened, it was transferred to Alexandria National Museum for conservation and further study.

Originally published on Live Science.

A massive black granite sarcophagus and a sculpture of a man who may be buried inside have been discovered in a tomb in Alexandria, Egypt.

The granite sarcophagus looks foreboding: It's nearly 9 feet long, 5 feet wide and 6 feet tall (2.7 by 1.5 by 1.8 meters). And, it may be the largest sarcophagus ever discovered in Alexandria, said Mostafa Waziri, general secretary of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, in a statement released by Egypt's antiquities ministry.

A thick layer of mortar covers much of the sarcophagus, suggesting that it has not been opened since it was buried, Waziri said in the statement. As such, the person buried in the sarcophagus, along with any clothing or jewelry they wore and any artifacts they were buried with, may still be intact, waiting to be discovered. [See Photos of Mummies Discovered at an Ancient Egyptian Cemetery]

Additionally, an alabaster head of a man, which may depict the person whose remains are buried in the sarcophagus, was also found in the tomb where the sarcophagus was discovered, the statement said.

A team from Egypt's antiquities ministry was inspecting an area of land in the Sidi Gaber district before construction work on a building began when the members came upon the mysterious coffin. 

It dates back to sometime between 304 and 30 B.C., a time after the death of Alexander the Great, when the descendants of Ptolemy I, who was one of Alexander's generals, ruled Egypt. At this time, Alexandria — which Alexander the Great claimed to have founded (although people were living there earlier) — was the capital of Egypt.

The discovery leaves archaeologists with a series of mysteries: Who is buried inside the sarcophagus? What artifacts are hiding inside? And, why is the sarcophagus so large?

Rare opportunity

While ancient tombs are often discovered in Egypt, they have often been looted, whether in ancient or modern times. Most sarcophagi are found already opened, their contents taken away and the bones of the mummies sometimes found scattered by looters.

In this case, the sarcophagus appears not to have been opened yet, giving archaeologists a chance to study its contents and the person inside it.

Archaeologists are being cautious with the sarcophagus. They have not opened it, and they may decide that, to prevent damage, they will use X-rays, computed tomography (CT) scans or another scientific test that will allow them to peer inside without opening the sarcophagus.

Originally published on Live Science.

A lost city that was overrun by Alexander the Great on his conquest of Persia has finally been unearthed in the Kurdish region of Iraq, decades after it was first seen on spy satellite imagery.

The site, called Qalatga Darband, was directly on the route that Alexander the Great took as he pursued the Persian ruler Darius III in 331 B.C. before their epic battle at Gaugamela. The site bears signs of Greco-Roman influence, including wine presses and smashed statues that may have once depicted the gods Persephone and Adonis.

"It's early days, but we think it would have been a bustling city on a road from Iraq to Iran. You can imagine people supplying wine to soldiers passing through," lead archaeologist John MacGinnis, from the British Museum, told The Times. [The 25 Most Mysterious Archaeological Finds on Earth]

Surprising spy data

In the 1960s, American spy satellite imagery, from the Corona satellite program, revealed the existence of an ancient site, near the rocky Darband-i Rania pass in the Zagros Mountains in Iraq. But that data was classified. When it was finally made public, archaeologists from the British Museum pored over the data. Later drone footage of the area revealed several large limestone blocks, as well as hints of larger buildings lying buried beneath the ground. However, by the time the archaeologists knew of the site's existence, political instability made it difficult to explore the region, they said.

Only in recent years has the area become safe enough for archaeologists from the British Museum to take a closer look. When they did, they found a huge trove of ancient artifacts. The ceramics found at the site suggest that at least one area of Qalatga Darband was founded during the second and first centuries B.C. by the Seleucids, or the Hellenistic people who ruled after Alexander the Great, according to a statement. Later, the Seleucids were overthrown and followed by the Parthians, who may have built extra fortification walls to protect against the Romans who were encroaching during that period.

The site contains a large fort, as well as several structures that are likely wine presses. In addition, two buildings employ terra-cotta roof tiles, which are characteristic of Greco-Roman architecture of the time, the researchers noted in a statement.

On the southern end of the site, archaeologists found a large stone mound, beneath which was a giant temple-like structure. The building contained smashed statues that looked like Greek gods. One, of a naked man, was likely to be Adonis, while another seated female figure was probably the goddess Persephone, the reluctant bride of Hades, ruler of the underworld, according to the statement.

Nearby in the Darband-I Rania mountain pass, archaeologists have also uncovered evidence of an even older settlement. That fortress likely dates to the Assyrian period, between the eighth and seventh centuries B.C. The fort had 20-foot-thick (6 meters) walls and was likely a way for the Assyrians to control the flow of people through the pass. At the same site, archaeologists uncovered a grave with a coin that dates to the Parthian period, the researchers said.

The grave bore the inscription "King of kings, beneficent, the just, the manifest, friend of the Greeks, this is the king who fought against the Roman army led by Crassus at Carrhae in 54/53 BC."

That inscription suggests the grave belongs to King Orodes II of Parthia, who ruled between 57 B.C. and 38 B.C., and may have referred to a period when the Romans attempted to conquer the Parthian Empire. The Parthians deflected that attack with horse-riding archers who shot arrows down on the Roman troops, according to the statement.

Originally published on Live Science.

Greek archaeologists have found the ancient military harbor of the island of Salamis — the very physical space from which the largest and most decisive naval battle ever fought in antiquity was launched.

The ancient harbor was identified as being located in the small and well-protected Bay of Ambelaki, in the eastern part of the Greek island, during an archaeological search by a team of 20 experts from two Greek universities — the Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities and the Hellenic Institute of Marine Archaeology — according the Greek Ministry of Culture and Sports.

"This is the first systematic underwater reconnaissance to be initiated by Greek institutions in a severely polluted marine environment, yet in a crucial area of historical importance," the ministry said. [10 Epic Battles That Changed History]

The survey identified remains of port structures, fortifications and other buildings dating from the Classical period (from the fifth to fourth centuries B.C.) and Hellenistic period, on all three sides — north, west and south — of the bay. (The beginning of the Hellenistic period is usually marked by the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C.)

Such features are only visible at low tides at certain times of the year.

"The fortified northwestern part of the bay is the prime evidence for the identification of that special 'closed area' as the main military zone of the harbor of Salamis, certainly an Athenian territory in Classical times," Yannos Lolos, professor of archaeology at the University of Ioannina and president of the Hellenic Institute of Marine Archaeology, told Live Science.

Indeed, the area is defined on the south by an impressive long wall, or jetty, which runs for about 200 feet (160 meters) and ends in a strong round tower similar to those found in other fortified harbors. An enormous stone structure called a mole extends for 160 feet (50 m) along the east side of this "main military zone."

Other submerged remains on the south side of the bay include breakwaters, a 130-foot-long (40 m) mole and a 100-foot-long (30 m) wall with an attached square, tower-like structure.

"This evidence, supplemented by the information from ancient historical and literary sources, leaves no doubt about the role of the bay as the main assembly and launching point of the Greek fleet in close proximity to the theater of the sea battle in the straits," Lolos said.

According to Greek historian Herodotus, 378 Greek triremes (so called because they were propelled by three tiers of oarsmen) rowed, fought and defeated the much larger invading Persian fleet led by King Xerxes.

The epic battle was won after the Athenian politician and general Themistocles lured the Persian fleet into the narrow straits that separate the Greek mainland from Salamis.

"It is difficult to predict what would have happened if the Greeks had lost at Salamis, but it is clear that a Persian victory would have had immense consequences, not only for Greece, but also for the rest of Europe," University of Copenhagen archaeologist Bjørn Lovén told Live Science.

The Greek victory, Lovén noted, led directly to the Golden Age of Athens — a century that saw explosive developments in democratic government, philosophy, medicine, the natural sciences, architecture, visual arts, drama and literature.

"Had the Persians won, I truly doubt that we would have seen the effects that these amazing cultural and social developments have had on us today," Lovén said.

Last year, Lovén shed more light on that decisive battle when he found underwater remains of a naval base in Mounichia Harbor in the city of Piraeus. Along with massive fortifications, his team found several ship sheds that likely housed the triremes that were deployed in Salamis.

"The new discovery is clearly very important. I find it fascinating that the harbor site where the allied Greek fleet was stationed before the battle has been defined," Lovén said.

The search in the waters of the historical Bay of Ambelaki will continue until 2018, Lolos said.

Although it's unlikely that a trireme — the holy grail of underwater archaeology — will be found, Lolos is confident that the newly built underwater archaeological map of the area will lead to new discoveries.

"I am fairly hopeful that future underwater discoveries in the wider area of Ambelaki will comprise finds, of all kinds, which may prove to have an association with crucial events of Athenian history of the fifth century B.C.," Lolos said.

Original article on Live Science.

An archaeologist thinks he has found the tomb of Aristotle at Stagira, an ancient city where the Greek philosopher lived for much of his life.

But several other archaeologists say there is hardly enough evidence to link the tomb to Aristotle, and there's probably no way to confirm it either way. Even so, historical records do support the idea that Aristotle could be buried in the area.

Konstantinos Sismanidis, the archaeologist who discovered the tomb in question, has told media outlets that he cannot be certain that the structure is Aristotle's tomb. [Bones with Names: Long-Dead Bodies Archaeologists Have Identified]

Aristotle's ashes

Now retired, Sismanidis announced the possible discovery of Aristotle's tomb in a paper presented recently at the Aristotle 2,400 Years World Congress, which marks 2,400 years since Aristotle's birth. The tomb, he said, is a small building with an altar and marble floor, and this building is located next to a larger, semicircular structure that could have functioned as a gathering place for the people of the city.

"It's a public building, and it was constructed at the period of Alexander the Great," Sismanidis wrote in the summary of his presentation. Aristotle — who taught and wrote on a wide range of subjects, including logic, metaphysics, ethics, poetry and biology — was a tutor to Alexander.

Though ancient records say Aristotle died on the island of Euboea in 322 B.C., Sismanidis noted that Arabic copies of a text written by a historian named Ptolemy (who lived from A.D. 90 to 168) say Aristotle's ashes were brought to Stagira (also spelled Stageira), where they were interred in a building constructed in his honor.

No human remains or inscriptions mentioning Aristotle were discovered in the tomb at Stagira. Sismanidis first uncovered the building in 1996, and he has excavated at Stagira for more than 20 years. He plans to publish his findings this fall in a multivolume book, according to news reports.

Skeptical reaction

Since the announcement last week, media outlets all over the world have reported on the discovery of the supposed tomb.

However, many of the archaeologists Live Science contacted expressed doubts about the discovery.

"I would be skeptical, especially after the so-called discovery of Alexander's tomb at Amphipolis," said R. Angus Smith, a professor at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario, who excavates in Greece. "It would be lovely if true, but I have not seen evidence to convince me of the connection."

In September 2014, some media outlets and archaeologists speculated that a tomb found at Amphipolis in Macedonia (a historical region of Greece; not to be confused with the modern country of Macedonia) belonged to Alexander himself. However, further investigation revealed evidence, including an inscription, that the tomb likely belonged to the Macedonian king's friend, Hephaestion. [Photos: Mysterious Ancient Tomb in Amphipolis]

"That the tomb found by Sismanidis at Stagira is that of Aristotle is a plausible suggestion but not a provable one, as the Greek archaeologist himself admits," said Jerome Pollitt, a professor of art history at Yale University. "Barring the discovery of an inscription, that state of affairs is unlikely to change."

Spencer Pope, a classical archaeologist at McMaster University in Ontario, commented that "while the tomb at Stagira dates to the time of Aristotle and has a seemingly commensurable monumentality with the ancient philosopher, further evidence linking it with a specific historical figure would be needed for a convincing attribution."

Perhaps the strongest reaction against Sismanidis' claim came from Edith Hall, a professor at the Centre for Hellenic Studies at King's College London.

"Call me a cynic, but has archaeologist Kostas Sismanidis really found a single shred of evidence that the tomb excavated in ancient Stageira long ago in 1996 houses the remains of Aristotle?" she wrote in a post on her blog. "Releasing the information in the 2,400th anniversary year of Aristotle's birth strikes me as a little too much of a coincidence," she added.

Sismanidis is not the first archaeologist who has claimed to have found Aristotle's tomb, Hall noted. In 1891, Charles Waldstein, an archaeologist at the American School of Archaeology of Athens, excavated a tomb at the site of Eretria that he claimed was Aristotle's. Waldstein claimed to have found writing instruments.

"Waldstein's 'tomb of Aristotle' is much nearer [to] the place where the actual ancient sources said the philosopher died," Hall wrote.

Voice of support

Although most archaeologists Live Science contacted were skeptical of Sismanidis' claim, one researcher did voice support. "It is most likely his [Aristotle's] tomb," said Elizabeth Kosmetatou, a professor of ancient history at the University of Illinois.

Kosmetatou told Live Science that she has heard that the structure uncovered by Sismanidis contains roof tiles stamped with Greek letters showing that they were produced at a royal workshop for pottery in Pella, the capital of ancient Macedonia. Those letters would indicate that the tomb and semicircular structure were public buildings that may have been financed by the city or the Kingdom of Macedonia.

Ptolemy claimed that Aristotle's tomb became a focal point for the city of Stagira, meaning that public gatherings likely would have taken place there, Kosmetatou said. The semicircular structure beside the tomb would have been a good place for such meetings or other public events, she noted.

"He's probably reliable," Kosmetatou said of the ancient historian, adding that just because Ptolemy's account survives only in Arabic doesn't mean it isn't accurate.

Still, Kosmetatou said there is no way to be sure that Aristotle's tomb has been discovered. "We don't have the time machine to go there," she said.

Original article on Live Science.

A decades-old mystery about the body of Alexander the Great's father has been solved, anthropologists claim.

A new analysis of bones from a Macedonian tomb complex reveals a skeleton with a knee injury so severe that it would have caused a noticeable limp in life. This injury matches some historical records of one sustained by Philip II, whose nascent empire Alexander the Great would expand all the way to India.

The skeleton in question, however, is not the one initially thought to be Philip II's — instead, it comes from the tomb next door. The skeletons are the subject of an entrenched debate among experts on ancient Greece and Macedonia. While some praised the new study, others pushed back, suggesting the new research will not quell 40 years of controversy.

"The knee is the clincher," said Maria Liston, an anthropologist at the University of Waterloo, who was not involved in the new study, which is detailed today (July 20) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). [See Photos of the Tomb at Vergina and Mysterious 'Philip' Bones]

"This publication in PNAS is incorrect," said Theodore Antikas, a researcher at Aristotle University in Greece and author of another controversial study on bones from the tombs.

A violent history

The story of Philip II is wrought with twists and turns. In 336 B.C., the king was murdered by one of his bodyguards. The motives for the assassination are unclear. Some ancient historians wrote that the murder was an act of revenge stemming from a sordid tale of suicide and sexual assault between Philip II's male lovers and other members of the court.

Whatever the cause, murder was de rigueur for the Macedonian royal family. Within days of Philip II's murder, one of his wives, Olympias — mother of Alexander the Great — let her own homicidal tendencies run free. According to the Latin historian Justin, Olympias killed the newborn daughter of Philip II's newest wife, Cleopatra, in her mother's arms. She then forced Cleopatra to hang herself.

A generation later, after the death of Alexander the Great, the conqueror's half-brother Philip III Arrhidaeus (also spelled Arrhidaios) took the throne. Philip III Arrhidaeus was king in name only, and ancient historians record him as being mentally unfit. His wife, Eurydice, was a warrior, however. She was determined to make her husband more than a figurehead puppet for Alexander's generals, who were by this time vying for power in the void left by his death.

But Philip III Arrhidaeus and Eurydice would lose that battle. In 317 B.C., Olympias came out against them. The couple's troops refused to fight the forces of the mother of Alexander the Great. Olympias had the pair killed and buried. Some months later, they were exhumed and cremated in a display to shore up legitimacy for the next king. [Family Ties: 8 Truly Dysfunctional Royal Families]

Cremation and controversy

Philip II. Cleopatra. Philip III. Eurydice.

When archaeologists uncovered a Macedonian tomb complex near the Greek city of Vergina in the 1970s, they knew they had royal burials on their hands. But which tombs belonged to which royals?

There are three tombs at the site. Tomb I had been plundered in antiquity but contained human remains and an intricate wall painting of the Rape of Persephone. Tomb II was intact. Inside were the cremated bones of a man and a woman, surrounded by armor and other lavish items. Tomb III is widely accepted to belong to Alexander IV, Alexander the Great's son.

Initially, the bodies in lavish Tomb II were identified as those of Philip II and Cleopatra. But debate has raged over possible injuries to the male skull, over the ages and dating of the skeletons, and over whether the bones were burned with flesh on or off. (As Philip III Arridaeus was cremated long after burial, archaeologists looked for signs that the bones had been burned after the flesh had rotted away.) Many archaeologists suspected the two burned bodies were not Philip II and Cleopatra, but Philip III and Eurydice.

The two sides have been lobbing research papers at each other for years, but seemed at an impasse.

"In fact, the issue has become eminently political, and for years a sort of vendetta has been raging between factions," said historian Miltiades Hatzopoulos of International Hellenic University, who was not involved in the new research.

Now, Antonis Bartsiokas of Democritus University of Thrace in Greece has taken a different tact. Instead of examining the burnt bones in Tomb II, he and his team took a close look at three skeletons from the tomb next door.

The smoking gun

The analysis revealed that the man in Tomb I was in his 40s when he died, and stood 5 feet 9 inches tall (180 centimeters) — impressive for the era. The woman died around 18 years of age, based on measurements of the fusion of her bones. She was about 5 feet 4 inches tall (165 cm). The baby was a newborn, probably only a week to three weeks past the due date.

The ages match historical records of Philip II, Cleopatra and their infant. But the real smoking gun, Liston said, was a knee injury on the male skeleton.

The man's left thigh bone, or femur, had fused with one of his lower leg bones, the tibia. This fusion left the knee joint frozen in place at a 79-degree angle. A hole in the bone suggests the wound was caused by a penetrating injury from a projectile, such as a spear.

And that's where things get exciting. According to historical records, Philip II was injured in the leg during a battle in 345 B.C. He then limped for the rest of his life.

"When I found the femur fused to the tibia at the knee joint, I suddenly remembered the leg injury of Philip, but I could not recall any details," Bartsiokas told Live Science. "I then ran to study the historical evidence."

He found a description of Philip II's wounds in the writings of the ancient historian Justin. "At that moment," he wrote in an email to Live Science, "I knew the bone must belong to Philip!" [Bones With Names: Long-Dead Bodies Archaeologists Have Identified]

The injury does match descriptions of Philip II's limp, the University of Waterloo's Liston said.

"This was a devastating injury that separated the knee joint and left it probably completely unstable until it fused," Liston told Live Science. The pain would have been excruciating, she said.

After reading the new PNAS paper, she said, she asked two middle-age men at her lab in Athens to stand on one foot, with the toes of the other foot just touching the ground. The angles of their knees were 72 degrees and 80 degrees. This ad hoc experiment suggests that, like Philip II, the man in the tomb could have walked, but only with difficulty. He probably could have ridden a horse — but he may have been vulnerable in hand-to-hand combat.

"This injury may also explain why Philip, a skilled warrior, was so utterly unable to fight off the assassins," Liston said. "With this knee, he would have limited mobility and very poor balance."

An end to controversy?

If Philip II and his wife and baby occupy Tomb I, it stands to reason that Philip III and his wife are the contested skeletons in Tomb II, Bartsiokas and his colleagues write today (July 20) in PNAS. [See Images of the Tomb II and Bones Inside]

Whether the finding will rewrite history remains to be seen. The museum at the site of the Royal Tombs of Vergina identifies Tomb II, not Tomb I, as belonging to Philip II. So does UNESCO, which classifies the monuments as a royal heritage site.

"These are bold claims that I don't think will be very welcome in certain quarters in Greece," said Jonathan Musgrave, an anatomist at the University of Bristol, who has argued that the bones in Tomb II belong to Philip II and Cleopatra.

Indeed, researchers who have argued for Tomb II as Philip II's final resting place were not quickly convinced by the new study. In 2014, two bags of human and animal bones were found in a storage area with plaster from Tomb I, Antikas told Live Science. He and his team have analyzed those bones, he said, and found that Tomb I contained not two adults and a baby as discussed in Bartsiokas' new paper, but two adults, a teenager, a fetus and three newborns. Those findings have yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, pending permission for further study from Greece's Central Archaeological Council, Antikas said.

"Any prejudgment concerning the occupants is impossible before the complete context is re-examined," said Chrysoula Paliadeli, an archaeologist at the director of the Aristotle University excavations at Vergina.

Even the "smoking gun" leg wound falls under scrutiny; ancient historians were not always very detailed or clear with their sourcing. Bartsiokas and his team trust the writings of Demosthenes, a contemporary of Philip II, who simply wrote that the king was wounded in his leg. But 300 years later historian Didymos wrote that Philip's wound was in his right thigh, said Hatzopoulos of International Hellenic University. The wound on the skeleton analyzed by Bartsiokas was on the left leg.

It might seem natural to trust the historian who was writing at the time of Philip II's life versus the one writing 300 years later, but Didymos' source was probably Theopompos, who did live at the same time as Philip II, Hatzopoulos said.

"Having followed this controversy through four decades I have come to the conclusion that in this particular issue one cannot put much faith in the so-called 'exact sciences,'" Hatzopoulos said. "Reputed scientists have contradicted one another time and time again."

Bartsiokas and his team seemed prepared for ongoing strife.

"I think that we have made a very strong case," said study co-author Juan-Luis Arsuaga of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. "Now the focus of attention will turn to Tomb I. I am open to debate."

Editor's Note: This article was updated to correct a mention of Desmothenes that should be Didymos.

Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitterand Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook& Google+. Original article on Live Science.

The tombs of Alexander the Great's extended family, first excavated in the 1970s, are a perennial source of controversy and frustration in the archaeological community. The debate centers around two tombs: Tomb I, which held human remains but had been looted in antiquity; and Tomb II, which was filled with treasure and armor, as well as the burnt bones of a man and a woman.

Tomb II has been identified as the final resting place of Philip II, Alexander the Great's father. But that identification is hotly contested. Some archaeologists believe that the bones actually belong to Philip III Arrhidaeus, Alexander's half-brother and a short-lived figurehead king. Philip II, they say, may actually rest in the looted Tomb I.

The debate has become entrenched and politicized, given the famous names involved. The Macedonian tombs near the city of Vergina, where the bones were found, are a UNESCO World Heritage site. Any new research paper on the tombs is met with skepticism from the opposing faction. Some observers despair of ever finding the truth.

The following images show the fragile bones and bone fragments around which this controversy swirls. Whether they belong to Philip II, Philip III, their wives or some other person, these bones represent the last physical link to ancient Macedonian royalty. [Read full story about the controversial bones]

Injured leg

The left leg of an adult male skeleton found in Tomb I at Vergina. The thigh bone (femur) and one of the bones of the lower leg (the tibia) are fused, and hole at the knee suggests a devastating penetrating injury. The injury matches some historical accounts of a leg wound suffered in battle by Philip II, the father of Alexander the Great. After the wound, Philip II limped until his death by assassination. (Photo Credit: Image Courtesy Javier Trueba)

Philip II

In a paper published in the journal PNAS on July 20, 2015, researchers argue that this leg wound is the "smoking gun" identifying the male skeleton in Tomb I as Philip II. This artist's impression reveals how the fused bones would have set the king's leg in a permanent bent position. He could have walked, albeit with difficulty. (Photo Credit: Image Courtesy Arturo Asensio)

Male jaw

The lower jaw of an adult male found in Tomb I. This jaw may belong to Philip II, father of Alexander the Great. Philip II was assassinated by one of his bodyguards in 336 B.C., possibly as part of a complicated revenge plot involving several of the king's male lovers.

The story, as recorded by ancient historian Diodorus of Sicily, goes like this: Philip's bodyguard and lover Pausanias became jealous that the king was doting on another man (also, confusingly, named Pausanias). The first Pausanias taunted the second so much that he committed suicide.

In revenge, the second Pausanias' friend Attalus (uncle of one of Philip II's wives), got the first Pausanias drunk and had him sexually assaulted. Pausanias brought the matter to Philip II, who promoted him but did not punish Attalus. Pausanias then assassinated Philip II to avenge his own honor.

The tale may or may not be true. Scholars have suggested that Alexander the Great's mother, Olympias, may have been involved, and the king had no shortage of enemies. (Photo Credit: Image Courtesy Javier Trueba)

Cleopatra's jaw?

If the male bones in Tomb I do belong to Philip II, the female skeleton found in the tomb is almost certainly his wife, Cleopatra. She was a teenager when she wed Philip, and was his seventh known wife. Cleopatra gave birth to the couple's child just days before Philip was assassinated. Days after his death, Olympias killed the child in Cleopatra's lap, according to the Latin historian Justin. She then forced Cleopatra to hang herself. (Photo Credit: Image courtesy of Javier Trueba)

Whose legs?

The leg bones of the female skeleton found in Tomb I. Antonis Bartsiokas and colleagues, reporting in the journal PNAS on July 20, 2015, argue that these bones belong to Philip II's wife Cleopatra. She was a robust woman who stood about 5 feet 4 inches (165 centimeters), according to the measurement of these bones. (Photo Credit: Image courtesy of Antonis Bartsiokas)

Teensy bones

Tiny newborn bones found in Tomb I belong to a child only one to three weeks past its due date. (It is impossible to know the baby's exact age, as it isn't clear from bones alone when an infant was born.) Anthropologists aren't sure of this infant's sex, but it may have been the murdered newborn child of Philip II and his seventh wife Cleopatra. (Photo Credit: Image courtesy of Antonis Bartsiokas)

An ancient mystery

In 1977, archaeologists near Vergina, Greece, cracked open a lavish Macedonian tomb containing two skeletons. The grave goods made it clear that the researchers had discovered the royal resting place of relatives of Alexander the Great, the conqueror who created an empire spanning from Greece into modern-day India. 

But the identity of the two skeletons remains hotly contested, even decades later. This male skeleton is likely to be either Philip II, Alexander the Great's powerful father, or Philip III Arrhidaios (also spelled Arrhidaeus), Alexander's reportedly feeble-minded half-brother. Philip II died in 336 B.C., and Philip III in 317 B.C. (Photo Credit: Jonathan Musgrave)

A mystery woman

Alongside the male skeleton found in the tomb at Vergina were the burnt bones of a young woman. Her bone fragments fill two trays, one of which is seen here. The woman's identity is also unknown. If the tomb belongs to Philip III Arrhidaios, she is probably his wife, Eurydice. Intermarriage was common among ancient Macedonian royals, so Eurydice was also Philip III's niece (she was the daughter of Philip III's half-sister). 

Philip II had somewhere in the range of seven wives. Archaeologists who believe the tomb is his have long suggested that the woman buried there is his last wife, Cleopatra (not the famous Egyptian queen, who lived centuries later). However, a study to be published in the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology suggests that the woman could be another wife, name unknown, from the nearby kingdom of Scythia, which covered the area roughly where Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, most of Pakistan and some of Eastern Europe are today. (Photo Credit: Jonathan Musgrave)

A hot debate

A view of the male skeleton from the Vergina tomb. Over the years, much of the debate about the bones' identity has focused on whether they were cremated dry or with flesh still clinging to them. Philip III Arridaios was ordered executed by one of his father's wives, Olympias, in the succession wars that followed Alexander the Great's death. (Olympias was Alexander the Great's mother.) Eurydice was forced to commit suicide. According to ancient histories, the couple was then buried unceremoniously, only to be exhumed months, or perhaps more than a year, later for a royal burial to shore up legitimacy for the next king. At this royal burial, the bodies would have been cremated. 

Philip II, on the other hand, would have been cremated right away. Thus, archaeologists reasoned, if the bones were cremated "fleshed," they were probably Philip II's. If they were cremated dry — the flesh having rotted off — they were probably Philip III's. But that line of thinking has been largely abandoned in recent years, given that a few months in the ground probably would have left Philip III Arridaios with some flesh still clinging to his bones. Thus, either body would have been cremated with flesh on. (Photo Credit: Jonathan Musgrave)

Proof of death

Fragments of the femoral (upper leg) bones from the woman in the Macedonian tomb. These pieces are the upper part of the femurs, and the knob is the joint where these bones connect to the pelvis. A 2010 article by University of Bristol anatomist Jonathan Musgrave noted the curved fractures in the bones and argued that these features indicated that the bones were burned with flesh still clinging to them. Bones warp differently in heat if burned dry versus burned with flesh on. (Photo Credit: Jonathan Musgrave)

Powerful woman

Limb bone fragments from the female skeleton found in the Vergina tomb. One candidate for the woman's identity is Eurydice II of Macedon, wife (and niece) of Philip III Arrhidaios. Eurydice was a warrior queen, as was her mother, Cynane (Alexander the Great's half sister). In the succession crisis that followed Alexander the Great's death, Cynane was determined to marry off her daughter to the new king, Philip III. In the process, Cynane was put to death by Alexander the Great's former generals, who were vying for power in the vacuum left by the conqueror's death. Eurydice, however, did marry Philip III and carried on her mother's ambitions, trying to grab real power for her figurehead husband. Ultimately, she led an army against the regent Polyperchon, but was stymied by the sudden appearance of Olympias, Alexander the Great's mother. Eurydice's troops refused to fight against the mother of Alexander the Great, who was backing Polyperchon, and she was forced to flee. She and her husband were both captured. He was executed, and she ordered to commit suicide by Olympias. (Photo Credit: Jonathan Musgrave)

Warped bones

This photograph of the male skeleton from Vergina was taken in 1983 at the Archaeological Museum in Thessaloniki, Greece. Arrows point to warping in the arm and leg bones caused by postmortem cremation. (Photo Credit: Jonathan Musgrave)

Debated facts

Part of the skull of the mystery male from Vergina. A large flange of bone is peeled outward, an effect of cremation. The question of whether these bones were burned dry or fleshed remains a contentious one: Musgrave argues that they were fleshed, while a 2000 paper in the journal Science by Antonis Bartsiokas, a paleoanthropologist at the Anaximandrian Institute of Human Evolution in Greece, argued that the bones were not warped enough to have been burned fleshed. 

The debate may be the result of too little information, according to Maria Liston, an anthropologist at the University of Waterloo in Ontario who studies cremated remains in Greece. Not enough is known about how bones respond when cremated after partial decomposition of the body, as would have occurred with Philip III, Liston told Live Science in June. (Photo Credit: Jonathan Musgrave)

Battle scars?

A view of part of the skull of the male skeleton from Vergina. An arrow points to a notch in the eye socket that the University of Bristol's Musgrave interprets as a remnant of a known battle wound of Philip II's. However, a 2000 paper in the journal Science argued that this notch is an effect of postmortem handling and cremation. An upcoming study in the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology also failed to find evidence of a pre-mortem eye wound — though those researchers did discover a healing hand fracture that could have matched one of Philip II's known injuries. (Photo Credit: Jonathan Musgrave)

Wounds or illness?

The jaw bone of the male skeleton from Vergina. The University of Bristol's Musgrave and Theodore Antikas of Aristotle University in Greece both noted, in separate studies, signs of inflammation in the jaw and sinuses of the skull. The inflammation could be the result of battle trauma, or chronic infection. For example, damage to the jaw could be caused by chronic gum disease. (Photo Credit: Jonathan Musgrave)

Dental work

The remnants of the teeth and hard palate of the man buried in the Macedonian tomb at Vergina. The arrows show shallow molar sockets; when a tooth is removed, bone breaks down in the empty space in the jaw in a process called resorption. This process permanently changes the shape of the jaw bone. In the modern day, dentists use bone grafts or synthetic materials to preserve the socket after a tooth is removed, enabling them to place a false tooth later.  (Photo Credit: Jonathan Musgrave)

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It's a mystery worthy of Sherlock Holmes, with a backstory that puts "Game of Thrones" to shame: Who was laid to rest in a lavish, gold-filled Macedonian tomb near Vergina, Greece? The tomb, discovered in 1977, might be the final resting place of Philip II of Macedon, conqueror of Greece and father of Alexander the Great, who would push his father's empire to the edge of India. 

Or, it might be the grave of the distinctly less impressive Philip III Arrhidaios (also written as Arrhidaeus), the half brother of, and figurehead successor to, Alexander the Great. 

The latest volley in the debate over which Philip occupies the tomb makes a case for the illustrious Philip II, arguing that the woman found interred alongside the much-debated male body was too old to have been the younger Philip's wife. But this new research seems unlikely to resolve the great Macedonian tomb mystery. 

Related: Bones with names: Long-dead bodies archaeologists have identified

A complicated history

Archaeologists discovered the contentious tomb in 1977. Amid paintings and pottery was a gold sarcophagus containing a man's cremated bones. Nearby were the even-more-fragmentary burned bones of a woman. 

The tomb's discoverers declared the man was Philip II, who took the throne of Macedonia in 359 B.C. as regent for his infant nephew. Displaying the kind of initiative that defined the Macedonian royal family, Philip II quickly took the throne for himself and started conquering his neighbors. 

This went well until 336 B.C., when one of Philip II's bodyguards assassinated him as he walked into a theater in the Macedonian capital of Aegae. It's not entirely clear why the king was murdered; ancient historians told various tales, including one in which the murderer was a former male lover of Philip who had hounded another of Philip's male lovers to suicide and then was himself subjected to sexual assault by one of Philip's in-laws as revenge for that suicide. Some argued that Philip's fourth wife, Olympias, who was rumored by the historian Plutarch to sleep with snakes, had something to do with it. 

Regardless of whether Olympias was that diabolical, she certainly knew how to play politics — with bloody results. The queen moved quickly to put her own son, Alexander, on the throne. She arranged for Philip's two children by another wife, Cleopatra Eurydice, to be killed; Cleopatra Eurydice committed suicide by force soon after. Archaeologists who argue that the tomb at Vergina contains Philip II's bones have argued that the female remains found in the tomb belong to Cleopatra Eurydice. 

Related: The 10 reasons Alexander the Great was, well, great

But not everyone believed the bones matched those of Philip II. In 1981, a further examination of the remains led to claims that the body instead belonged to Philip III Arrhidaios. After Alexander the Great died in 323 B.C. (under mysterious circumstances, naturally), Philip III Arrhidaios took the throne as a figurehead, with his niece and wife Eurydice (not the same person as his father’s seventh wife) as queen. Ancient historians described Philip III Arrhidaios as mentally unfit. Plutarch blamed Olympias for the mental issues, claiming she'd tried to poison Arrhidaios as a child, but Plutarch clearly was not Olympias' biggest fan, and modern historians are skeptical. 

Eurydice, however, was a force to be reckoned with. Her attempts to grab real power put her on a collision course with Olympias and her allies. In 317 B.C., during a war over secession, Olympias' forces defeated the king and queen — Philip III Arrhidaios and Eurydice. He was executed, and she was forced to commit suicide. As if that weren't enough indignity, their bodies were dug up more than a year later and cremated for a royal funeral meant to shore up legitimacy for the next king.  

Archaeological arguments

Much of the debate around whether the tomb belongs to Philip II or Philip III Arrhidaios has focused on the burned bones. In the 1980s, Jonathan Musgrave, an anatomist at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom, created a facial reconstruction of the skull and argued that a notch in the bone over one eye matched historical descriptions of one of Philip II's battle wounds. In 2000, Greek paleoanthropologist Antonis Bartsiokas published a paper in the journal Science arguing that the bone notch and other features Musgrave had highlighted were simply incidental to cremation. (Musgrave does not agree.) 

Another line of debate questions whether the bones show signs of warping, which occurs when flesh-covered bodies are cremated. If the bones of Philip III Arrhidaios were dug up and cremated months after the king's death, they might show less warping, or at least a different warping pattern compared with what would be found if the bones were cremated immediately. 

Related: See photos of another Alexander-era tomb excavation

Much of this argument falls by the wayside in the new paper, recently accepted for publication by the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology. The researchers, led by Theodore Antikas of Aristotle University in Greece, conducted a five-year forensic study of the bones, including computed tomography (CT) scans. 

The researchers argue that the bones of the man and the woman were, in fact, cremated with the flesh still on; however, because Philip III Arrhidaios was not in the ground long enough to become completely skeletal before exhumation, this does little to distinguish the two men. 

The new study likewise fails to find any evidence of an eye wound in the male skull, though the researchers did find a healing wound in the hand that might match one of Philip II's battle injuries. The male body also had growths called Schmorl's nodes on his lower vertebrae, a telltale sign of bone stress from horseback riding. 

With no smoking guns to identify the male skeleton, the team turned to the female bones. Here, they argue, was a 30- to 34-year-old woman, also a horseback rider, who had a fractured leg bone that would have caused her left leg to be shorter than her right. Tellingly, a set of leg armor, or greaves, found in the tomb appears to be made to fit someone with a shortened left leg, Antikas wrote. This suggests the tomb artifacts, including a quiver holding 74 arrowheads, belonged to the woman buried in the tomb, pointing to her identity as a Scythian princess married to Philip II in 339 B.C. Scythia was a kingdom comprising what is now Central Asia and parts of Eastern Europe.

"The gorytus, arrowheads, spears and everything in the antechamber belong to a Scythian warrior woman and NOT to Philip or any other woman but the seventh wife/concubine, namely the daughter of King Ateas," Antikas wrote in an email to Live Science. (A gorytus is a case for bows and arrows.) Antikas declined to comment on other aspects of the study. If he’s right, however, the woman in the tomb is not the Macedonian Cleopatra Eurydice, but another, foreign bride of Philip II’s. 

Bone backlash

But the move toward identifying the tomb's occupants based on the female skeleton rather than the male one brings its own controversy. 

"Frankly, I am disappointed that the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology has published this article," said Maria Liston, an anthropologist at the University of Waterloo in Ontario who studies cremated remains in Greece. "I don't think it makes a substantive contribution to this debate, and it certainly does not refute the position of those who say the skeleton is not Philip II."

Among the problems with the new research, Liston said, is an overconfident approach to aging the skeletons. The researchers looked at the pubic symphysis, the cartilage-padded joint of the pubic bone, to peg the woman's age at between 30 and 34 years. But the method they used can't possibly determine age to that level of precision, Liston said. Rather, it can pinpoint the woman's age only to between 21 and 53 years old, she said. 

The researchers also found that the sternal end of the clavicle, the end near the breastbone, was fused. But that fusion blows their case out of the water, Liston said, because the bones begin to fuse by 19 or 20 years old and are usually done fusing within a few years, and are always fused entirely by age 29. 

"It can't be the age they're saying," Liston told Live Science. If the woman was younger than 29, as the clavicle fusion suggests, she could well be Philip III Arrhidaios' wife Eurydice, who was only about 20 when she died. 

Even the broken leg doesn't seal the case, Liston said. She's not convinced the asymmetrical greaves are made for someone with legs of two different lengths — one may simply have a lengthened flange that flared over the ankle, providing the leading leg with an extra bit of protection. Thus, the greaves may not belong to the woman in the tomb at all. 

Other archaeologists contacted by Live Science declined to comment, citing the preliminary nature of the paper (the journal has not yet released a final version of the publication) or unfamiliarity with the burial context. The tombs at Vergina are an important cultural and tourist site in Greece and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which raises the stakes of what would otherwise be a largely academic debate. The museum at Aigai, which oversees the tombs, refers to the tomb as Philip II's without caveat, as does UNESCO. But among archaeologists, nothing is settled. 

Related: The 7 most mysterious archaeological finds on Earth

"We're never going to build a case that it's Philip II or Philip III that we could go into court and say, 'We have a positive ID,'" Liston said. She understands the draw of giving the skeleton a name, however. 

"I'm as subject as anyone to the thrill of touching the past," she said. But whether the skeleton is Philip II or Philip III, she said, it's rare and exciting to be able to identify so closely a set of bones from more than 2,000 years ago — and either way, the tomb's occupant was a Macedonian royal.  

"Frankly, to me, whoever it is, it's really cool," Liston said. 

Editor's Note: This article was updated to note that the sternal end of the clavicle was fused, not that the clavicle and sternum were fused, as was stated earlier.

Originally published on Live Science.

Historians record biographies of the rich and famous: kings, queens, emperors and knights. Archaeologists, more often than not, dig up common people, who remain stubbornly anonymous in death.

Occasionally, however, the written record and the archaeological record collide. In rare situations, researchers are actually able to identify a collection of bones as a person in the historical record. Many of these identifiable, or "individualized," remains belonged to royalty or other high-profile people, the sort who tend to be buried in lavish graves stamped with their names.

The bodies of royalty are not necessarily more important to archaeologists, who can learn much about diet and lifestyle by examining the bones of commoners. But there's something thrilling about uncovering this concrete evidence of the past. Read on for seven skeletons that have regained their rightful names, and three more that are tantalizingly close. 

1. Richard III

The last Plantagenet king of England set off an international fervor in 2013, when archaeologists announced the discovery of his bones under a parking lot in Leicester. The king, who died in 1485 at the Battle of Bosworth Field, had been scrunched into a hastily dug grave. Researchers identified him by his battle wounds, which matched those the king was reported to have sustained during and after his death, and by his DNA, thanks to a pair of living descendants via his sister's line. 

After the analysis of his remains, Richard III finally got a royal burial at Leicester Cathedral on March 26, 2015 — 530 years after his death.

2. King Tut

The older a skeleton, the less likely historical records survive to identify it. Fortunately, the ancient Egyptians and their carefully prepared mummies provide an exception to this rule. Although the boy king Tutankhamun died in approximately 1323 B.C., his identification was in no doubt after Howard Carter and George Herbert discovered his gold-laden tomb in 1922.

Tut's mummy revealed him to be a slight young man with a clubfoot. Having a positive ID on the young king is enabling researchers to tie together the dynastic family tree using DNA. In 2010, researchers announced they'd identified mummies belonging to Tutankhamun's father, mother and grandmother. 

3. Queen Eadgyth

In 2008, German archaeologists opened a tomb in the Magdeburg Cathedral, expecting it to be empty. To their surprise, they found a lead sarcophagus inscribed with the words "EDIT REGINE CINERES HIC SARCOPHGVS HABET." This translates to: "The remains of Queen Eadgyth are in this sarcophagus."

Slam dunk identification, right? Not so fast. Archaeologists knew that the bones of the Saxon queen Eadgyth, who died in 946 A.D., had been moved at least three times. They could have easily been lost and replaced. 

So scientists set to analyzing the bones. They extracted isotopes, variations of certain molecules, from the skeleton's teeth. Isotopes are integrated into the body through the diet, so they can pinpoint what an individual ate during their lives. 

The tooth isotopes pointed to a childhood in Wessex, England, matching the historical record of Queen Eadgyth. She also ate a high-protein diet and her skeleton bore signs of horseback riding, the archaeologists discovered, befitting her royal status.

4. Xin Zhui

One of the best-preserved bodies ever discovered by archaeologists belonged to Xin Zhui, also known as Lady Dai. Xin Zhui was the wife of the Marquis of Dai during the third century B.C., and when she died around the age of 50 in what is now Hunan, China, she was buried in style. Her tomb was full of her belongings, including cosmetic boxes, musical instruments, painted silk and tablets about health and medicine.

Tucked away in four nested pine boxes, Xin Zhui was so well-preserved upon her discovery in the 1970s that her skin was still moist and her limbs pliable. Her body is now kept in a preserved state at the Hunan Provincial Museum. 

5. Ramesses I

The tomb of the first ruler of Egypt's 19th dynasty, Ramesses I, was discovered in 1817. Unfortunately, Ramesses I wasn't in it.

Years later, in 1881, a family of Egyptian goat-herders-turned-tomb-robbers revealed to archaeologists where they'd been getting the items they'd been selling on the black market for years: a cliff-side tomb above Deir el-Bahri, a mortuary complex across the Nile from the city of Luxor.

The tomb acted as a cache for royal mummies removed during the looting of tombs elsewhere, according to the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University. Inside was a coffin inscribed with the name of Ramesses I — but inside that was nothing but loose bandages. So where was Ramesses? [In Photos: The Mummy of King Ramesses III]

Canada, as it turned out. Yes, the founder of Egypt's 19th dynasty and grandfather of the famed Ramesses the Great was acting as a sideshow exhibit for tourists at the Niagara Falls Museum and Daredevil Hall of Fame. At the time, purchasing mummies from Egypt was as easy as walking down the right alley to find a street merchant selling looted tomb goods. The body of Ramesses I ended up in this trade. When the Niagara Falls Museum sold off its collections in 1999, Emory raised the money to purchase the suspected Ramesses I mummy in less than two weeks. Researchers there used computed tomography (CT) scans, facial reconstructions and detailed study of the mummification techniques to confirm that the roaming mummy was indeed the lost pharaoh. (The mummy was returned to Egypt in 2003.) 

6. Ramesses III

Historical records, penned on papyrus, told of a palace plot to murder Ramesses III, but no one knew if that plot had succeeded. A CT scan of the pharaoh's mummy suggested that it did: Ramesses III's throat had been slit. The cut would have severed the trachea, esophagus and major blood vessels to the head, killing him quickly, the researchers reported in the British Medical Journal.

During his mummification, priests placed a healing amulet in the neck wound and bound it tightly with bandages. 

7. Copernicus

The first astronomer to realize that the Earth revolves around the sun, not the other way around, was buried in an unmarked grave in a Polish cathedral in 1543. But in 2009, Swedish and Polish researchers announced in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that they'd positively identified the remains of Nicolaus Copernicus.

The identification took some doing. First, researchers created a facial reconstruction of a skull of a man of the proper age found under the church floor in 2005. The results were promising — a mug that looked quite similar to contemporary paintings of Copernicus.

Next, the researchers turned to a few shed hairs found stuck in the bindings of a calendar owned by Copernicus. DNA testing revealed that two of the hairs matched the suspected Copernicus bones. 

8. A Viking king?

Not everyone in history is considerate enough to leave DNA-bearing hair behind. In most cases, researchers have to take their best guess at an identification.

One such case is the discovery of a young man's skeleton buried near Auldhame in Scotland. The skeleton, which dated back to the 10th century, was found surrounded by expensive goods, including a Viking belt. This suggests that he was a high-status individual — perhaps even the Viking King Olaf Guthfrithsson himself.

King Olaf died in A.D. 941. Shortly before his death, the king attacked Auldhame and the nearby hamlet of Tyninghame. The location of the grave, combined with the goods inside it, suggests that skeleton could be Olaf himself. Unfortunately, archaeologists said, the evidence is only circumstantial, and with no living relatives for DNA comparison, the identification will remain speculative. 

9. An unknown soldier?

After the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, the mass graves of fallen soldiers were raided for bones, which were ground up and used to fertilize fields in what is now Belgium. As a result, few full skeletons from the battle have been found.

But in 2012, a construction crew discovered the complete skeleton of a Waterloo casualty. The musket ball that killed the man was still lodged in his ribcage. Nearby were 20 coins, a spoon and a piece of wood engraved "CB," according to The Independent.

It wasn't enough to identify the man. That is, until archaeologists noticed the traces of an "F" before the "CB" and a military historian named Gareth Glover took up the case. By cross-referencing records of German soldiers who fought in the battle, Glover was able to determine that only one German with those initials had died: a 23 year-old named Friedrich Brandt.  

As of June 2015, the body identified as Brandt was on display at the Lion's Mound Museum & Visitor Centre in Belgium. 

10. Which Philip?

But which relatives? The debate boils down to two camps: those who believe the male tomb occupant to be Philip II, the father of Alexander who set the stage for his son's unprecedented conquests, and those who believe the skeleton belongs to Philip III Arrhidaios, Alexander's less-illustrious half-brother who ruled as a figurehead briefly after Alexander's death. (The female skeleton is presumed to be the wife, or one of the wives, of these men.)

Examinations of the bones have yet to yield any firm proof either way. Archaeologists argue over whether the bodies were cremated right after death, or later — Philip III was buried for more than a year before being exhumed for a royal cremation and funeral. They also bicker over whether the bones show signs of Philip II's known battle wounds. Ultimately, the bodies may not even provide the final clues, said Maria Liston, an anthropologist at the University of Waterloo who studies cremated remains.

"It's going to have to be, in the end, based a little bit at looking at the bones, but honestly on the dates of the pottery [in the tomb] and things like that," Liston told Live Science. 

Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter and Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

Tax day is nearing in the United States, and people are scrambling to file their returns before the April 15 deadline. While this is never fun, people can take solace in a new finding: A recently translated ancient Egyptian tax receipt shows a bill that is (literally) heavier than any American taxpayer will pay this year — more than 220 lbs. (100 kilograms) of coins. 

Written in Greek on a piece of pottery, the receipt states that a person (the name is unreadable) and his friends paid a land-transfer tax that came to 75 "talents" (a unit of currency), with a 15-talent charge added on. The tax was paid in coins and was delivered to a public bank in a city called Diospolis Magna (also known as Luxor or Thebes).

But just how much was 90 talents worth in ancient Egypt? [See photos of the ancient Egyptian tax receipt]

"It's an incredibly large sum of money," said Brice Jones, a Ph.D. student at Concordia University in Montreal, who translated the text. "These Egyptians were most likely very wealthy."

The receipt has a date on it that corresponds to July 22, 98 B.C. Paper money didn't exist at that time, and no coin was worth anywhere near one talent, the researchers said. Instead people made up the sum using coins that were worth varying amounts of drachma.

One talent equaled 6,000 drachma, so 90 talents totaled 540,000 drachma, researchers say. For comparison, an unskilled worker at that time would have made only about 18,000 drachmaa year said Catharine Lorber, an independent scholar who has published numerous journal articleson Egyptian coins.

In 98 B.C., the highest-denomination coin was probably worth only 40 drachms Lorber said. This made for a truly back-breaking tax load.

It "would have taken 150 of these coins to make a talent, and 13,500 of them to equal 90 talents," Lorber told Live Science in an email. "The coins in question weigh, on average, 8 grams [0.3 ounces], so the total payment of 90 talents probably had a weight in excess of 100 kilograms [220 lbs.]."

What likely happened is that one or more tax farmers (people charged with collecting certain types of taxes) got 90 talents' worth of coins from the individuals paying this tax, the researchers said. These tax farmers then would have had to physically bring the cash into the bank. Lorber noted that the Ptolemies (the ruling dynasty in Egypt at the time) required tax farmers to absorb the cost of transport and handling. In cases where tax farmers had to bring in a big load, "it was packed in baskets and carried by donkeys," Lorber said. [6 Odd Historical Tax Facts]

The 15-talent surcharge, which was added on to the 75-talent tax bill, suggests that the people paying this land-transfer tax were penalized for not paying part of the bill in silver — a charge that was called the "allage," Lorber said.

"This was an exchange fee imposed on bronze currency when it was used to pay an obligation that legally should have been paid in silver," Lorber said. "This system was maintained even in periods when silver coinage was scarcely available."

Egyptian infighting

Today, people often complain about political gridlock and conflict on Capitol Hill, but this is likely nothing compared to the drama and infighting among Egypt's rulers around the time this newly translated bill was paid. 

Around 98 B.C., Egypt's politics were volatile, to say the least. At the time, Egypt was ruled by Ptolemy X, a pharaoh who fought against his own brother for the throne. Some ancient writers even say he killed his own mother in 101 B.C. so he wouldn't have to share power with her.

Ptolemy X was part of a dynasty of pharaohs of Macedonian descent who ruled Egypt after the death of Alexander the Great.

Modern-day historians cast doubt on the ancient claim that Ptolemy X murdered his own mom, but in any event, he eventually lost power. In 89 B.C., his own army turned against him, and he was killed the following year. His brother Ptolemy IX then took over the country.

The ancient tax receipt is located at McGill University Library and Archives in Montreal. Jones is studying and translating several texts from the library and is set to publish his findings in an upcoming issue of the journal Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists.

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Several ancient and medieval texts at McGill University Library and Archives, in Montreal, Canada, are in the process of being deciphered and published by Brice Jones, a PhD student at Concordia University. Until now the texts had not been studied and few knew of their existence. One of the most interesting texts is a receipt for a huge land-transfer tax, written on a piece of pottery. Check out these photos of the ancient Egyptian tax receipt and other texts. [Read full story about the ancient tax bill]

Tax day

This ancient Egyptian tax receipt is for 75 "talents" (a unit of currency), with an added 15-talent charge. To put this number into perspective, just one talent was worth 6,000 drachma, and 90 talents was worth 540,000 drachma. The date on the receipt corresponds to July 22, 98 B.C., and a worker at this time may have only made 18,000 drachma annually. It may have taken 13,500 coins, weighing more than 220 pounds (100 kilograms), to pay this tax. (Credit: Rare Books and Special Collections, McGill University Library and Archives)

An ancient leader

The tax bill dates to the reign of Ptolemy X, a pharaoh who fought against his brother for the throne. Ancient writers claim that he murdered his own mother in 101 B.C. so he wouldn’t have to share power with her. Modern-day historians doubt the tale. In 89 B.C.,  Ptolemy X's own army turned against him and he was killed the following year. This bust of Ptolemy X is displayed in the Louvre Museum. (Photo by Marie-Lan Nguyen, released into public domain, courtesy Wikimedia)

An ancient city

The tax receipt said that the 90 talents were paid at a public bank in a city called Diospolis Magna (the city is also known as Luxor or Thebes). This city was one of the most important in southern Egypt and contains a number of important sites in its surrounding area, including Karnak Temple. (Credit: Leonid Andronov/Shutterstock)

Burial information

This image shows another of the newly translated texts from McGill University. It shows a mummy label, written in Greek, which would have been worn on the neck of a mummy being transported to the burial site. Brice Jones, a PhD student at Concordia University, says the tag is from a woman named Saaremephis (possibly a misspelling) and also names her father, Heron, and the name of the city where she lived, Panopolis, which is located in southern Egypt. The tag probably dates to between the first and third centuries A.D. (Credit: Rare Books and Special Collections, McGill University Library and Archives)

Bits and pieces

This fragmentary letter, written in Greek and possibly dating to the fourth century A.D., is also being deciphered. Jones says it appears to discuss financial matters and refers to a five-day work period, perhaps associated with dyke work, which was something that was frequently done in ancient Egypt. The text may have been written by a Christian, as it names a "brother Viktor" (the word "brother" was commonly used in the ancient world between Christians) and uses the phrase "care for the poor" (something commonly seen in Christian literature, including the Gospel of John). (Credit: Rare Books and Special Collections, McGill University Library and Archives)

Scrap of history

Another text being studied is this lectionary, containing passages from the Gospels of Luke and John. It dates to the 12th century A.D. and may not be from Egypt. Jones found that the text is from a codex (book) that is now at the University of Chicago's Goodspeed Manuscript Collection. How it originally came apart from the rest of the codex is currently unknown. Jones says the page is "extremely well-preserved" and is "absolutely beautiful in terms of the layout." (Credit: Rare Books and Special Collections, McGill University Library and Archives)

Exciting finds

Additional texts have recently been found in a drawer at the Redpath Museum at McGill University. They include papyri written in Demotic, an Egyptian language, and fragments from the Book of the Dead, a series of spells that helped the deceased navigate their way through the afterlife. An image of part of the Redpath Museum is seen here. (Photo by Idej Elixe, Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported, courtesy Wikimedia)

Records of history

Many records indicate that all the newly deciphered texts at McGill University Library and Archives, and about half the material recently found at the Redpath Museum, were purchased by the university in the 1930's from Erik von Scherling, a Swedish antiquities dealer who sold ancient and medieval texts to institutions and collectors all over the world.  

The remainder of the Egyptian texts in the Redpath Museum came from H. I. Bell, a scholar at the British Museum, who in the 1920's ran a syndicate that saw member institutions purchase papyri from him. Ultimately, von Scherling and Bell got their material from Maurice Nahman, who operated in Cairo in the 1920s and 1930s. "In the '20s and '30s he was the go-to guy for all of this stuff," Jones said. 

This image shows part of McGill University. (Credit: Steve Rosset/Shutterstock)

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While spelunking in northern Israel, cavers stumbled upon a hidden stash of ancient coins and jewelry from the era of Alexander the Great, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) announced today (March 9).

IAA officials suspect locals may have put these artifacts in the cave for safekeeping during a time of political unrest 2,300 years ago — but they wouldn't have been the first. Archaeologists who inspected the cave found even more ancient objects inside, some 6,000 years old.

To prepare for an upcoming expedition, three members of the Israeli Caving Club — Reuven Zakai; his 21-year-old son, Hen Zakai; and their friend Lior Halony — were exploring a stalactite cave in northern Israel two weeks ago, according to a statement from the IAA. [The Holy Land: 7 Amazing Archaeological Finds]

When Hen Zakai forced himself into a narrow corner of the cave, he apparently found two ancient silver coins minted during the reign of Alexander the Great alongside silver rings, bracelets and earrings.

"The valuables might have been hidden in the cave by local residents who fled there during the period of governmental unrest stemming from the death of Alexander, a time when the Wars of the Diadochi broke out in Israel between Alexander's heirs following his death," IAA officials said in a statement. "Presumably, the cache was hidden in the hope of better days, but today we know that whoever buried the treasure never returned to collect it."

IAA officials have kept the exact location of the cave a secret, not only because of concerns about protecting the archaeological finds, but also to keep people away from the dangerous and difficult-to-navigate cave.

After the spelunkers reported the find to the IAA, officials with the agency descended into the cave for further investigation this past weekend. They found more objects, including pottery, dating back to the Chalcolithic period 6,000 years ago, the Early Bronze Age about 5,000 years ago and the Biblical period about 3,000 years ago.

In Israel, people could face up to five years in prison for breaking the Law of Antiquities, which states that all antiquities (which belong to the state) must be reported to authorities and cannot be removed from their location, sold or traded.

Amir Ganor, director of the IAA's Unit for the Prevention of Antiquities Robbery in the Israel Antiquities Authority, praised the cavers for reporting their discovery right away.

"They understood the importance of the archaeological discovery and exhibited exemplary civic behavior by immediately bringing these impressive archaeological finds to the attention of the IAA," Ganor said.

This is the second time in a month that citizens have inadvertently discovered an archaeological treasure in Israel. In February, members of an amateur scuba-diving club found a cache of nearly 2,000 gold coins off the coast of Caesarea, an ancient harbor city.

Follow Megan Gannon on Twitter. Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

As Alexander the Great lay on his deathbed in 323 B.C., his generals reportedly asked to whom he left his empire. "To the strongest," Alexander said, according to historians.

"And, of course, they all started fighting about who the strongest was," said Philip Freeman, a professor of classics at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, and author of the book, "Alexander the Great" (Simon & Schuster, 2011). "Pretty much right away his generals started fighting over who got his empire, and they divided it up."  

Alexander's empire stretched from Greece to the Indus River in present-day Pakistan, an impressive territory of about 2 million square miles (5.2 million square kilometers). The Roman Empire exceeded Alexander's in size, but the king built his faster, in just 13 years, before he died at age 32.

With his passing, Alexander the Great left an unborn son and a crowd of ambitious generals. His generals eagerly filled the power vacuum, and his rivals killed his son before the boy's 12th birthday. [10 Reasons Alexander the Great Was, Well … Great!]

At the Partition of Babylon in 323 B.C., rulers split the empire into sections, with Greece, Macedonia and southeastern Europe making up one portion, Asia Minor (present-day Turkey) another and northern Africa a third. Western and central Asia went to other rulers.

Ptolemy, a Macedonian general who served with Alexander, created a separate empire in northern Africa and southern Syria. At first, Ptolemy ruled as an appointed leader, but in 305 B.C., he declared himself king. The Ptolemaic dynasty ruled for 275 years, from 305 B.C. to Cleopatra VII's passing in 30 B.C.

One empire, one emperor?

But what if Alexander had explicitly left his kingdom to one person? Could this person have further expanded his empire, or at least continued to keep it together despite its incredible size?

It's unlikely the empire would have expanded, historians say. Lacking Alexander's charisma and acumen, it's doubtful any single general could have carried on in Alexander's place, following his death at age 32.

"If one person had managed to gain immediate control of the empire, it probably would have fallen apart," Freeman told Live Science. "There was nobody there who had the skill, intelligence, charm and military talent to hold it together like Alexander."

However, it's possible that Alexander didn't mean to express uncertainty about his successor and rather meant to hand his kingdom to his general Perdiccas, said James Romm, a professor of classics at Bard College in New York and author of the book, "Ghost on the Throne: The Death of Alexander the Great and the War for Crown and Empire" (Knopf, 2011).

But within two or three years of Alexander's death, while trying to attack Ptolemy's kingdom in Egypt, Perdiccas was killed by his own officers.

"He didn't do a very good job, and he didn't last very long," Romm said. Perdiccas' death highlights the fact that Alexander's demise led to an inevitable struggle for control.

"There was no one to whom he [Alexander] could pass power to that would have been able to hold the empire together," Romm said. "In the absence of a royal heir, there really was no one."

Would world maps and major religions be different now?

But if one person had continued the empire, the history of the world would have changed, historians told Live Science. A magnetic leader with military brilliance could have invaded Sicily and Rome when Rome was heavily involved in fighting its rivals in the Samnite Wars, which spanned, though not continuously, from 343 B.C. to 290 B.C. A well-timed invasion would have given Alexander's successor an enormous advantage, and, if successful, could have prevented the Roman Empire from forming, said Kenneth Sacks, professor of history and classics at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.

Such a giant Greek and Macedonian empire could have altered the religious history of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Sacks said.

It's possible that some Jews would have become more Hellenized than they are today under such an empire, as Greek culture had already influenced some Jews at the time, Sacks said. For example, Hellenized Jews tended to follow fewer dietary rules and may have tried to hide their circumcisions in the Greek gymnasium, where athletes competed in the nude, he added.

In contrast, Muslims might have become less Hellenized than they are today, because they may have not been as exposed to it, Sacks noted. For instance, the Byzantine emperor, Justinian I, persecuted Greek philosophers when he closed the Platonic Academy in Athens in A.D. 529. In response, the philosophers began moving east, away from the empire. Eventually, after Islam arose, many of the philosophers moved to Baghdad and strongly influenced Islamic thinkers with Neoplatonism, Sacks said.

And Christianity, without the backdrop of the Roman Empire, might not have spread to the West, Sacks said, explaining how the Church used the empire's protected roads and harbor systems to spread the gospel. Moreover, "the Church precisely copied the organizational pattern of the Roman Empire, assuring it control and stability," Sacks said. [In Photos: A Journey Through Early Christian Rome]

The continuation of Alexander's empire also would have changed modern-day maps.

"If there's no Roman Empire, there's no Europe as we know it," Sacks said. "So who knows what happens to Europe. It's still not Christian in any sense, or if there is Christianity, it probably would not have spread to Europe. It would have probably been localized as one of these Christian sects in the Middle East, many of which died out."

Without Rome, Europe would not have Roman technology, such as the aqueducts that carried water from distant sources to populated areas, and the use of concrete in harbors, which helped lead to the Renaissance, Sacks added.

Yet, no such leader existed. "None of these field marshals seem to exhibit the same kind of great vision that Alexander exhibited," Sacks said. "Alexander had a vision of how to stabilize an empire, how to maintain an empire, and none of his successors really demonstrated that capacity."

Originally published on Live Science. 

The skeletal remains of five people were found in an opulent Greek burial complex that dates to the time of Alexander the Great.

The discoveries raise more questions than they answer about who exactly is buried in the tomb in Amphipolis, a city in Greece's central Macedonia region..

"It is not possible to tell who these people were and certainly not from the first macroscopic analysis of the skeletal material," Christina Papageorgopoulou, an anthropologist involved in the excavation, and a professor at the Demokritus University of Thrace in Greece, said in an email. [See photos of the Alexander-era tomb excavation]

Opulent complex

Though archaeologists have been excavating the site since 2012, they only found the opening to the tomb in August 2014. In November of that year, archaeologists found bones beneath the floor of the third chamber in the 4th-century B.C. burial complex, which is located about 65 miles (105 kilometers) from the modern-day city of Thessaloniki.

The massive complex, filled with sphinxes, gorgeous mosaics and finely worked female statues called caryatids, was too luxurious to be financed by a single person and was likely the tomb of a "prominent person," the lead excavator, Katerina Peristeri, said in a statement.

The tomb has stirred widespread speculation about who may be buried inside, with hypotheses ranging from Phillip III, Alexander the Great's half-brother, to Olympias, Alexander's mother. Fans of the find have also created a virtual version of the Greek tomb that the public can explore.

Surprising find

But the latest results reveal that at least five people were buried in the lavish tomb, according to the website TheAmpipholisTomb.com.

All in all, researchers uncovered 550 crushed and intact bones in the tomb, according to a statement from the Greek Ministry of Culture. Some of those bones belonged to animals, including long bones from horses, according to the ministry.

Fragments of a skull, arm, leg, hip and spinal vertebrae were found, and researchers determined these bones belonged to a woman who was at least 60 years old and about 5 foot 2 inches (1.57 meters) tall.

The archaeologists also found parts of the shoulders, hips, arms and leg bones that belonged to a man who was about 35 years old and 5 foot 6 (1.68 m) tall. His body bore deep knife wounds at the thorax, in his side, on his nape and the clavicle. The body was likely attacked after death, as the wounds had not healed at all, the researchers said.

Fragments of leg and arm bones came from a roughly 45 year-old man, who was 5 feet 3 inches tall (1.62 m) and had signs of on old, healed wound on his wrist.

The team also found a few jaw, skull and arm fragments from an infant, and nine partial bones from a cremated adult.

"We could identify with certainty the biological age and sex of the individuals, and I think the archaeological results could give in the future more information so that historians could perhaps identify the deceased," Papageorgopoulou told Live Science in an email.

Some have speculated the Amphipolis tomb contains the bones of Alexander the Great, who died in 323 B.C. in Babylonia. But this is unlikely. Though Alexander asked to be tossed into a river at his death, his generals carried his body back to Egypt. His final resting place remains an enduring mystery, Archaeology Magazine reported.

Follow Tia Ghose on Twitterand Google+. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Originally published on Live Science.

You might not be able to physically step inside the monumental tomb discovered this past summer in Amphipolis, Greece, but there are plenty of unofficial places to go on the Internet to pretend you're doing just that.

The tantalizing finds at Amphipolis have spawned a media frenzy, as well as a cottage industry of artistic reconstructions online. You can virtually stomp on a 2,300-year-old mosaic on amfipoli-news.com. You can use your mouse to rotate a model of the burial complex on theamphipolistomb.com. Type "Amphipolis" into the search bar on YouTube and there's a multitude of 3D renderings to explore.

None of these virtual worlds are affiliated with the Greek Ministry of Culture, the government body in charge of the official excavation. Rather, most of them seem to be made by 3D designers and artists hoping to be part of a once-in-a-generation discovery from the era of Alexander the Great. [See Photos from the Amphipolis Excavation] 

Passion projects

Nikolaos Alexandrou, who now lives in Rome but was born about an hour and a half from Amphipolis, told Live Science that he started making a model of the tomb as a personal project.

In July, Alexandrou graduated from the University of L'Aquila in Italy with a master's degree in architectural civil engineering. A month later, excavators at Amphipolis revealed the arched entrance to the tomb, guarded by two broken sphinxes. Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras toured the site, and later told reporters he was standing in front of an "extremely important discovery."

Alexandrou said he had previously created 3D renderings of buildings, but not archaeological ruins. As the dig became a major news story, Alexandrou tried his hand at a reconstruction of Amphipolis based on images and drawings released by the Ministry of Culture. He was pleased with the results and thought others might be interested in seeing his model.

"I thought it would be great to promote the Greek heritage," Alexandrou said. "So I decided to upload this stuff to YouTube."

The first video Alexandrou posted in mid-October has been viewed about 200,000 times as of this writing. Fans of the work asked Alexandrou to make more models, recreating the broken arms of the site's two female statues (called caryatids) and filling in the missing portion of the stunning mosaic.  He obliged with a handful of new videos that restore the monument to what he imagines its original state was (with some modern touches, like museum-quality lighting).

Dimitrios Tsalkanis, a 3D artist based in Athens, might be one of the newest members to the club of Amphipolis artists. Tsalkanis previously created a website (www.ancientathens3d.com) to share his reconstructions of ancient Athens. He told Live Science in an email that he thought tackling the Amphipolis tomb would be an "intriguing and interesting challenge," and he uploaded his video on Dec. 13.

Tsalkanis emphasized that his model is an artistic reconstruction, not an archaeological one. He took some liberties with the touches of paint he added to the tomb's sphinxes and statues. However, he said his choices were based on studies about the colors Greeks were using during this period, as well as the traces of paint archaeologists have documented at Amphipolis.

Big discovery, with big questions

"We understand from the people around us, the Greek people, that this is a big thing for them," said Dimitris Aggeloudis, a web developer in Greece. He is one of the minds behind amfipoli-news.com, one of a handful of Amphipolis-centric news operations that sprang to life after the tomb was uncovered. The website offers its own 3D tour of the tomb, including an interactive portal where you can guide a male avatar through the tomb using your arrow keys.

Aggeloudis and some friends launched their website in October after tracking the growing interest in the dig. In a conversation over Skype, Aggeloudis and Panagiotis Panagiotou, a student at the University of Thessaloniki who is in charge of the English portion of the website, said the tomb at Amphipolis is the biggest archaeological find in the region since the discovery of the royal Macedonian burials at Vergina, nearly 40 years ago.

In the fall of 1977, Greek archaeologist Manolis Andronikos found a gold-filled Macedonian tomb at Vergina, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) west of Amphipolis. Andronikos held a press conference and announced he had found the resting place of Alexander the Great's assassinated father, Philip II.

More than three decades later, Andronikos is a household name in the region. There is a bronze bust of the archaeologist outside the Museum of Thessaloniki, and a lounge named after him in the Thessaloniki airport. And yet, historians and archaeologists are still debating whether Andronikos accurately identified the occupant of the tomb as Phillip II. Other scholars have suggested that the tomb may have had a different occupant: Philip III Arrhidaeus, Alexander's half-brother, who was perhaps mentally disabled, and was executed in 317 B.C.

Echoes of Vergina

Likewise, the findings at Amphipolis have turned lead archaeologist Katerina Peristeri into a national celebrity, and her excavation has not been without controversy. It's unusual for an archaeological dig to attract so much attention in real time; many discoveries aren't brought to the public's awareness until after they are documented, analyzed and published in a scientific journal. Officials with the Greek Ministry of Culture have been careful about what information they released to the public, and their updates, at times, have created "unreasonable expectations" for the dig, said Tsalkanis.

Many are still holding out hope that the tomb at Amphipolis could be the long-lost resting place of Alexander the Great, though historical texts indicate he was eventually buried in Alexandria, Egypt, after he died in 323 B.C. This September, Greek media quoted the Greek Minister of Culture, Kostas Tasoulas, as saying that it would be "impossible" for Alexander to have been buried at Amphipolis. But a day later, Tasoulas backtracked on that statement, keeping the mystery alive. Other commentators have speculated that the bones found in the tomb might belong to one of Alexander's generals or family members.

Some of critics have accused Prime Minister Samaras' coalition government of using the tomb as a distraction amid economic trouble. In the same month that the tomb discovery was announced, Samaras was facing harsh criticism over an unpopular new property tax. Reuters reported on one cartoon that emerged in Greek media at the time, showing Samaras urging archaeologists to identify the person buried in the grave — but only to make him pay the property tax.

Tsalkanis said some of those controversies weighed on him as he made his 3D model.

"This whole situation had troubled me a lot before proceeding into the creation of this video," Tsalkanis said in an email. "But a monument's impact on society is always interesting to investigate, both at the time when it was built and also at the time it is being 'rediscovered.' So, I think that creating this 3D animation fits both aspects."

In Alexandrou's eyes, archaeological discoveries are a legitimate cause for a boost in morale. Ruins and tombs are big attractions for Greek's tourism industry, which provided 15.8 percent of Greece's GDP in 2011, according to a report from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

"If we don't use this, then what else? Every finding is another helper from the ancient Greeks," Alexandrou said.

Follow Megan Gannon on Twitter. Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

An ancient farmhouse dating back to 2,800 years ago — complete with 23 rooms, winepresses and a grain silo — is no longer lost to the ages. Over the past few weeks, archaeologists have uncovered the sprawling stone house in Rosh Ha-'Ayin, in central Israel.

Archaeologists found the farmhouse during an excavation that the government required be done before construction could begin to enlarge the modern city. The house, which measures 98 by 131 feet (30 by 40 meters), is "extraordinarily well preserved," Amit Shadman, excavation director on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, said in a statement.

The farmhouse dates back to the time of the Assyrian conquest, when the Assyrians conquered Northern Israel, the researchers said. [The Holy Land: 7 Amazing Archaeological Finds]

"Farmhouses during this period served as small settlements of sorts, whose inhabitants participated in processing agricultural produce," Shadman said. "The numerous winepresses discovered in the vicinity of the settlement indicate the wine industry was the most important branch of agriculture in the region."

The large silo found at the farmhouse likely stored grain, which "shows that the ancient residents were also engaged in growing cereal," Shadman said.This isn't the first time archaeologists in Israel have stumbled across ancient winepresses. In September, a team uncovered an industrial-size winepress outside Jerusalem in what was likely a monastery before the 7th century B.C., and in 2013, archaeologists found a 1,500-year-old winepress under a city street in Tel Aviv.

Ancient people continued using the building during the period of the 6th century B.C. called The Return to Zion, when the Jewish people returned to Israel after the Babylonian exile. The building remained active later, during the Hellenistic period that followed in the wake of Alexander the Great's military conquests.

After Alexander's army defeated the Persians in 333 B.C., he built an empire that spanned from Greece to present-day Pakistan. The people of Israel welcomed the leader, Shadman said.

In the farmhouse, the archaeologists also found an object that suggests a Greek presence during that era: a rare silver coin with an image of Zeus and Alexander's name next to it — spelled ΑΛΕΞΑNΔΡΟΥ — on one side, and the head of Heracles (often called "Hercules," the Romanized name for the Greek mythological hero known for his extraordinary strength) on the reverse side.

The Israel Antiquities Authority and the Ministry of Construction plan to preserve the farmhouse and open it to the public, the researchers said.After Alexander's generals divided the empire following his death, the farmhouse remained useful for centuries. During the Ottoman period, which lasted from 1299 to 1923, people used the stones in the building as a source of raw materials, Shadman said.

Follow Laura Geggel on Twitter @LauraGeggel. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

Skeletal remains have been discovered inside a lavish burial complex in Greece that dates back to the era of Alexander the Great. The tomb is thought to be the largest of its kind in the Greek world, and the bone fragments could help solve the mystery of who was buried inside.

Excitement has been building for months as archaeologists venture deeper inside the 4th century B.C. burial complex in Amphipolis, a city in Greece's central Macedonia region, located about 65 miles (105 kilometers) east of Thessaloniki. The excavators have found sphinxes, a stunning mosaic floor and artfully crafted female statues standing guard at an interior doorway. But until now, they had not found any trace of a body.

The Greek Ministry of Culture announced today (Nov. 12) that fragmentary skeletal remains were discovered beneath the floor in the tomb's third chamber. [See Photos of the Alexander-Era Tomb's Excavation] 

The body had apparently been placed within a wooden coffin inside a limestone vault. The archaeologists also discovered metal nails and fragments of glass scattered among the bits of bone.

The excavators, led by Greek archaeologist Katerina Peristeri, have been trying to stave off speculation about who might be buried inside the tomb. But, they said today the complex was probably too expensive to have been bankrolled by a single individual. The size and rich details of the tomb suggest it must have been built for a "prominent figure," according to a statement from the Greek Ministry of Culture.

In September, the head of the Ministry of Culture, Kostas Tasoulas, said it was highly unlikely that the Amphipolis tomb belonged to Alexander the Great himself, but he later retreated from that statement.

"There are no written documents on where Alexander the Great is buried, this is what I said, and not that the tomb does not belong to Alexander the Great," Tasoulas told a radio program, according to the Greek Reporter.

Alexander the Great died in Babylon (present-day Iraq) in 323 B.C. Against his last wishes to be thrown into a river, Alexander's generals eventually buried him in Egypt, but the exact location of his final resting place has been lost to history, Archaeology magazine reported.

Excavations have been going on at the so-called Kasta Hill site since 2012, but the dig gained widespread attention this past August after a pair of broken sphinxes were revealed at the entrance to the tomb, which is enclosed by a marble wall that runs about 1,600 feet (490 meters) around the perimeter. Among the more remarkable finds from the excavation was a colorful mosaic floor showing a scene from Greek mythology: the goddess Persephone being abducted by Hades and taken to the underworld.

Follow Megan Gannon on Twitter and Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.

An elaborate and colorful mosaic showing the Greek god Hermes leading a man to the underworld has been uncovered in a vast tomb from the era of Alexander the Great, Greek archaeologists announced.

The figurative artwork spans the surface of an antechamber at the Kasta Hill burial complex in Amphipolis, an ancient city in the Central Macedonia region of Greece. Appropriately for a tomb, the mosaic depicts a horse-drawn chariot led by Hermes as "psychopomp," or spiritual guide to souls in the afterlife, according to the Greek Ministry of Culture.

The mosaic covers an area of about 14.7 feet by 8.9 feet (4.5 meters by 3 meters). It was discovered as archaeologists cleared soil from a room behind a doorway that is supported by a pair of larger-than-life caryatids, or female statues that take the place of pillars or columns. [See Photos of the Alexander-Era Tomb's Excavation] 

Ongoing archaeological excavations rarely attract so much attention. But the tomb at Amphipolis is remarkable for its enormous proportions — it is enclosed by a marble wall 1,600 feet (490 m) in perimeter — and its mysterious contents. Archaeologists still don't know who might be buried inside if the tomb turns out to be intact.

The dig has sparked great excitement since August, when Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras toured the site and declared it an "extremely important discovery." At that time, archaeologists had just unearthed a pair of headless sphinxes standing guard at the sealed entrance of the tomb. As the excavators have probed deeper inside over the past two months, they've revealed additional rooms with impressive architectural elements, such as the delicately carved caryatids and traces of paint on the walls.

The freshly revealed mosaic is composed of small pebbles that are white, black, gray, blue, red and yellow in color. The artwork isn't completely intact; a circular area about 2.5 feet (0.8 m) in diameter in the middle of the composition has been lost. But the figurative scene is still clear: Hermes heads the chariot, which is pulled by two white horses. Hermes and the horses are leading a bearded man with a laurel wreath on his head shown in profile. That main scene has a border decorated with waves and a meander pattern.

The team of excavators, led by Greek archaeologist Katerina Peristeri, believes the tomb dates back to the fourth century B.C. and bears the architectural fingerprints of Dinocrates, Alexander the Great's chief designer. The team doesn't expect to find Alexander himself if they do find a corpse (or corpses) in the burial complex; Alexander died in Babylon and is believed to have been buried in Egypt, though his grave has never been found. 

Follow Megan Gannon on Twitter and Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on LiveScience.

Let these ancient statues be an inspiration to tall girls who want to wear heels: A pair of caryatids revealed in a tomb in Greece stand more than 7 feet tall, and they have a little extra height from their platform sandals. 

Archaeologists recently uncovered the feet of the wavy-haired female statues standing guard at the entrance of a huge burial complex in Amphipolis. The stone statues' delicately carved toes have survived for more than 2,300 years, and their thick-soled shoes, known as kothornoi, have even retained traces of red and yellow paint, new photos show.

Called caryatids, the ancient sculptures were discovered earlier this month at the Kasta Hill site in Amphipolis, about 65 miles (104 kilometers) east of Thessaloniki in the Central Macedonia region of Greece. The massive tomb is thought to date back to the era of Alexander the Great, in the fourth century B.C. [See Photos of the Alexander-Era Tomb's Excavation]

With the feet revealed, excavators could finally measure the full height of the larger-than-life caryatids: 7.45 feet, or 2.27 meters, according to the latest update on the excavation from the Greek Ministry of Culture.

While removing soil from around the statues, archaeologists also discovered parts of the caryatids' broken hands and arms.

Caryatids are statues that take the place of columns or pillars in Greek architecture. Perhaps the most famous examples are the six caryatids supporting the porch of the Erechtheion, an ancient temple at the Acropolis in Athens.

The caryatids at Amphipolis flank the second doorway inside the tomb, and their bodies had been partially covered up by a wall of stones. When excavators revealed the statues' torsos, they found that the right arm of the western caryatid and the left arm of the eastern one were both outstretched, "as if to symbolically prevent anyone attempting to enter the grave," a statement from the Greek Ministry of Culture said.

Archaeologists still aren't sure who's buried inside. The head of the Greek Ministry of Culture, Kostas Tasoulas, told Mega TV Monday (Sept. 22) it is "impossible" for the grave of Alexander the Great to be at Amphipolis, according to the Greek Reporter. Historical texts indicate Alexander's body was ultimately laid to rest in Alexandria.

But if the tomb at Amphipolis proves to be intact, the excavators might find someone from Alexander's inner circle. The archaeologists have said they believe the monumental tomb bears the design fingerprints of Dinocrates, Alexander's chief architect. The burial complex is surrounded by a wall measuring some 1,600 feet (490 meters) in perimeter; two headless sphinxes sit on top of the first doorway.

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