The most
sensible words I have read so far come from David
Meadows, Rogueclassicist and appeared on September 1, 2014. This is what he
said:
Thinking Out Loud About the Amphipolis Tomb ~ The
Rogueclassicist Speculates
School starts
tomorrow so I don’t know whether I’ll have time to flesh this out today, but I
want to put this suggestion out there. It actually builds on assorted things
proposed by plenty of folks but adds something original, I think. Here’s my
speculation on the tomb based on recent things:
1. It is not
implausible that it was intended for Alexander and would have been started
while he was still alive
2. Of course,
Alexander ended up getting buried in Alexandria
3. So Amphipolis
ends up with this big tomb and no one to put in it; but putting ANYONE other
than the intended occupant in that tomb would be making a political statement
4. The latest news
from the site suggests there were great efforts made to seal the tomb in an
unprecedented way (I’ll be posting on this later today or tomorrow) … so:
5. Rogueclassicist
goes out on a limb to suggest the Amphipolis tomb will turn out to be
EMPTY (wall decorations might be there); not looted but intentionally not used.
6. The tomb/mound
was transformed into a memorial monument of sorts (everyone knew it was
there), with the lion put on top as a sort of generic marker of sorts. The
‘sphinxes’ were beheaded when everything was sealed up because they weren’t
guarding anything. Perhaps a symbolic ‘deterrent’ for folks who might have been
thinking about using the tomb for themselves.
… I’m hoping I’ll be proven wrong in the
next few weeks and we’ll have a magnificent, occupied, Macedonian tomb but this
is going to be my working hypothesis for the next few days.
