Last month, the Greek City Times published an article with the resonating title “Professor Bidas: Tomb of Alexander the Great’s mother was found in Korinos.” The news is worth making headlines, and I’m puzzled because it didn’t.
It is all about
one of the tombs of Korinos, some
In 1991, the
Greek archaeologist, M Besios, restarted the excavations and concentrated on
the largest tomb. The burial complex is
As he uncovered a rare construction of three consecutive burial chambers, M Besios concluded that the grave was intended for an important person. He found a marble case in the burial chamber that once held the vessel with the cremated remains on the east side. This result indicates that the remains belonged to a woman since women were buried with their heads facing east.
The logical conclusion was that this tomb must have belonged to Queen Olympias. She had been assassinated by Cassander in 316 BC at the issue of the siege of Pydna and buried outside the city.
In light of the
above, Emeritus Professor Athanasios Bidas claimed to have located the tomb of Queen Olympias here in Korinos (see also: Is the Mother of Alexander the Great in the Tomb at Kasta Hill near Amphipolis?) The announcement was made public in December 2019, but competent authorities in
This lack of reaction is as surprising as the one that followed the discovery of the (doubtful) grave of Alexander the Great in Siwah in 1995. At that time, archaeologist Liana Souvaltzi substantiated her finds, but her digging permit was blocked by the Greek government as soon as she did. They sent an advisor of the Greek Embassy to the Egyptian government to withdraw her excavation permit and prevent her further excavations of the tomb. Twenty-five years later, Liana Souvaltzi still fights to return to Siwah and resume her excavations.
It makes one wonder if nobody in the world wants to know the truth about what happened to the remains of Alexander the Great, his mother Olympias, his wife Roxane and their son Alexander IV, as well as those of Heracles and his mother, Barsine. Until now, it remains unsure whether the tomb of the young prince discovered next to the grave of Philip in Aegae belongs to Alexander IV.
Sounds like this is talking about the inscription reviewed by Edson, which is really too fragmentary to reconstruct: for example, the reference to the Aiakides is "reconstructed" just from a surviving A. And it was in the area in the sense of being km away and found out of context. That leaves us with no evidence whatsoever that this was the tomb of Olympias. It is just one of many tombs of 4th century BC date in the general area, which is tens of km in extent. You can see why people are ignoring this complete lack of evidence.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Taphoi for this contribution pointing towards a lack of evidence. I know this is not the only such case, but why is there no reaction from the higher hierarchy to stop people from publishing this kind of information? Now it is leading a life of its own and the general public accepts it as being the truth. This leads to serious misinformation.
Delete