Lost World of the Golden King by Frank Holt

Lost World of the Golden King, In Search of ancient Afghanistan by Frank Holt (ISBN 978-0-520-27342-9), is the latest book by this author, who has an unparalleled knowledge of Bactria, a country often neglected by and unfamiliar to most historians.

I totally enjoyed his earlier books: Into the Land of Bones, Alexander the Great and Bactria and Alexander the Great and the Mystery of the Elephant Medallions, as no one knows Bactria more intimately than Frank Holt. He was my mental guide and support source when I visited Uzbekistan (see several articles under the label: Central Asia), so I couldn’t skip reading this latest update of his.

As always, his work is exact and consistent. After Alexander’s conquests in 329-327 BC, the country kept many of its invested Greek influences, eventually giving birth to the Graeco-Bactrian kingdom, followed by the Indo-Bactrian rule. However, after repeated and devastating attacks by its nomadic neighbors, the empire of “a thousand cities” vanished, and from the tenth century onward, only the name of Bactria survived. We had to wait till the eighteenth century when a Greek coin was unearthed, and the first explorers started their search.

Frank Holt follows them step by step, all through the 18th and 19th centuries, analyzing their assessments and holding their conclusions against today’s still sparse knowledge about the Bactrian Kingdom. Not all the coins carry an inscription with the name of their Basileus, and those who do so don’t specify if we are looking at Eucratides I or II, Demetrius I or II, or Diodotus I or II, while on the other hand, we still have no way to put them conclusively in their correct chronology. The studies of these earlier explorers have merit, of course, but archaeology has evolved since then, new techniques have been applied, and the fundamental research of numismatic evidence has progressed.

Meanwhile, one of the “thousand cities” was located and excavated extensively by Paul Bernard (1964-1978) till modern wars put everything on hold and destroyed his painstaking work. By now, Ai-Khanoum, at the far northern border of today’s Afghanistan, has made headlines, and most of his precious finds have found shelter inside the walls of several museums (see the exclusive and still traveling exhibition, Afghan Gold Treasure)

Frank Holt uses the excavation results and artifacts from Ai-Khanoum to reconstruct as much as possible of Bactria, whose most famous king was Eucratides. His huge golden “Eucratidion” was the very first coin that rose from Bactria’s ashes. Sporadic texts and inscriptions and the various hoards add further information and raise more questions.

The reader will get a fresh look at Bactria, its kings, and its heritage. Besides a whole chapter about the mining and minting techniques, including the knowledge involved, Frank Holt’s book offers a wealth of information about every possible aspect of life after the campaign of Alexander the Great in the furthest northeastern corner of his empire.  

Latest find at Stratonikeia, Turkey

Turkey is an everlasting source of new discoveries. The country has such a rich past, of which only a few tourists seem to be aware, and then only with names like Ephesos, Miletus, Priene, and maybe Didyma or Halicarnassus, modern Bodrum. But there is so much more with constant new finds, some more spectacular than others. 

A while ago, I wrote about the amazing sarcophagus that was unearthed in the area of Milas (see: Sensational Archaeological find near Milas), and today it is the turn of Stratonikeia, roughly halfway between Milas and Muğla. Stratonikeia was part of Caria, a generally unknown kingdom, although in its heyday it was ruled by none less than King Mausolos, the builder of the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus - one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

During their seventeen-month excavations, archaeologists have uncovered part of a road flanked by columns that led to the gate in the city walls. These walls are estimated to be 3,6 kilometres long and for now, a stretch of 400 meters has been exposed. It seems that the walls were restored by King Mausolos some 2,400 years ago.

[Photo: AA, from Today's Zaman]

Main find in the area was this huge 2,000-year-old Hellenistic bust of a king that stood one and a half meters high and is two metres wide, showing features of a bull’s head and a goddess – signs of wealth and power. Previously, a chariot had been discovered, as well as a 1,500-year-old Byzantine mosaic. All in all, 460 artifacts, both Roman and Byzantine, have been collected by the archaeological team and are now transferred to the nearby Museum of Muğla.

After full restoration, the wall will be accessible to visitors, and so will the Museum once the finds have been treated appropriately.

For a great overview of Stratonikeia, please refer to this link at Peter Sommer Travels.

Irbil, and no mention of Alexander?

I am very much excited to hear that in spite of the war a new archaeological project has been started in the region of Irbil, the capital of the Kurdish region in Northern Iraq in search of ancient cities, roads, walls, etc. In just a few months the Harvard-led project covering some 3,200 square kilometers has revealed about 1,200 potential sites and they are still counting.

There is, however, a downside to the project because the economy of Kurdistan is booming and new developments are exploding all around. One of the main problems is that the archaeologists don’t limit themselves to the individual sites but are also interested in the spaces in between, looking for traces of agriculture and irrigation canals as well as for roads and tracks that connected the settlements. Because of these widespread constructions, these are the areas that are most prone to be destructed before being properly studied and documented.

Evidently, the archaeologists are very keen to work in the area because it has been a zone of conflict for so many years. At last, they are able to take a close look at early civilizations as is mentioned by Phys Org in November 2012.

Yet, in all of this research, I don’t find a single word about Alexander the Great while Irbil  is only 100 kilometers away from the very spot where the famous Battle of Gaugamela was fought in 331 BC – the supreme encounter of Alexander and Darius III of Persia. How dare these archaeologists omit Alexander from their reports!

[picture from Oliver Stone's movie Alexander]

Poor Babylon

Babylon once hosted one or more of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world, when, during its heyday, King Nebuchadnezzar II, out of love for his homesick wife, built the famous hanging gardens. It was here that Hammurabi wrote the very first laws etched in stone and now one of the proud possessions of the Louvre Museum; it is also where the biblical and historical Tower of Babel ruled over the surroundings of the Temple of Ishtar; and where the Achaemenid kings occupied their luxurious palaces till King Darius III of Persia was defeated by Alexander the Great, who died within its very walls.

Babylon, or what is left of it, is located about 90 kilometers south of Baghdad, Iraq, along the banks of the Euphrates River. Today, the remains of this ancient site are in very poor condition, and we are too close to losing it altogether.

Although the first excavations in the Babylon area started in the early 19th century, serious work began towards the end of that century by successive archaeologists from England, Germany, and Italy. Useless to point out that much of the finds are spread between their respective museums. When Sadam Hussein came to power, he wanted to wallow himself in the splendor and fame of this ancient capital, and in 1983, he started to build a city of his own on top of the fragile ruins of the dried brick walls. He inscribed his name in the bricks, just as Nebuchadnezzar had done before him, and as if the damage done to these ancient walls was not enough, he had serious plans to erect a palace of his own atop some other ruins. The outbreak of the Gulf War put an end to this madness, but by then the modern bricks and mortar of Sadam’s megalomania had dangerously damaged the brittle ruins.

After that, in 2003, the coalition forces camped in parts of ancient Babylon’s ten square kilometers for two years. They dug trenches, drove steel stakes into the ancient walls, and built roads, parking lots, and even a helicopter landing pad, bringing further damage to Babylon, including the famous Ishtar Gate and the Procession Way through which Alexander the Great made his triumphal entrance some 2,500 years ago.

Peace has not returned yet. For several years, villagers, invading armies, and fortune seekers plundered whatever they could. An ever-increasing number of people settled in new villages on top of the ruins, and now rising groundwater threatens the ancient walls even further. To make matters worse, the Iraqi oil business is spoiling the precious grounds of this wondrous city, tearing up the soil to lay down their pipelines 1.7 meters deep right next to two other pipelines that were dug under Sadam Hussein. The Ministry of Oil ignored the pleas from their own Iraqi archaeologists, simply stating that they didn’t find any artifacts while digging, as if they were experts in the matter!

Meanwhile, UNESCO has written to the Iraqi authorities to express their concern, and Iraq’s own department of Antiquities has sued the Ministry of Oil demanding the removal of the pipelines. The World Monument Fund, on the other hand, is helping to protect the damaged ruins of Babylon against the rising groundwater, which is caused by new irrigation policies. But overall, the situation is at a standstill since the government of Iraq has decided to suspend its contacts with US universities and institutions that are involved in saving Babylon. Let’s hope that these measures are only temporary and that the ban will soon be lifted.

Today, desolation and destruction are all too evident. Poor Babylon.

[Picture of the map is from NBC News, and the lion picture is from The Australian]

New hope for the Museum of Baghdad

Thanks to the travel-blog of Gadling, I have been made aware that the National Museum of Iraq is to reopen soon. One of the authors of this blog, Shean McLachlan, was allowed inside for a sneak preview.

After the fall of Baghdad in 2003, the entire city was in chaos and nobody was there to protect the museum – probably the last concern for the invading armies. As always, looters swarmed in like vultures, ransacking and steeling whatever fell in their hands. The Museum staff resisted as best as they could, asking the American army for protection but it is still not clear how well this was handled. Countless artefacts were smashed, thousands were stolen. Yet, thanks to the bravery of the museum staff the best pieces were hidden in secret locations, others were later on recovered although most disappeared in the hands of private collectors. A very sad story of lost culture!

So, I am very pleased to hear the good news that Baghdad is working on reopening its precious Museum where treasures from the dawn of civilization had found refuge. In his sneak preview, Shean McLachlan witnessed giant Assyrian statues standing next to peculiar bright eyed Sumerian ones. Reliefs with hunting scenes and warfare have found their way back, together with cases full of cylinder seals that somehow survived the looting (they are so easy to smuggle out of the country!). All in all, he saw twenty-two completed galleries, with five more still being under construction. It seems that some rooms have been reproduced as they were before the war while others are completely remodelled and modernized. Interestingly all the galleries are now labelled in both Arabic and English. This does not mean that everything has returned to the museum and illegal transactions are still ongoing – unfortunately.

Anyway, the Museum is to be reopened at some time in 2013. When you consider that this is one of the greatest museums in the Middle-East and definitely the greatest museum in Iraq, we have something to look forward to!

I wish Iraq and more specifically Baghdad were a safer place to travel to for I can’t wait to go there and look around for what Alexander could have seen or even left behind – after all, Babylon is not too far away.

All the pictures in Shean McLachlan’s article are under copyright. So please visit his Gadling-weblog for his photos – the one of the jade Sumerian is absolutely superb!
[Picture of the Museum is from the Digital Journal]

Troy, a unique exhibition

Troy was once one of the most magic cities in the world, and it definitely was for Alexander, even if there may not have been much left for him to see. But at least we are sure that the Temple of Apollo still stood there since he exchanged his armor and especially his shield against that of his much admired example, Achilles. Besides, Alexander and his life-long friend Hephaistion visited the nearby Tomb of Achilles and Patroclus, stripping off their clothes and running around the tumulus. 

So yes, Troy is very much interwoven with Alexander and his hero, Achilles. This is reason enough to put the current exhibition “Troy. City, Homer and Turkey” high on my list. It is held at the Allard Pierson Museum in Amsterdam and is part of the conclusion to the celebration marking 400 years of diplomatic relations between Turkey and the Netherlands.

On display are more than 300 artifacts collected from different places in the Netherlands and abroad - a rare opportunity to see so many archaeological items together in one place.

What we know about Troy is mainly the story of the 12-year war between Greeks and Trojans that inspired Homer to write his famous “Iliad”, and the sensational discoveries made by Heinrich Schliemann at the late 19th century. Myth and history are very much intertwined, as they were for eons past. Excavations at Troy have revealed 5,000 years of settlements in which so many people, countries and cultures have left their imprint. Various aspects of Troy are being presented at this exhibition, using its many myths as a thread running through time. The results of old and recent excavations are on display with original pieces and copies of the famous Treasure of Priam (the cache of gold and jewelry found by Schliemann). The most striking item is a large marble head of Zeus, generously contributed by the Archaeological Museum in Istanbul.

Perception of Troy’s history in the 19th and 20th century in Turkey and abroad forms a major part of this exhibition, including items dating from the Ottoman Empire, like Schliemann’s permit for the digging and pictures of Ataturk’s visit to Troy.

“Troy. City, Homer and Turkey” will run till 5 May 2013, so there still is time to take a look at this uniquely assembled collection.

[Click here to see all the pictures from the Allard Pierson Museum]

Olympias, mother of Alexander the Great by Elizabeth Carney

Olympias, mother of Alexander the Great (ISBN 0-415—33317-2), is an excellent book about an equally exceptional woman – an absolute must for every admirer of Alexander the Great!

It is amazing what information Elizabeth Carney has been able to produce, primarily since so very little has been written about Olympias, even in antiquity. E. Carney knows the mother of Alexander the Great very intimately, and as she states herself, she has been living with her longer than with her own husband. That tells a great deal. 

At first glance, the book looks deceptively small, but the amount of information and the conclusions she manages to present is enormous.

The chapter division has been kept relatively simple:

1. Olympias the Molossian tells us about Olympias' youth; the kingdom of Molossia; the social place of married women in Greece and Macedonia; and the preparations for her wedding with Philip II of Macedonia in Samothrace.
2. Olympias, the wife of Philip II, discusses the problems of a polygamous marriage; her place at Philip's court; her role as the mother of a possible heir; her involvement in the Pixodarus affair, and the consequences of Attalus' accusation about the legality of Alexander as Macedonian king; Philip conceiving the construction of the Philippeon in Olympia after his victory at Chaeronea.
3. Olympias, the mother of the king, Alexander the Great, obviously starts in 336 BC with her possible implication in the murder of her husband and her son's ascension to the throne. Discussed are the murder of Cleopatra (Philip's last wife) and her child(ren); her disagreements with Antipater since Alexander had not clearly defined the role of each; Olympias' own political power through customary female religious activities (together with that of her daughter Cleopatra  queen of Molossia, by now widowed from marrying her uncle, Olympias' brother).
4. Olympias on her own, leaves her in a world of total chaos with no time or opportunity to grieve over her son's death (his body never returned home). The bickering of Alexander's generals is examined, and the generally accepted idea that Alexander was poisoned at Antipater's instigation, with the complicity of his sons. Olympias measures her strength against that of Adea Eurydike, the wife of Philip Arrhidaeus, and then liquidates both of them. Cassander rules over Macedonia. Cleopatra, Alexander's sister, tries to save Macedonia by putting herself on the marriage market without success and is eventually killed. Finally, the murder of Olympias and its circumstances are scrutinized. This is by far the period when most of what we know about Olympias has been recorded, although the chronology is often lost in the complexity of the events.
5. Olympias and religion are less about Olympias' religious practice than the general involvement of women in religion, both in Macedonia and Greece proper.
6. Olympias' afterlife examines her burial and how she has been remembered throughout Roman times, generally together with her famous son.
7. Appendix. Olympias and the sources. In this extra chapter E. Carney clearly explains the pros and cons related to sources like Diodorus, Justin, Curtius, Arrian, Plutarch, and Pausanias.

Throughout her book, E. Carney painstakingly examines what has been written by the abovementioned authors and what has been mentioned in the Alexander Romance to put together an image of Olympias and the time she lived in. She does this most pleasantly, with an open mind, scrutinizing and analyzing every nuance in the sentences of the extensive bibliography she is using. She is cautious in drawing her conclusions, and rightfully so. Unlike many other authors, she is not ramming her views and ideas down my throat.

In my opinion, it takes a woman to write about Olympias. No one could have done a better job than Elizabeth Carney.

Macedonia, Philip’s life-work - Alexander’s heritage.

When we read about Alexander the Great, we easily get the impression that he is the genius who decided to cross the Hellespont to conquer the rest of the world, winning every single battle and playing the politically correct move each time he encountered a new city on his path.

He had to settle a few matters "back home" first, but they seemed futile compared to what was achieved later in Asia. Such a statement is only partially true since we have little or no background information on the status of and in Macedonia when Alexander became King in 336 BC. Ancient writers have not been very helpful in that field as they generally start Alexander's history when he sets out to Asia. Plutarch is the only one to relate some details about his youth. So, it is unsurprising that our overall picture of Alexander needs to be revised.

  

Pushing aside the heroics for the moment, we know that Alexander, at 16, was made Regent of Macedonia by his father, King Philip II, who was leading a dangerous campaign around Perinthus. The King's calculated assignment to appoint his son to such a responsible position cannot be underestimated! When Alexander was 18 years old, Philip felt confident enough to place him opposite the Theban Band at the Battle of Chaironeia, where the young prince and his cavalry killed the unbeatable Theban Band to the last man, eliminating a centuries-long entity for good. King Philip must have been very clever and realistic in judging his son's capabilities. Not many fathers would do that, and, as it turned out after the King's assassination, no friend or foe either. None of them believed Alexander would so handily continue in his father's footsteps. He led an attack at lightning speed against the northern tribes all the way to the Danube and south against Thebes, who secretly hoped to stand a good chance against the young King. These fights went down in our history books with only a few lines as Alexander's incredible tactical maneuvers are overshadowed by his later conquests in the East.

  

Yet we forget that up to this point, we owe most of Alexander's successes to his father, for Alexander's genius was not born overnight. Although we know that Philip led many a fight against his Macedonian neighbors, we generally ignore that this was a never-ending struggle. The stubbornness of the Balkan people certainly was no less than that of the Bactrians Alexander had to face in Central Asia years later. On top of that, Athens with Demosthenes in the front rows was always cross. As soon as Philip dared to sneeze, so to speak, Demosthenes had his critics ready, and Athens listened.

       

It generally is beyond our awareness that Philip was the one who restructured and united Macedonia – a far from easy task (the present political situation in Greece is nothing new). Philip cemented the loose city-states into one country, Greece, and with the League of Corinth, he ensured they would no longer fight each other. What an accomplishment! Philip understood like no other the art of diplomacy besides being an excellent tactician and general. He knew how to eliminate each enemy at the right time and manipulate his opponents, pending the ideal moment to act.

When Philip II of Macedonia was assassinated in 336 BC, he was at the top of his power ruling over an enlarged Macedonia and a unified Greece (all the Greek city-states except Sparta). Alexander could almost immediately leave for Asia, were it not that because of his youth, he first had to prove himself a worthy successor to his father – on the one hand towards the neighboring tribes and on the other hand towards Greece as heir to his father's title of hegemon of the League of Corinth.

It is clear that the kingdom of Macedonia, as inherited by Alexander, had been conquered with bits and pieces by his father over a good twenty years. When Philip was elected King (he was only meant to be regent for the infant Amyntas, his brother's son), the country was on its knees, and only a miracle could save it. Well, Philip was that miracle, and he made it work. He spent little time at his palaces of Pella or Aegae and often had to fight simultaneously on different fronts, from Thessaly and Thebes to the Black Sea. He went through immense efforts to make peace with everybody, and in between all the bickering and the revolts, he managed to rule the country, lead the economy to heights unheard of, and negotiate with every single ambassador in an appropriate style! Not an ideal setting to pamper Alexander in a carefree youth. It is evident to see where this young King got his determination from! Yes, like father, like son! What an example he was for Alexander!

Alexandria was born under a regal star

With Christmas just around the corner and the stories about the star of Bethlehem flaring up once again, the time feels right to talk about the "birth" of Alexandria in Egypt, the first grand-scale city built by Alexander the Great.

Alexander founded Alexandria in 333 BC, and it is generally considered the first of the "king's towns." Recent studies by members of the Faculty of Civil Architecture in Milan, Italy, have revealed that the main longitudinal axis of the city, the Canopic Way, is oriented towards the rising sun on the day Alexander was born, and if that were not enough, to the Regulus star that rose in the same direction. This is not a coincidence but an achievement where astronomers and architects, or diviners and builders, worked hand in hand. An exciting revelation that incites us to have a closer look at the foundation of Hellenistic cities.

Despite the statements made by Plutarch and Diodorus, the location of Alexandria was not particularly suitable for building a city. In fact, it was set on a narrow strip of land squeezed between the sea and the marshy lands at the mouth of the Nile's Canopus. Preliminary works are required if we believe what is written in the Alexander Romance, the drainage of several canals before covering the area with streets – at least three of such canals have been located during recent excavation works. Moreover, other excavations in the early 20th century revealed that the Canopic Way was deeply carved out from the underlying bedrock. Nothing was left to chance. 

Alexander never saw his city completed (achieved by Ptolemy, who inherited this part of Alexander's Empire after his death), as it became the home of the famous Lighthouse (one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World) and the incomparable Library of Alexandria. Still, from its very start, the place was very unique.

Hippodamus of Miletus, who had revolutionized ancient town planning by introducing a plan that answered to rigorously right-angled streets at mathematically equal distances, had been widely used throughout Greece and Asia Minor since the fifth century BC. Alexander took the very concept one step further in Egypt by adding an element of "cosmic" order.

From the very beginning, the city was designed in all its details with a rather huge perimeter. It was divided into five quarters, labeled with the first five letters of the Greek alphabet. The main east-west road was called the Canopic Way, and the main crossroad was, strangely enough, a dyke (Eptastadion) that connected the isle of Pharos to the mainland. The particularity of this city plan is that this Canopic Way played the role of the city center, with all the official buildings and temples aligned along its 30-meter-wide street instead of placing them around a central agora. Yet the most striking factor is that this road was not laid out according to local topography but ran slightly off a parallel with the coastline of the Mediterranean.

Thanks to computer calculations, Italian researchers determined the sun's position in the fourth century BC, taking into account that the sun's path in the sky has changed over time because of the variations in the Earth's orbit. This is how they determined that on July 20, 356 BC, the day Alexander was born, the sun rose in near-perfect alignment with the Canopic Way – the "near perfect" being less than half a degree off, a negligible difference. On top of that, they established that "Regulus," the so-called "King's star," i.e., the brightest star in the constellation of Leo located near its head, also rose along the same alignment. This is a clear statement that the city of Alexandria was born under its very own stars, if you include the sun in stardom.

Who would have expected Alexander to take his planning to such a divine stage? And why would he have gone through so much trouble?

One would expect that the Egyptians were responsible for this kind of calculation. After all, they had a long history of associating the sun god Ra with their pharaohs and built the Great Pyramids perfectly oriented to the four points of the compass. Yet that was ignoring the thorough knowledge of Greek mathematicians and astronomers. Only now do we realize that the city's planners did not use the Egyptian solar calendar, which counted 365 days per year, but the Greek lunisolar calendar. Alexander was born on the sixth day of the first month of the New Year, and New Year's Day was the day of the first new moon after the summer solstice, which eventually led us to July 20 in 356 BC. Additionally, the Greeks used the rising of the stars as forerunners of important festivals, which might very well apply to Alexandria.

Is it a surprise or a coincidence that "Regulus," the star associated with the kingship since Babylonian times, rose at the same azimuth on that same day? Knowing Alexander, he would not have missed the opportunity to include such a symbolic moment in the foundation of his new city. After all, he had just returned from Siwah, where he had been declared the son of Ammon-Zeus. Researchers now agree that Alexandria in Egypt was, in fact, the prototype for later Hellenistic towns designed as "king's towns," meant to refer to the divine power of their founder (and probably to the memory of Alexander).

It is interesting to hear that the Italian team has taken their research one step further to see if this same solar alignment occurred in other cities of the same period within the same cultural context. For that purpose, they examined the foundation of Seleucia-on-the-Tigris and the magnificent funerary monument at Mount Nemrud in today's eastern Turkey.

Seleucia-on-the-Tigris was founded in 300 BC by Seleucos, one of Alexander's generals, who by 305 BC became king of eastern Asia as Seleucos I Nicator (see: Seleucos Nicator, in the wake of Alexander). Seleucia, located as the name says on the banks of the Tigris River in modern Iraq, may be more symbolic than expected at first sight. The city is not far from Babylon, where Alexander died in 323 BC and where Seleucos built his new capital. Just like Alexandria, the foundation of this city is lost among many legends. Seleucos himself was acclaimed as a god, the son of Apollo, and it is obvious that this divine power rubbed off on this city. 

Diodorus described Alexandria's shape as "similar to a chlamys," and Pliny records that Seleucia resembled an eagle. But focusing on Seleucia's main street, the Italian team discovered that its Canopic Way was entirely inspired by that of Alexandria. Archaeological maps and satellite images established that if Alexandria and Seleucia had been on the same latitude, the sun with a flat horizon would have risen in Seleucia in alignment with its Canopic Way on the very same day as it rose in Alexandria. There is, however, a slight difference in latitude between both cities, and the match would occur on July 27 instead – a minimal difference, but still close enough to Alexander's birthday. On top of this solar match, there is also a close concordance with the famous Regulus star.

The Italian professors are therefore tempted to declare that the foundation of Seleucia has been inspired by Alexandria's practical and symbolic perspectives. Being located so close to where Alexander died, it is not difficult to attribute an identical reference to his power several years later. The King's Star only adds to the magic and mystique of the site.

And then there is the case of Mount Nemrud, where a vast funeral monument was built for Antiochus I Commagene. The same story of Hellenistic divinity applies here, although different because we are talking about a tomb and not about a city. Today's location at 7,000 ft is off the beaten path in a relatively remote area of eastern Turkey but must have been an exceptional place in the first century BC when this monument was built. The two terraces of this tomb are directed towards the summer and winter solstices, and it has been recently figured out that the colossal (now beheaded) statues on the eastern side faced the sunrise on July 23, being the date of Antiochus' ascent to the throne as mentioned in the inscriptions on the monument. Moreover, there is another striking coincidence with Alexandria since Antiochus explicitly refers to Alexander the Great as his ancestor in the inscriptions mentioned above.

Only a few people know this tomb includes a peculiar "lion horoscope" depicting Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, and even the crescent moon in Leo. Most notable is the presence of the Regulus star, which, like in Alexandria, rose at this latitude around July 23 during the reign of Antiochus I.

The above analysis clearly shows that nothing was left to chance when building new cities or important monuments. They include more astronomical elements and references to Megas Alexandros than we would suspect. It would be interesting to see more "Alexandria's" investigated similarly, for I wouldn't be surprised if we found more similar evidence in every Alexander city.

[For pictures, please refer to this article in the Archaeology News]

Looted art returned to Afghanistan

Certain facts related to the war in Afghanistan hardly reach the news headlines. One of those is the alarming fact that no less than two thirds of the artifacts from the National Museum in Kabul were destroyed or simply stolen during the war of the 1990’s. Among them is a wide and unique collection of Hellenistic and post-Hellenistic art which we owe to the conquests of Alexander the Great.

By luck or by chance, it happens that stolen items are being seized by customs or by specialized official institutions like the Art and Antiques Unit of the British Police services. We are all aware that many objects are smuggled out of Afghanistan to end up on black markets all over the world. It takes constant awareness and alertness from officials and museums alike to recognize and identify those precious pieces.

It has been revealed that the British Museum, for instance, recently assisted in the return of 843 artefacts to Afghanistan, including those entrusted to the museum for safekeeping like the famous Begram ivories and an important sculpture of Buddha. Other objects, including Bronze Age carvings and medieval Islamic coins, were saved by private individuals.

Thanks to the assistance of the Royal Air Force, the precious cargo was flown to Kabul through the army base of Helmand. What an event!

It is such a comfort to read some positive news and to see that at least part of Afghanistan’s own cultural heritage is coming home after so many years of conflict in spite of the frequent looting and the illegal removal of these objects. It is an ongoing project and I hope many more success story will follow this one.

[picture from BBC]