Macedonia Philip II became the hegemonic power of the Greek world and when he died was preparing a large-scale attack the Persian Empire, which took place shortly after his son Alexander the Great. A new study finds that his remains are in Vergina (Greece), but in a different thought to the grave. See Also Alexander coins discovered in a cave in the Galilee
Led by Antonis Bartsiokas of the Democritus University of Thrace (Greece), a team of scientists, among them several Spaniards published an article in the journal PNAS that sheds light on the grave of this king, assassinated in 336 BC near modern Vergina.
In 1977 and 1978 they were excavated in the Great Mound of that city three monumental tombs that had been built for the last break of members of the Macedonian royal and a temple dedicated to a hero. Since then, other research teams have studied the bone material.
Scientifically, human remains that more attention has been given are those of the tomb II, “it is the richest and traditionally has been interpreted as the tomb of Philip II,” he told Efe Asier Gomez-Olivencia, a researcher at Ikerbasque ( Basque Foundation for Science) at the University of the Basque Country and one of the authors.
However, researchers did not agree with this interpretation, including Bartsiokas, who already in 2000 raised doubts in an article published in the journal Science.
According to Gomez-Olivencia, a detailed study now published in PNAS “is the first thing you do in depth from the remains of the tomb I and has yielded different results from previous studies.”
Specifically, the researchers, including Juan Luis Arsuaga is also analyzed the human remains of three individuals, who were buried and not cremated as Tomb II.
One skeleton belongs to a man about 45 years, surprisingly tall for his age (about 180 centimeters), the femur and tibia show a complete bone fusion at the height of the knee joint and a hole therein , caused by a puncture wound through it. This individual would suffer a noticeable limp.
In addition, signs in one of the occipital condyles -protuberancia rounded end of a bone which fits the hollow of another to form a articulación- suggesting torticollis, a possible offsetting effect due to the irregular motion of the subject.
This tomb I also contained the remains of a newborn baby and a woman of about 18 years, Cleopatra, the last wife of Philip II, explained to Efe Arsuaga, of the Evolution and Human Behavior (Universidad Complutense de Madrid and Institute of Health Carlos III) and co-director of the excavations at Atapuerca.
Given this, the authors suggest that the tomb I contains the remains of Philip II of Macedon, who by historical sources he received a spear in the leg during a battle three years before his death and became lame is known, and those of his wife and son.
The scientists then suggested that the remains of the tomb II belong to King Philip III Arrhidaeus and his wife Eurydice.
Philip III was also the son of Philip II, but a mother other than that of Alexander the Great (the latter was Olimpia).
He was older than Alexander, but that Olympia gave him a dose of poison, but turned out to be lethal, he left mentally incapacitated and therefore the heir of Philip II was Alexander the Great (which it is not known where he was buried) .
As for the tomb III, Arsuaga said that this work is not analyzed, so “there is nothing contrary to attribute to Alexander IV, second son of Alexander the Great”.
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