Manolis Andronikos (1919-92) was a Greek archaeologist. The crowning achievement of his long work life, was the discovery of Philip’s tomb and that of his family. He was a also professor of archaeology at Thessaloniki for many years, the closest large city. It was a chilly Nov. 8th day in 1977 when he discovered this tomb in Vergina and he is the one who identified it as Philip’s tomb. Here was the site before his exploration….
There are many such mounds all over Turkey and in Greece too. They are ‘artificial hills’ but no one knew what was under this one in Vergina, because the site had never been excavated. Until 1977. Let’s let Manilos himself describe the moment of discovery…
Had I discovered this, I think I would have passed out. This is in part what Manilos saw….
Merely a solid gold crown and a solid gold sarcophagus…. You could buy the whole state of Kentucky with what that is worth. That’s only a slight exaggeration.
The entryway into these tombs seems to have never been breached in 2,500 years or so. Here are the doors…..and in the next post we will go inside.
Over the doorway of the King you can see faint images of paintings or frescoes of battle scenes, but also of a hunting scene with the only known image of Alexander riding to the hunt with his father that was done before his death.
It appears clear that Philip was buried with one of his queens, perhaps Cleopatra (no not that one, there were lots of them) and Alexander the IV was buried there as well in a separate tomb.
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