Researchers believe they have found a tunic that once belonged to Alexander the Great among the artifacts from the royal tombs of Vergina, Greece, which has given rise to a debate in the archaeological field.

The find, led by Antonis Bartsiokas of the Democritus University of Thrace in Greece, could provide a rare tangible connection to the legendary macedonian king. The garment, described in the Field Archeology MagazineIt consists of a purple-dyed cotton fabric with layers of whitish mineralhuntite and is known as mesoleucon sarapis.

“In archeology it is very rare to find the find itself, its ancient description and its image,” Bartsiokas said. news week. “Here we have all three, and the identification of Alejandro’s sarapis is conclusive.”

Several features point to the actual meaning of the tunic. Cotton, a material foreign to ancient Greece, was imported from Persia and purple dye was reserved for use by the elite.

The garment was discovered in Tomb II along with a golden scepter, an oak crown and a diadem of Persian origin and near representations of Persian gazelles on the tomb frieze. Researchers used advanced techniques, including gas chromatography and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, to determine what the tunic was made of.

The research team has also made bold claims about the tomb’s occupants. Using various verification techniques and historical references, they suggest that Tomb I contains the remains of Philip II, Alexander’s father; Tomb II contains Philip III, Alexander’s half-brother; and Tomb III contains Alexander IV, Alexander’s teenage son.

Discovered in 1977 near the city of Vergina, the royal tombs are part of an ancient urban complex that once served as the capital of Macedonia, one of the most ambitious and expansionist kingdoms of antiquity. The discovery was made by Manolis Andronicos, who died in 1992 after stating that the tomb belonged to Philip II, Alexander’s father.

However, the findings are being debated in the archaeological community. Stella Drougou, professor emerita at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and former lead excavator at the site, dismissed the claims as “unfounded” and contradictory to data from previous excavations, according to Greek. newspaper ProtoTheme.

Addressing the controversy surrounding the finds, Bartsiokas said: “The archaeologists in charge are not biological anthropologists, and the skeletal remains are those on which the identification of the tombs is based. Therefore, physical anthropology is not something that they can fully understand.”

He added: “Another main problem they have is that they do not publish in peer-reviewed journals, so their work is unreliable, while all my articles on Vergina are in peer-reviewed journals. Also, their reputation is at stake.”

James Romm, professor of classics at Bard College and author of Ghost on the Throne: The Death of Alexander the Great and the Bloody Fight for His Empire, offered a more nuanced view. While he suggested that Bartsiokas’ theories could be legitimate, he told The New York Times that resistance arises from “a combination of reverence for Philip II and reverence for Andronicus.”

However, Romm cautions that some aspects of Bartsiokas’s interpretation, particularly those related to the tomb frieze, are “more difficult to defend.”

The presence of Alexander’s tunic in his half-brother’s tomb remains unexplained, although researchers speculate that it could be related to the succession of Philip III after Alexander’s death.

The location of Alexander the Great’s final resting place is unknown.

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Reference

Bartsiokas, A. (undated). The identification of the sacred “Chiton” (Sarapis) of Pharaoh Alexander the Great in Tomb II of Vergina, Macedonia, Greece. Journal of field archeology, 0(0), 1–13.