Royal Tombs of Aegae (Vergina): The Tomb of Philip II (336 BC)

The Royal Tombs of Aegae, at the modern village of Vergina in northern Greece, are the burial places of members of the Macedonian royal house of the 4th century BC. In November 1977 the archaeologist Manolis Andronikos opened an unlooted tomb inside the Great Tumulus that held a gold chest of cremated bones, which he identified as the remains of Philip II, father of Alexander the Great. The find is one of the most important in Greek archaeology, and the question of whose bones lie in the tombs is still debated.

Background: Aegae, the old Macedonian capital

Aegae (in Greek, Aigai) was the first capital of the Macedonian kings. Even after the court moved to Pella around 400 BC, the city remained a ceremonial centre and the traditional royal burial ground. It was in the theatre at Aegae that Philip II was assassinated in 336 BC, at the wedding celebrations of his daughter. His son Alexander the Great was proclaimed king there the same year.

The location of Aegae was long uncertain; it was often placed at Edessa. French archaeologist Léon Heuzey had excavated part of a large palace near Vergina in 1861, and Greek excavations followed in the 20th century. In 1968 the British historian N. G. L. Hammond argued that Vergina was Aegae, an identification later confirmed by the finds.

The Great Tumulus and the excavations

At the edge of the site stood the Great Tumulus, an artificial mound about 110 metres across and 12 metres high. Andronikos, who had worked at Vergina since the 1950s, began a systematic investigation of the mound in 1976. In 1977 his team found that it covered several structures: a small, plundered cist (box) tomb now called Tomb I, a large vaulted tomb (Tomb II) and the remains of a building interpreted as a hero shrine.

On 8 November 1977 the team entered Tomb II through its vault and found it intact. In 1978 a third vaulted tomb, Tomb III, was also discovered unlooted. The mound appears to have been built over the tombs in the early 3rd century BC, possibly after an earlier cemetery had been plundered by Gallic mercenaries in the service of King Pyrrhus around 274-273 BC.

What was found

Tomb I had been robbed in antiquity but preserved a fine wall painting of the abduction of Persephone by Hades, one of the few surviving large-scale Greek paintings of the period. Bones of an adult man, a young woman and a newborn baby were recovered from its fill.

Tomb II is a two-chambered Macedonian tomb with a painted frieze of a royal hunt across its facade. In the main chamber a marble sarcophagus held a solid gold larnax (chest) weighing about 11 kilograms. Inside were the cremated bones of a man in his forties, wrapped in purple and gold cloth, with a gold wreath of oak leaves and acorns. The lid bore a 16-ray star, now known as the Vergina Sun.

The chamber also contained iron armour, a gold-decorated cuirass, a ceremonial shield, weapons, silver drinking vessels and small ivory heads, some of which have been compared with portraits of Philip and Alexander. In the antechamber a second gold larnax held the bones of a woman, probably in her twenties, with a gold diadem of myrtle; nearby lay a gold quiver cover (gorytos) and greaves.

Tomb III, the so-called Prince’s Tomb, held the cremated bones of a boy of about 12 to 14 in a silver hydria (water jar). Most scholars identify him as Alexander IV, the son of Alexander the Great and Roxana, born after his father’s death in 323 BC and murdered on Cassander’s orders around 310 BC. The tomb also held silver vessels and other grave goods.

Elsewhere on the site, archaeologists have since uncovered hundreds of earlier burial mounds of the Iron Age and further royal graves, including the rich burials of women of the royal family excavated by Angeliki Kottaridi. These finds show that Aegae served as a royal cemetery for centuries before Philip’s time.

The debate: Philip II or Philip III?

Andronikos identified the man in Tomb II as Philip II and the woman as one of his wives, possibly Cleopatra, his last wife, killed soon after his death. In the 1980s a study by John Prag, Richard Neave and Jonathan Musgrave argued that the skull showed signs of an old injury near the right eye, consistent with the arrow wound Philip received at the siege of Methone in 354 BC.

Others have argued that Tomb II belongs to Philip III Arrhidaeus, Alexander’s half-brother, who was killed in 317 BC and reburied at Aegae with his wife Eurydice by Cassander around 316 BC. They point to features of the tomb’s architecture and contents, including items possibly linked with Alexander’s reign, that might suggest a later date. In 2000 the anthropologist Antonis Bartsiokas disputed the eye-wound evidence.

In 2015 a team led by Bartsiokas argued that the male bones from Tomb I showed a fused knee joint with a hole consistent with the severe leg wound Philip suffered in 339 BC, making Tomb I his grave. Other researchers, including Theodore Antikas and Laura Wynn-Antikas, have continued to defend Tomb II. The dispute rests on fragmentary burned bone and on dating evidence that can be read in more than one way, and no consensus has emerged.

Key people

• Philip II (c. 382-336 BC): king of Macedon, murdered at Aegae.
• Philip III Arrhidaeus (c. 359-317 BC): Alexander’s half-brother and nominal king after 323 BC.
• Alexander IV (323-c. 310 BC): posthumous son of Alexander the Great.
• Manolis Andronikos (1919-1992): excavator of the tombs.
• N. G. L. Hammond (1907-2001): historian who identified Vergina as Aegae.

Legacy

The Vergina finds transformed knowledge of Macedonian art, metalwork and royal burial customs, showing a wealthy court culture that matched descriptions in ancient texts. The tomb paintings are rare original examples of 4th-century Greek painting, otherwise known mainly from later Roman copies.

The discovery also took on political meaning. Coming at a time of debate over the name and heritage of Macedonia, the Vergina Sun became a popular emblem in Greece, and its use on the first flag of the neighbouring Republic of Macedonia in 1992 caused a diplomatic dispute; that country changed its flag in 1995.

The tombs were left in place, and in 1993 a museum was opened inside a reconstruction of the Great Tumulus. In 1996 the Archaeological Site of Aigai was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List. The large palace of Aegae, built in the 4th century BC, reopened to visitors in 2024 after long restoration.

Timeline

• 336 BC: Philip II is assassinated in the theatre at Aegae.
• c. 316 BC: Cassander buries Philip III Arrhidaeus and Eurydice at Aegae.
• c. 310 BC: Alexander IV is murdered.
• 1861: Léon Heuzey excavates part of the palace near Vergina.
• 1968: N. G. L. Hammond identifies Vergina as Aegae.
• 1977, 8 November: Andronikos opens the unlooted Tomb II.
• 1978: Tomb III is discovered.
• 1993: The museum inside the Great Tumulus opens.
• 1996: Aigai is inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Why it matters

The royal tombs of Aegae offer a rare, untouched view of a Macedonian royal burial from the age of Philip II and Alexander the Great. Whoever the man in Tomb II was, the finds bring the family that conquered the Persian Empire closer than any written source can.