James Romm

While the whole world watching the developments in the Casta Hill, which continues at a feverish pace of technical works in order to support the third chamber, more and more historians and archaeologists submit their own opinion about who is ultimately buried in the tomb.

The scenarios that this is the tomb of Alexander the Great continues, and each day more scientists believe that the famous Greek commander is buried in the grandiose funerary monument of Amphipolis.

The American professor of Classics, James Romm of the Bard University and author of the book: "Ghost on the throne: the death of Alexander the Great and the war for crown and empire", wrote an article about Amphipolis in "the Daily Beast". According to him: "one of biggest mysteries of modern archaeology might be solved in the coming days and all eyes are on a huge circular structure that lies beneath an ancient Greek mound".

"Its entrances are guarded first by a pair of sphinxes, then by columns in the form of women—each stretching out an arm to ward off intruders. Beyond them lies one of the greatest mysteries of modern archaeology, one that might be solved in the next few days—or might trouble the sleep of scholars for decades, as the last great find in the territory of the ancient Macedonians, the nation once ruled by Alexander the Great, has done", he continues.

"The structure that now holds much of Greece and Hellenists around the world in suspense stands at the site of ancient Amphipolis, about a hundred miles east of Thessalonica, on territory conquered by Alexander's father Philip in the 4th century B.C. Amphipolis was a major Greek city and a stronghold of the vast Macedonian empire, but today the site is all but deserted. On grasslands where goatherds graze their flocks, under a hill called Kasta—now protected by a military cordon from throngs of onlookers—lies one of the most puzzling finds ever unearthed in the Aegean region", adds the professor.

"Round in shape and vast in size, the building beneath the hill has been called a tomb for lack of a better label. Circular buildings, though rare in antiquity, were sometimes used for royal burials, but no other known tombs approach the scale of this one: 500 meters in circumference (half again larger than Stonehenge) and surrounded by a superbly built marble wall. Atop the center of the building's roof once stood a crouching stone lion, long ago removed from the site but still intact—a sign that the tomb, if such it is, probably held a great soldier or ruler. The structure's date, fixed by analysis of the lion and the stonework, seems to be the last quarter of the 4th century B.C., the decades just after Alexander's death in 323", he notes.

"Only Alexander himself, it would seem, could have merited such an enormous and expensive resting place, yet Alexander's remains are known to have gone elsewhere—stolen by Ptolemy, the Macedonian ruler of Egypt, for interment in Alexandria and later visited by thousands. So unless an ancient legend is true, that Ptolemy swapped a dummy Alexander for the real one, the greatest corpse in the ancient world is already accounted for (at least until its unexplained disappearance many centuries later). So too, apparently, are the bodies of Alexander's father and son, widely believed to be the occupants of two sumptuous tombs discovered, totally intact, in the late 1970s, near Vergina, on the site of what was once the Macedonian royal capital", highlights the article.

"But those two identifications are still subjects of debate, a problem that adds to the suspense now mounting at Amphipolis. No inscriptions were found in the Vergina tombs, so a complex—and sometimes controversial—mass of evidence had to be analyzed before conclusions could be drawn. The Amphipolis site, even if its contents have remained undisturbed by robbers, could also yield a body or bodies that cannot be identified easily or with certainty. More troubling still is the prospect that, as some expect, Alexander's son lies inside—a young prince killed at Amphipolis around 308 B.C. That finding would throw the hard-won and still contested analysis of the Vergina tombs into total disarray", the professor is concluding.

The Tomb is larger than Stonehenge

The size of the tomb and the amazing discoveries, rank him in the largest funerary monuments of the world.

The size of the monument, the apparent trend of "owner" to demonstrate its wealth and power, every aspect of the surprising findings, but also the intensity of the discussions that constantly triggers, are the elements that make the excavation of the Kasta hill literally unique and unprecedented, even in international level.

The monument on the Kasta hill in Amphipolis is almost twice the Stonehenge; its dimensions imitating monuments of Egypt or even ancient temples, if we talk about the data of monuments in Greek peninsula.

Is there another door in the third chamber?

The experts attribute the problems in the vaulted roof to the intense stress caused by high embankments which are forming the tomb. Therefore, the scientists cannot proceed safely without taking the necessary measures for the support of the chamber.

The question whether found a third door in the chamber went unanswered. "It may be destroyed or may not be there", said the archaeologists. The geologists of the team, who observed the natural sandy sediments, which containing fossils of shells, testify that: "the embankment remains undisturbed". Other scientists, though, insist that: "should be dated" and that "the process of dating can be more of the process of the excavation." For the monument itself, the team of Mrs. Peristeri insists that "not dating after 300 BC."

Mrs. Peristeri in an answering letter to the Association of Greek Archaeologists, asks: "As an archaeologist and responsible for the excavation, before make announcements regarding my research excavation in the above position, be sure to contact me beforehand so that you have the right image of the excavation."

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