Excavations at Vergina in northern Greece in the late 1970s CE unearthed a cluster of tombs thought to be the burial site of Philip II (r. 359-336 BCE), the father of Alexander the Great (r. 336-323 BCE), with a wife interred in a vaulted chamber beside him. Weapons, armour, gold and silver artefacts lay beside precious ossuaries containing cremated bones in these unique tombs close to the necropolis of Aegae, the ancient capital of Macedon. Since then anthropologists have been studying the remains for clues to the lives, deaths, injuries and funeral rites of the buried royals to prove their identities in the face of four decades of competing claims. A new generation of forensics has turned up surprising results and taken us closer to establishing just who was buried and when. Materials on the remains, melted gold on bones, and a crippling leg wound reveals a limping warrior woman revered as an 'Amazon' at death, and a king adorned with a gold wreath and ceremonial shield as the flames climbed the pyre in emulation of a Homeric hero.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original content at https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1490/the-royal-macedonian-tombs-at-vergina/.