The Golden Larnax is a 4th-century BC closed coffin discovered in the Macedonian Royal tombs at

Vergina Vergina (, ) is a small town in Northern Greece, part of the Veria municipality in Imathia, Central Macedonia. Vergina was established in 1922 in the aftermath of the Population exchange between Greece and Turkey, population exchanges after t ...

Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...

. It has been proposed that it contained the remains of King

Philip II of Macedon Philip II of Macedon (; 382 BC – October 336 BC) was the king (''basileus'') of the ancient kingdom of Macedonia (ancient kingdom), Macedonia from 359 BC until his death in 336 BC. He was a member of the Argead dynasty, founders of the ...

Golden Larnax

In 1977/8, archaeologist Manolis Andronikos led excavations of burial mounds at the small

Central Macedonia Central Macedonia ( ; , ) is one of the thirteen Regions of Greece, administrative regions of Greece, consisting the central part of the Geographic regions of Greece, geographical and historical region of Macedonia (Greece), Macedonia. With a ...

n town of Vergina in Greece. There, by the perimeter of a large mound, the ''Great Tumulus'', he unearthed three tombs. The tombs were subsequently identified as royal burial sites for members of the late 4th-century BC

Argead dynasty The Argead dynasty (), also known as the Temenid dynasty (, ''Tēmenídai'') was an Ancient Macedonians, ancient Macedonian royal house of Dorians, Dorian Greek provenance. They were the founders and the ruling dynasty of the kingdom of Macedoni ...

, the family of

Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon (; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), most commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia (ancient kingdom), Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip ...

. Of the three tombs, the first—Tomb I—suffered looting, leaving little more by the time of its discovery than the well known wall painting depicting the Abduction of Persephone by

Hades Hades (; , , later ), in the ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, is the god of the dead and the king of the Greek underworld, underworld, with which his name became synonymous. Hades was the eldest son of Cronus and Rhea ...

and the buried fragments of human remains. Tombs II and III, however, remained undisturbed, still containing many artifacts. Among them were two gold ash coffins ( larnakes) in Tomb II and a silver funerary urn in Tomb III. The coffin of Tomb II's primary occupant, the Golden Larnax, featured the sixteen-rayed sun design and that of the occupant's wife, entombed in the antechamber, a twelve-ray sun. Andronikos variously described the symbol as a "star", "starburst", and "sunburst". He posited the tomb might belong to King

, father of

. Following the discovery at the Great Tumulus, there was much debate over who had been buried there, especially in Tomb II. It dated to the later half of the 4th century BC, making its royal occupants contemporaneous with Alexander the Great. As Alexander himself had been buried in

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

, the only remaining plausible Argead men and their wives likely to be buried in Tomb II were Philip II and his last wife Cleopatra Eurydice, or Alexander's half-brother Philip III Arrhidaeus and Eurydice II. On 21 April 2000, the AAAS journal ''

Science Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...

'' published "The Eye Injury of King Philip II and the Skeletal Evidence from the Royal Tomb II at Vergina", by Antonis Bartsiokas. In it, Bartsiokas cited osteological analyses to contradict the determination of Philip II as the tomb's occupant and made a case for Philip III. However, a good deal of evidence still contradicts Bartsiokas' claims. During 1992 and 1993, the Great Tumulus was rebuilt.

References

Works cited

* {{Cite journal , first1=Jonathan , last1=Musgrave , first2=A. J. N. W. , last2=Prag , first3=Richard , last3=Neave , first4=Robin Lane , last4=Fox , first5=Hugh , last5=White , title=The Occupants of Tomb II at Vergina. Why Arrhidaios and Eurydice must be excluded , date=8 August 2010 , url=https://www.medsci.org/v07p00s1.htm , journal=International Journal of Medical Sciences , volume=7 , issue=6 , pages=s1–s15 Ancient Greek archaeological sites in Central Macedonia 1970s archaeological discoveries Philip II of Macedon Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki Archaeological discoveries in Macedonia (Greece) 4th-century BC works