“A nearly 40-year-old mystery concerning the Royal Tombs of Vergina has finally been solved,” experts claim in a recent study published in the “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences” journal.
In their study, entitled “The lameness of King Philip II and Royal Tomb I at Vergina, Macedonia,” Antonis Bartsiokas, Juan-Luis Arsuaga, Elena Santos, Milagros Algaba and Asier Gómez-Olivencia concluded that the occupant of Tomb I in Vergina was Alexander the Great’s father, King Philip II.
The scientists used the latest forensic techniques on the skeletal remains found in the Royal Tombs of Vergina forty years ago.
The penetrating wound and lameness examined in one of the skeletons displaying a conspicuous case of knee ankylosis match perfectly to the symptoms of a leg wound Philip II of Macedon suffered three years before his assassination by Pausanias in 336 B.C.E.
According to the researchers, the approximately 45-year-old King was buried in Tomb I along with his latest 18-year-old wife Cleopatra and their newborn child, likely Europa, both murdered soon after Philip’s assassination.
There is also evidence that Tomb II contains some of Alexander the Great’s armor, as well as the remains of his half-brother, King Arrhidaeus, and his wife Eurydice.
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