Ancient Mystery Solved: Alexander the Great’s Father’s Remains Confirmed Found

While the nation— and world— remain mesmerized with what is happening at Amphipolis, 100 kilometers away, anthropologists have confirmed that bones found in a tomb in Vergina indeed belong to King Phillip, the Macedonian King and father of Alexander the Great.

The anthropological team examined 350 bones and fragments found in two caskets of the tomb. It uncovered pathologies, activity markers and trauma that helped identify the tomb’s occupants. Along with the cremated remains of Philip II, the tomb also contained the bones of a woman warrior, possibly the daughter of the Skythian King Athea, Theodore Antikas, head of the Art-Anthropological research team of the Vergina excavation, told Discovery News.

The official findings will be announced on Friday at the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki. Accompanied by 3,000 digital color photographs and supported by X-ray computed tomography, scanning electron microscopy, and X-ray fluorescence, the research aims to settle a decades-old debate over the cremated skeleton.

Scholars have argued over those bones ever since Greek archaeologist Manolis Andronikos discovered the tomb in 1977-78. He excavated a large mound — the Great Tumulus — at Vergina on the advice of the English classicist Nicholas Hammond.