Ancient Tunic in Greek Tomb Belonged to Alexander the Great, Controversial Study Claims

A physical anthropologist in Greece claims that a mysterious material discovered in one of the iconic fourth-century BCE Royal Tombs at Vergina is a tunic fragment that belonged to none other than Alexander the Great.

Using multiple testing techniques and an analysis of historical descriptions, Antonis Bartsiokas of the Democritus University of Thrace concluded that the material consists of textile remnants from a white and purple tunic (a type of jacket or robe) made of cotton. Based on historical sources, he suggests this garment belonged to the renowned young conqueror. The artifact had previously been found in a golden casket alongside a male skeleton and a golden wreath in a chamber dubbed Tomb II.

Bartsiokas presented his findings in a study published in the Journal of Field Archaeology last month, contributing to a long-standing archaeological debate over both the artifacts discovered at the Royal Tombs at Vergina and the identities of their occupants. It’s an intriguing claim, but not everyone agrees with Bartsiokas’s conclusions.

Archaeologist Manolis Andronikos discovered the Royal Tombs at Vergina in a small town of the same name in northern Greece in the late 1970s. Four of the tombs were individually named Tombs I through IV, with Tombs I, II, and III presenting the most interest to archaeologists. When archaeologists found Tomb I, a small cist tomb, it had already been looted, while Tombs II and III are larger chambers that revealed a startling trove of burial goods. All three contained skeletal remains.

The tombs at Vergina are located in proximity to the ancient site of Aegae, the first capital of the kingdom of Macedonia. Philip II unified this kingdom, and his son, Alexander the Great, expanded it as far as India during the fourth century BCE. Tombs I through IV became known as the Cluster of Philip II after archaeologists suggested that they contained Philip II’s remains.

However, experts have long debated the true identity of the individuals buried there. The traditional hypothesis regarding the Royal Tombs at Vergina is that Tomb II was the final resting place of Philip II, while the new hypothesis, which Bartsiokas subscribes to, maintains that it was Alexander’s brother, Philip III Arrhidaeus, who was laid to rest in Tomb II, and that their father was buried in Tomb I. Either way, most experts agree that Alexander the Great’s son, Alexander IV, was buried in Tomb III.

As for the burial of Alexander the Great himself, however, the location remains as mysterious as his death, though most would guess that it was (or is) somewhere in Alexandria, Egypt. Some scholars, however, suggest that part of the artifacts from Tomb II nevertheless belonged to the famous conqueror.

Bartsiokas clearly lies in that camp. He determined that the material was textile fabric using gas chromatography—a technique that vaporizes a sample to separate its chemical compounds—and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, which uses infrared light to analyze a sample’s chemical composition. He then cited descriptions from ancient sources, a frieze in Tomb II (a decorative horizontal panel of sculptures or artwork), and Alexander the Great’s adoption of ancient Persian garments as evidence that the garment belonged to the conqueror.

“The physical description [of the tunic] exactly fits the description in the ancient sources of the sacred Persian mesoleucon sarapis [the garment] which belonged to Pharaoh and King Alexander the Great and as such it was the most precious object in antiquity,” he writes in the study. “This sarapis is also depicted in the frieze of Tomb II on the sixth hunter, identified as Alexander.”

In his study, Bartsiokas also presents evidence supporting the idea that Philip II was buried in Tomb I, Philip III Arrhidaeus in Tomb II, and Alexander IV in Tomb III, aligning his research with the new hypothesis about the Royal Tombs at Vergina. He suggests that Alexander’s “paraphernalia” was buried with Arrhidaeus because his brother inherited them after Alexander’s death.

Bartsiokas’ interpretation has triggered a heated debate in the archaeological community. Stella Drougou, an archaeologist at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki who led the Vergina excavation for  a decade, told the Greek Newspaper ProtoThema that “without considering excavation data” these “discussions are baseless.” On the other hand, James Romm, a classicist at Bard College, told the New York Times that Bartsiokas’ study could be legitimate. Romm goes as far as to suggest that the pushback from the archaeological community might originate from an urge to protect the image of Andronicos.

For now, Bartsiokas’ hypothesis on the identity and ownership of the material is just that: a hypothesis. If it were proven true, however, it could overhaul the work of one of Greece’s most famous and revered archaeologists.