The Lost Tomb of Alexander the Great

One of history’s most enduring mysteries, and one I am particularly obsessed with, is where is Alexander the Great buried? Obviously, Alexander has been dead for a very long time, since 323 BCE in fact, and the likelihood of losing his tomb to history was high, but there are historical attestations of individuals viewing his resting place as late as the 3rd and 4th centuries CE, and even some (suspect) accounts into the 16th century. Although some of these attestations can be considered dubious or repetitions of previous writings, there have been over one hundred attempts to find the lost tomb just since the 19th century, using whatever source materials that are available, no matter the reliability. We are going to detail what happened to the tomb throughout history and what are the potential locations for his final resting place.

Alexander died in Babylon on either the 10th or 11th of June in 323 BCE at the age of 32, leaving behind one of the largest empires in history. Alexander, while a great conqueror, did not have the same skill when it came to setting up his empire for continued success, failing to name a clear successor. Instead, while dying, he told his companions that his empire should go to the “strongest.” Of course, this led to fighting amongst his generals and companions, resulting in the fragmentation of his realm. Part of this fighting involved Alexander’s body being used as a tool for holding power, whomever had the body could use it to attempt to claim legitimacy. Alexander’s body remained in Babylon for two years, (stories vary on the preservation methods, either in a barrel of honey or embalmed by the Egyptians) while a proper funeral cart could be constructed for his return to Macedonia. Ultimately, one of his generals, Ptolemy, the future King of Egypt, intercepted Alexander’s body on the way back to Macedonia. Ptolemy diverted it instead to Memphis, Egypt, against Alexander’s wishes, which he expressed to be buried or interred in Siwa, Egypt. Once Alexander’s corpse was removed from Babylon, Ptolemy met the funeral procession in Syria, and most likely either kidnapped the body or convinced the people in charge of the procession, to give him possession of Alexander’s remains. What leaves us to believe it was a hostile acquisition of the corpse is that another one of Alexander’s generals and the man effectively in charge of the remaining empire, Perdiccas, sent troops in pursuit of Ptolemy, and even launched a failed invasion of Egypt to recover the remains.

With that point, we will start with the most likely location of his tomb, Alexandria, Egypt. Alexander’s body sat in Memphis (possibly in an empty sarcophagus made for the last native Egyptian pharaoh, Nectanebo II), temporarily interred until either 298 or 283 BCE, when it was moved to Alexandria. Ptolemy’s son, Ptolemy II Philadelphus, created an actual tomb structure for Alexander, around 280 BCE, this is known to scholars as the first site but very little is known about this first site. Finally, under the reign of Ptolemy IV, Alexander was moved to his final resting place (supposedly) in a communal tomb connected to the Ptolemaic burial complex and potentially connected to the palace complex, known as the Soma or the Sema, until he disappears from history, either in the 4th or 5th century CE. Alexander had his own regally built sarcophagus with varying accounts saying his mummified body was either covered in gold plating or a see-through crystal-like material. Numerous well-known people viewed Alexander in the Soma, such as Julius Caesar, Augustus, Caracalla, Strabo, and Hadrian. The emperor Augustus has one of the best insults in history around viewing Alexanders body: when asked by an aide if he wanted to see the tombs of the Ptolemies that surrounded Alexander’s sarcophagus, Augusts replied “I came to see a king, not corpses” showing his disdain for the Ptolemies compared to the aura of Alexander.

So, what happened to the tomb? We are going to only explore the mostly likely theories, which has two parts. First, the tomb was destroyed by a natural disaster in the 4th or 5th century CE. A 365 CE earthquake in Crete, caused a tsunami to hit Alexandria, sweeping deep into the city and destroying or damaging numerous high profile ancient sites. One of these sites destroyed or beyond repair could have been the Soma, but no record of this exists. A second part to this theory, if the tsunami didn’t destroy the Soma, then overzealous early Christians could have. Around 400 CE, an early Church leader, John Chrysostom, gave a homily sarcastically imploring the people (rhetorically) to tell him where Alexander’s tomb is, indicating that it was destroyed earlier. He did this to demonstrate that great pagan sites of worship or reverence were no longer standing, and Christian churches were replacing them. This indicates that during the late 4thcentury, like many ancient temples and sites throughout the Western and Eastern Roman empires, the Soma could have fallen victim to a Christian mob pulling it down and plundering the remains. Usually, once a site was plundered or damaged, it was then pilfered for its building material and used to build homes or new structures, essentially leaving little or no trace of its former existence. A third theory, the Soma is destroyed somehow, and that early Christians/Muslims may have chopped up Alexander’s mummified remains, and the parts worn as talismans or relic like objects.

You may wonder, “well Alexandria still exists, why cannot we locate the former site?” If only it was that easy! However, Alexandria’s fortunes have shifted dramatically over the years, sometimes nearly being abandoned then regaining its population. The city faced flooding, earthquakes, and fires through the years, leaving very little of the Ptolemaic and Roman city standing and has since been rebuilt numerous times. This makes putting together a map of ancient Alexandria extremely difficult and finding the location of a single structure next to impossible. There have been numerous attempts throughout the millennia though, with a large increase in activity in the 19th and 20th centuries. Some scholars even claim that Alexander’s body was moved out of Alexandria to places like Siwa and Memphis, maybe even Greece or Macedonia, even Venice. Dubious stories ranged from digging into the basement of a mosque (illegally) and spying a gold covered or crystal covered body through a hole in the wall, finding an (empty) green and regal sarcophagus that must be Alexander’s (it wasn’t), his body resting under St. Mark’s Cathedral in Venice (probably not), to finding him buried in Siwa, Egypt but refusing to show anyone the actual body (there was no body).

One of these “tomb locations” we are going to detail to provide a little context on why the archelogical community takes any new claim of a find with skepticism. Leo Africanus, a traveler in the in the 16th century to Alexandria, described a mosque that had a strange chapel like building in its courtyard, without giving its exact name or location. He claimed that this chapel contained a sarcophagus holding the body of Alexander the Great and he was worshipped by Muslims as a prophet in this spot, attracting visitors from “distant lands.” This account was repeated by several other travelers, almost word for word, in the next century, until another visitor, known only as Evilya Celebi, repeats this tale but claims he was able to study the sarcophagus and that hieroglyphs covered all four sides, indicating its age as ancient Egyptian. He also claims that the sarcophagus was empty and being used as a ritual bathtub by the local community in their religious rites. At this time hieroglyphs were not deciphered and would not be until the Rosetta Stone was translated in 1822, so Celebi could only guess at the meaning of the symbols on the sides of the sarcophagus. A common theme of travelers visiting or breaking into mosque grounds to spy a richly decorated sarcophagus, would be based on this tale for the next few centuries, with local mosques using props to take advantage of a slow economy in order to charge for viewing. Remarkably, however, a green sarcophagus recovered during the Napoleonic conflicts in Egypt during the late 18th century, fits the description of what Celebi describes, being covered in hieroglyphs and drainage like holes drilled into its sides. This sarcophagus would be recovered by the British (along with the Rosetta Stone) and sent to the British Museum, where it would be on full display as Alexander’s sarcophagus for the next 20 or so years. To this day, it still is located in the Museum, only mere feet from the Rosetta Stone, but is mostly overlooked. The reason for this that the translation of the Rosetta Stone allowed us to realize the sarcophagus is not Alexander’s but is most likely the empty sarcophagus created for the last native born Pharaoh, Nectanebo II. Thus ends 300 years of visitors claiming to have visited the tomb and put archeologists back on the hunt, launching the increase in activity to find the tomb in the 19th and 20th centuries.

There you have it, while archeologists are still trying to find the remains to this day, Seeking History has little hope that, while the tomb structure may be one day found, the mummified body will be found with it. Hopefully, some remains of the structure can be found or there will be concrete evidence that will emerge one day as it would be a huge win for history to have an idea of what the Soma looked like, what happened to it, and where the body ended up/how it was destroyed.