venerdì 7 novembre 2014

Amphipolis a ''Great'' mystery

A lot of buzz is lately risen about a gigantic tomb found in the northern Greece,at the ancient town of Amphipolis.The real mystery is not that it is one of the largest tombs ever found but that actually no one has ever mentioned it in all of the ancient sources.
The mystery deepens as the archeologist proceeding with the excavation found out that at some point (during construction or afterwards) the tomb’s entrance and chambers were sealed off  not only with three consecutive stone walls (two vertical and one horizontal) but also filled in with sand.
Just to throw in some numbers the diameter of the tomb is 158.4 meters and the circumference 497, all dressed up with high quality marble from the greek island of Thasos.
Great mystical statues were discovered including sphinxes and caryatids alongside with a huge mosaic depicting the take of Persephone from Hades.


After only 25 meters of excavation the archeologists hit a dead end as the third and last chamber that was found was empty but also poor in relation with the others ,decorated with mosaics,great statues and colors.Then after they discovered a false floor with a central  shaft, also filled with sand but mysteriously also with debris like the  head and wings of the sphinxes of the first chamber and a one and a half ton of marble door that originally separated the second and third chamber.


So let’s put everything in perspective.
Amphipolis in ancient times was not an insignificant place far from it.It was something like the central bank of ancient Greece.Fifty city states ,that is all of the city states that produced coins,had an establisment there,taking advantage of the rich deposit of Mount Paggaion (Παν-γαιαι litteraly all minerals) to extract copper,silver but most importantly gold to make coins at the on site mints.
It was a place mentioned many times in ancient texts and a crucial point φορ several battles in the past both in Greek and Roman times.The strange thing is that this tomb was already there from the time of the Macedonian dominance over Thrace but no one ever described it or even mentioned it.
We do not know the reason therefor we can only speculate that at some point around 320 B.C.a huge construction took place in Amphipolis to construct a man made mountain all surrounded with marble and with a giant statue of a lion on top,the Lion of amphipolis ,still remaining near by.
Maybe at some point the site was destroyed (by man or nature),looted or even vandalized.That  is the archaeological facts that we have right now.
The strange thing is that most probably later the tomb was sealed off and buried in sand a practice that is most uncommon in Greece and more resembling an Egyptian style.Who,when and most importantly why did all this is yet to be answered by the archeological excavation .We can only research and we will present you with some interesting clues in the upcoming posts.Feel free to comment and share.

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